This Shouldn't Take Long . . .

“There’s a soft spot under the sponson on the starboard side, midships.  Can you fix it?  Oh, and I gotta be fishing in two weeks.”

              I hear variations on that all the time.  Sometimes it’s a simple repair.  And sometimes it’s a holy crap moment.  And anywhere in between.

              This was one that was in between.  We had put a purple heart bow stem in this 58 foot seine boat five years earlier, so I was familiar with the boat.

              It wasn’t really news to the boat owner that it probably wasn’t as simple as he was hoping, but also probably not as bad as it could be.  So, we started in on the demo.

(Demoing planks in soft area)

              Sure enough, the frames in the area were bad.  Five planks needed to go and twelve new sister frames installed.

              The new sister frames were oak that we steamed and drove in place.

              Then we started re-planking, using sapele.

              We used locally cut yellow cedar for the sponson guard, slapped some black enamel on the topside, and some bottom paint and she was back fishing in two weeks.

              By the time she hit the water we were already on to the next emergency, so we didn’t get any pictures of the end result.  Maybe next time.