Well, I am pleased to report that my plank repair went OK and, after a second steaming session, we had the repair in place – albeit with a lot of clamps! I pulled the wood out of the steam box and ran to get it fixed in place – just a few minutes to work the wood before the heat started to dissipate too much to allow further movement.

Now, to caulking. Caulking is the technique of driving oakum (rope fibres and tar) or – as here – cotton into the plank seams, to make them watertight. Locally, there were teams of men who would be called in to caulk ships. Many of these teams came from the Isle of Wight – hence the term “Caulk Heads” for the island’s residents.

The caulking cotton is pleated in, and then driven home. A set of caulking irons numbers about a dozen, and the caulking mallet has iron hoops to lend it heft. Thankfully, I don’t need a set, as a single iron fetches £10-15 and a mallet about £90.

A Tudor interlude.

The 26th and 27th of July, saw me doing some Tudor shipwright work. The 16thC Mary Rose museum is nearby, and the College has long run a module on old shipwright techniques. We have had a trip to the woods on the Stansted estate to look at how shipwrights would select trees for timber, and this phase was to make some parts for a ‘Jollywat’ – a tender/deck boat – for the Mary Rose. The Jollywat became the more familiar Jolly boat.

So, I did some axing and adzing and marking out of timbers for the proposed Jollywat.

Back to my plank repair:

Red lead powder (rather toxic) is mixed into ordinary putty – the same sort of putty that is used in wooden window frames. The red lead stops marine micro-organisms from trying to eat the caulking material.

I have filled the holes left from removing the brass tacks that held the tingle in place, using thin sticks of oak – a process called ‘sprigging.’ The repair is now completed, and I am pleased and relieved in equal measure – glad too to be moving on to …

… my ‘practice plank.’ Yes, after doing a very difficult plank repair, I am putting a plank on an old boat called Mermaid as part of the college’s set curriculum. We do a ‘Practice plank’ and then a City & Guilds test plank.

Planks/strakes are generally put onto the boat from the bottom up and from the top down. That results in a gap in the middle of the hull, which is filled by the final plank, called a ‘shutter plank’. Fitting shutter planks is doubly difficult compared with the other planks

So, naturally, I have opted to do a ‘shutter plank.’ Well, I didn’t think I should do a simple plank after my recent repair on Tom Sherrin!

And finally, … to Valerie.

Today, my friend Craig and I went for a bit of a sail. We had both been given a trip on an 1895 gaff yawl called Valerie as a Christmas Present. What a beautiful boat she is, and it was absolutely super to sail on her in the Solent.

After discussing the IBTC course, I said to the skipper that if he was extending his fleet, I’d be available for work in 7-8 months’ time. Alas, he’s planning to downsize his operation. “Would you sell Valerie?” I asked. “Any boat is available for sale” he replied. So, I asked him what’s she’s worth, but he just said that she’d fetch three times the price if he sold her in the Med.

Ah well, one can but dream … just hope my shutter plank isn’t a nightmare!