Nancy Belle River Trips 2015

On offer 26 river trips between 13 April and 24 August 2015. Starting from Cotehele Quay the Nancy Belle will head up river past riverside woodlands, under the railway viaduct, past Calstock and deeper into the valley and on towards Morwellham Quay. Throughout the trip there will be a guide telling you about the valley's fauna, flora and history. The trip will last approximately 2 hours.

Booking Essential.

To find out more and to book ring 01579 351346.
Price: All Tickets £12

Warm Boat Shed.

Since Shaune has taken over as skipper of Shamrock he has had the habit of leaving the boat shed doors open for visitors to pop in. Recently regular visitors to Cotehele Quay have noticed that the doors have been shut and the more observant will have seen scaffolding on the car park side wall along with a new flue. All this means that finally the promised new log burning stove has been fitted and is now consuming logs at an alarming rate resulting in a warm crew.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Varnishing update

The warmer boat shed has enabled the final coats of varnish to be applied to both of Shamrock's masts along with the rigging blocks ready for the masts to be stepped (put up) in a couple of weeks time. 

Slipway Track

When plans where being made for the restoration of Shamrock in 1974 it was decided to dig out a slipway to allow her to be hauled out on a cradle well clear of the highest tides allowing easy access to all parts of the hull. This slipway is still used today, along with a updated metal cradle, when Shamrock needs to be hauled out to have her hull maintained. The rail sleepers have started to rot and the metal rails to corrode and distort with age causing the cradle to occasionally stick when hauling out or floating off Shamrock so the decision has been made to renew them this year. As a start the fire pump was manhandled to the bottom of the boat shed slipway, rigged and used to wash away around fifteen months of accumulated mud from the slipway.

Note to the crew.

Design and manufacture a trolley for the fie pump before it needs to be used again.

Stop Press

Sutton Harbour Plymouth Classic Boat Rally 2015 organisers have published an outline program for this years rally scheduled for Friday 24th to Monday 27th July. Conformation is being sent that Shamrock is due to attend weather permitting. 

All Change

Mutterings from the crew as Shamrock's masts and rigging blocks maintenance plan is changed once again. The idea of using linseed oil as been dropped, looks good on application but starts to look black after a couple of months and it's back to using varnish. Both masts have now had there tops painted white and the remainder has had one coat of 50/50 white spirit varnish mix, along with all the rigging blocks. Due to the cold weather this will require a few days to dry before the next coat of the 50/50 varnish mix is applied. With both masts lying alongside one another you can really see the difference in colour between the pitch pine main mast and the Oregon pine mizzen mast.

Shroud Maintenance

On inspection of Shamrock's main shrouds it was found that the tarred "marline" used as a serving on the throat loop had worn away. After the removal of the remaining sections of serving the original parcelling beneath it was found to be sound and only required a soaking with boiled linseed oil before having a new layer of parcelling and serving applied. Parcelling is the passing round the lay of the wire of strips of old cotton sheet followed by a soaking with linseed oil. Serving is put on by laying the marline around the head and handle of a serving mallet to produce the tension necessary to bind the marline tightly around the wire as the mallet is rotated against the lay. The exposed sections of shroud wire rope have been wire brushed and the crew is waiting for a decision to be made as to what is to be use as a weather protection coating and when it is to be applied.

Serve:- bind (a rope) with thin cord to protect or strengthen it.

Note the serving mallet.

Mast Repair

One of the reasons for moving Shamrock's main mast to the boat shed was to check it for any rot. All appeared to be well until after the removal of the mast cap when a previous repair job to the top of the mast was found to have started to rot. This has now been cut out and the mast cut back to solid wood with a new piece of wood being let in. Interestingly the mast cap that was thought to be metal turned out to be of wood and has suffered no ill effect from the rotten wood beneath it.

With most of the masts, spars and rigging preparation work completed it will soon be time to get out the paint brushes. This year instead of varnishing the mast and blocks they are going to be soaked in linseed oil as this is a more traditional method of weather protection for old wooden working boats.

Repaired mast.

New main boom saddle segments. 

Back To Normal

After the Christmas break life in the boat shed is getting back to normal. Shamrock's main mast is now drying out after being scraped of all old varnish and paint, with a wheelbarrow being used as a mobile scrapings collector. The new main boom saddle has been roughed out, temporarily fitted to the shape of the mast and only requires a bit more shaping before being ready for fitting when the mast is dressed ready for raising in the spring.

In the last couple of years a few props have been added to Shamrock's forward cabin to give visitors an impression of what it would have looked like when she was a working vessel.  One of these is an imitation oil lamp, this has now been modified to take a battery operated flickering LED tea light to giving the impression that it is lit, not that it will provide much extra light.