First visit to Terrapin - a boat under construction

In May 2022, I paid my first visit to Terrapin. Work was going on feverishly most days, in the already hot spring sun. Mostly sanding and painting and a lot of filling of holes with epoxy. I asked the guy doing the work his opinion about the boat. He rather mysteriously said "She is good, but don't stress her too much" I was not sure what he meant, but was going to find out soon enough.

The interior saloon area looking to port. Some new shelves had been made making the berth a bit wider.

However in the front cabin there was an obvious sign of discoloured wood, ie. rot!

Saloon area port side, boxes of tools etc. and the tender rolled up on the floor

Terrapin where she had been lying for the last 3 years. The Covid situation had set back work and launching for these years...

The essentially brand new engine!

The next week we paid a visit with Sophia, setting foot for the first time on our boat together!

Trying out the cockpit for comfort. The boat is already looking twice as beautiful with this lovely looking lady just sitting there reading... (Interestingly Luna Anarcha and Sophia were born the same year. A good year.)

Looking inside at the mess and imagining being at an anchor somewhere in the Ionian...

The original builders plate with the specs and dates. (oops!)

 

 

 

 

During our next visits in between courses and working trips I noticed that some insects seemed to be hovering around a bit too much, a sign that they may have nests somewhere. The insects looked like little wasps. I managed to kill one, photographed it and googled its description. 

This is what is known as a Hoverfly. It is a fly that has evolved to look like a small wasp and flies like one too, hovering about. What shows that it is a fly and not a wasp is that it has two wings not four and also it has no sting!

Hoverflies like to lay their eggs in rotten wood... not good.

Thankfully no carpenter bees where found. They are much bigger, and black also known locally as flying olives! 

I watched to see where the hoverflies went and started to discover rotten parts around the cockpit.

This is the aft port corner of the cockpit. I started digging out rotten soft wood. It was so rotten it was like gravel.

Paint was just peeling off. This was the paint that had just been applied... Behind it, dark discoloured, wet wood.

The cockpit corner after digging out the rotten parts..

Front cockpit floor corner.. more rotten bits.

I am not posting more for now, but we have found more.

The situation is this. The boat is made of plywood and wood. The guy doing the repairs was not really a carpenter but a fibreglass repairman. So his repairs have been not done properly. Where he found rot he dug it out and filled it with epoxy. 

Unfortunately rot is a fungus and always goes beyond the immediately visible, soft wood. The spores that create it travel up along the woods "sinews" and "eat" the celulite which is what makes it hard. Hence the softness of rotten wood.

The proper way to repair it is this. Remove the rotten wood beyond the obvious visible point by at least 2 inches (5cm) Replace with fresh new wood or ply. I would and will also spray the entire area with a fungicide called Boracoll .This will give us at least ten years of rot proof wood. Then the whole repair can be covered with epoxy and sheathed with glass, making for a very structurally strong repair. 

I already have the glass mat and need to get a really big can of epoxy. 

Then all we need is time...extra hands... and coffee. If we have proper good coffee, everything will be fine.

And we will have a structurally strong rot proof boat to go sailing in.

 We are going to make this happen! with love, and coffee!

The Luna Anarcha Story

 In May 2022 we acquired a boat. A lifelong dream for us, it was made rather unexpectedly real! Suddenly we had a lovely Golden Hind 31, built in 1966. 

The boat was known as "Terrapin" and before that as "Marona" . It so has it that I know both the previous owners. 

Here are some photos of her as "Terrapin" in Gouvia Marina, where her "home" was for almost the last 20 years... 

 Looking trim and neat after some major work was done some 5 or 6 years ago.

Bow cabin looking forward. This has been changed slightly in that the chain locker has been made narrower and two extra shelves created to port and starboard of the chain locker. There is a rotten part in the front port side of the superstructure which we will be repairing properly soon.

Chart table. Again more rot found at starboard aft corner. This is where the steps up to the deck are, apparently a common problem area.

New galley configuration and cupboards. We intend to remove the sliding doors and replace them with the original slotted shaped holes that hold plates, bowls and cups steadier. Also we like the look of them more anyway...

Bow area and bowsprit with the new Kobra anchor winch.

Aft looking forward over the coachroof. We found more rot under the mast base. On our friend Jeff's recommendation, who is a boatbuilder and surveyor with years of experience in this type of construction we will remove the original Cascover fabric covering stuck to the plywood and after replacing all rotten ply and wood, sheath the whole deck and superstructure in epoxy.

Side berth in sallon area. We may change this to a dinette/double berth configuration, allowing us to sit inside in winter and giving us an extra berth.

Looking down into the cockpit. We intend to change the deck colour to cream

Currently the hull is white but we may go for a pastel green/dark green or red trim with cream deck combination. The antifoul is green here, black currently... it may be Coppercoat or red antifoul by the time we launch...

The boat's story

About 21 years ago, Will James walked into my shop and introduced himself. He was on Corfu for a wedding and being a sailor, the lovely waters and surroundings of the ionian had caught his eye. He started thinking about moving his boat from Denmark to Corfu. He asked around about where he could find info on harbours and keeping a boat here, and someone mentioned my name. After he told me all this I asked what kind of boat he had. He said "a Golden Hind 31" ! 

Well it so happened that right about that time, my friend Roger Harris was selling his boat in preparation for moving back to UK after a number of years in the Ionian. What kind of boat was it? A Golden Hind 31. te price was good so Will soon ended up with a GH in denmark and a GH in Corfu. Roger called her Marona, but had kept a nameplate from his previous boat called Terrapin in the boat as a memento. So Marona became Terrapin. Twenty years later she has come to my hands. So here "starts" the rest of the story...

Look for the next posts with photos of the damage we found, and how we moved the boat to a much cheaper place so we can afford the repairs...