Extra Shipwrights

Since Josh left for Iceland Shuggs has been joined by Julian Gray, Mark Lane and Daniel Butlin on various days. Daniel is a volunteer work experience student from Falmouth Marine School. The crew is wondering how Shuggs is treating his helpers as Julian has already left for Thailand!

• With the fitting of Shamrock's last ‘Shutter’ plank, her hull is now complete. Nail hole pugging and fairing of her new planks is being progressed.

• Camber has been added to the cargo hatch coaming ends, eight new shoe-cleats have been bolted to the inside of the coaming these take the two 'drop in' hatch beams and four ends of the six fore and aft beams. Each of the six fore and aft timbers have rebates in their upper faces for the edges of the hatch-covers. The existing beams have been dropped into place along with the hatch boards. The hatch boards are being checked for fit with some trimming still required to make them flush with the coaming.

• Oak packing pieces have been fitted to the bottom of the ‘Hawsepipes’ to enable the extending of the line of the covering boards to the ‘Stem post’.

• Both port and starboard sides of the ‘Breasthook’ have been through bolted back into place

• A start has been made on the caulking of the new hull plank seams.

Shamrock Repairs March Update

The discovery that the forward section of the starboard beamshelf had been renewed in the past with an undersized section, was only loosely bolted to the frames and not attached to the Breasthook*. This has resulted in it being removed and a new section is being cut ready for fitting. It has also been found that there is no evidence of the starboard side beam ends ever being secured to the beamshelf. To correct this, the beams are now being through bolted onto the new beamshelf as it is fitted. More areas of rot have been discovered in some of the main beams, one of them being a section of beam behind the main mast tabernacle. This beam also supports the forward end of the cargo hatch combing and will need more investigation. Most of Shamrock's starboard side deck planks have been removed with the chain locker seeing the light of day for the first time since her restoration. With the amount of water ingress found between the deck planks and beams it has been decided to remove all the deck planking to allow all the beams to be checked, repaired or renewed as necessary and allowed to dry out before fitting new deck planks. Shamrock's windlass and deck winch have been unbolted and moved to the side ready to be removed to the boat shed once space is available. One bit of good news is that to date only one small section of rot has been found in the ceiling planks. Most of Shamrock's starboard side frame repairs have been completed and her lines are looking pleasing to the eye.

*BREASTHOOK A grown timber crook or wrought-iron knee used either as a tie to bind the Stempost, Beamshelf, Hawse or frame tim­bers of the bow together.

Breasthook port side.

Breasthook starboard side, no bolts.

Beam rot behind main tabernacle.

Rotten ceiling plank. 

Missing deck.

New short beam.

Repaired frames.