You Bought What?!?!?!?!

What do you do when you're losing momentum on your current project? When you can't be bothered doing anything on it? When it all seems like too much work? You buy something bigger, in worse condition, that demands unrealistic growth of your already over-stretched skills and patience!!

The benefit is twofold; firstly, it reminds you that your current task isn't so difficult - that if you're prepared to even begin such a mammoth undertaking, you should be able to knock out what you're currently working on in no time!

Secondly, the speedy (rushed) completion of the task at hand reminds you how quickly things can get done, and how you do have the skills to pull this off.

That's the theory anyway.

This story begins with Wee Dave again perusing the pages of New Zealand's premier eBay knockoff, TradeMe. Listed in the wrong section, under a confusing title, I happened upon an auction for a 32 foot planing launch hull, with large, vital pieces cut from the hull, and the general appearance of something that would not be prone to floating. Ever.

"Ha!" I thought, "even I wouldn't buy that!" I realised after a few seconds that what I meant was "I really, really want to buy that. I must somehow find the money and space."

When I think of money, space, and a combination of hyper-positivity and unflinching self-belief that almost rivals mine, I think of one person. Hamish. A two minute phone conversation was all that was required to seal the deal - we were going to buy it, we were going to fix it, and we were going to be - LAUNCH-OWNERS.

The following few days were a blur, what I do remember is explaining to everyone that questioned our judgement in this investment that what they were feeling was "launch-envy", and being slightly worried that I may have some kind of manic euphoria disorder.

We ended up winning the auction, and drove down to Raglan (around 2 hours south-west) to pick it up soon after. Hamish and I giggled incessantly for the entire duration of the drive, and arrived to find something that was completely worthy of launch-envy, both in mine and Hamish's definition and the sense in which others' criticism was intended.

As you can see in the photo, it made my giant Bedford Van look small! On the con side, it did have some serious rot and a large hole in the bottom, plus it was only 28 (NOT 32 ) feet long. Still, LAUNCH-OWNERS!!

Help! I think my engine wants to experiment with Seawater!

You've done your best for engine; nurtured it through sickness, given it sustenance and nice things, and a steady home. Its almost ready to go out into the world on its own however, and you're worried it may be lead astray.  You know other engines in the area are ingesting copious amounts of seawater almost every weekend, and stories of ruin and self-destruction are rife. You're worried, as anyone would be!

Ultimately the cost of depriving your beloved motor the "salty" (one of seawater's many streetnames) may cause greater damage than it trying it (and recovering afterwards) with you present. By being responsible and setting boundaries early, you can make its seawater habit far less dangerous and prevent your loved one's slide into ruin.

 Sorry about that, I assure you the substance abuse analogy is now over. Its implication cannot be overstated however, seawater is horrible stuff and you need to protect your motor from it!

Here's a very simple way that I used on my boat. The main 1" seawater line has a T-piece going to a barbed 1/2" hose fitting, with a tap mounted above that. A garden hose can thus be connected after a voyage and used to flush out the horrible, evil, marriage-destroying, demonic, pernicious, insidious... SALT WATER that hides in every pore of your cooling system. The elbow (on the far right) is around 1" higher than the inlet, so that that length of hose will have plenty of water in it, and therefore the pump in the engine won't run dry. NOTE: If the hose tap is left open when you next launch, the pump WILL run dry (or at least suck in lots of air and become very sad), so exercise caution if you implement a similar system.

The hole in the hull was drilled with a spade bit, and then the thru-hull was fitted with both an opposing nut and large amounts of thickish epoxy glue. The epoxy should bolster the mechanical strength as well as provide a watertight seal, and once the excess was wiped off the fitting looked very neat. A large ball valve was fitted immediately after the hull fitting, so that if a hose splits upstream the water inrush can be stopped easily.

These connections (particularly below the waterline where they are under positive pressure) should have two stainless steel hoseclamps per join, and eventually they will. This is definitely not the place to use crappy, zinc-plated $5-for-a-10-pack clamps, as their failure could overheat the engine and/or sink the boat if they fail under certain conditions.

So, that takes care of the saltwater (urgh!) and freshwater flushing (YAY!) systems. Remember: You can't stop your engine engorging itself on the 'salty' when its out and about, but you can slow the effects of salt abuse when the boat's living under your roof. Rad!

The Unfathomable Depths of the Propulsion Conundrum:

The recklessness of my youth returned on this one, with results that would make a grown man weep. Upon finding that the fast idle function wasn't working on the remote engine/gear controls we'd bought, I set to work on them a bit too vigorously, and in the process broke a vital piece of plastic. A family of gears, linkages, bearings and splines depended on this plastic matriarch, for her stoic leadership and resolute equanimity were the thread that held together their uneasy seams; and without her they quickly descended in anarchy. Not threats, nor sobs, nor pleas would restore order, and I was forced to dismantle with the hope of rebuilding a more harmonious system in the future.

Throttle level on the right, gear lever (grey thing, barely visible left of throttle),
and linkages inside

Since they refused to work under the guidance of one lever, I resolved to add another one. This way the throttle could be controlled with the original lever, and the gear with another. The gear-change system was very simple, based around an M10 bolt running through the remote casing, connecting the lever on the outside to a shorter lever on the inside, the shorter lever was then connected to the gear-shift cable. The levers were made from flat-bar steel, and both were threaded, so their position could be adjusted, and then locked to the central bolt with a locking nut. In the end, all this threading and locking business proved pointless, since they were prone to coming unlocked, even with all the torque on the nuts we could muster, and were thus welded.

All cable clamps/pivot things I make are of the same type, as this is the best I've come up with given my lack of fancy tools. They are made by grinding a small flat spot just under the head of a bolt, then drilling a hole just bigger than the cable through the flat spot to the other side. The cable goes through this hole and has a washer each side, then a nut can be tightened towards the head of the bolt to clamp the cable. These were made on the other end of the cables in M8 (stern leg gear linkage) and M6 (throttle control). In testing so far they seem totally satisfactory, hooray!

I was inching ever closer to D-day, stay tuned for the haps and mishaps that followed!

Steering: Quite an Important Activity

The title is right you know, though only tenuous academic evidence exists in support of the theory, I have long suspected that boats which are unsteerable are less enjoyable to use and more likely to sink, and I believe my position on the matter is gaining favour in several boating circles. As keen as I am to prove this theory, I am now too attached to this little boat to take it out to sea without steering, even for the benefit of nautical science - thus I decided to install a steering system.

Long time readers of The Adventures of Wee Dave (this blog's stats suggest there may be as many as two of you) will remember that I purchased one with the infamous 'Parts Boat.' Sadly I sold this, believing that I would use the cable-over-pulley system supplied with my boat instead. This turned out to be too much work and associated expense, so I purchased a teleflex system and engine controls, with a few more bits thrown in, from a boat that was being scrapped.

Really the purchase and installation of such a system should've taken place before the engine was in, but funding issues prevented this, so I was forced to work in the cramped space immediately behind the engine as best I could.

Cable Mount 2.0

The teleflex system works by the helm unit pushing or pulling on a very heavy, thick cable, which in turn pushes or pulls on the stern leg, or onto an arm and linkage that takes the actuator just inside the transom, as is the case here. Installation is therefore fairly simple, all the tricky stuff is taken care of by the helm unit. All that needs doing is to mount the helm, fasten the cable sleeve on the other end so it can't move, and affix the end of the cable to the stern leg's steering linkage.

In spite of this, cable mount 1.0 was slightly under-engineered. It was a simple steel bracket that was screwed tightly over the cable's metal end-sleeve, but in the end the cable worked itself loose, and a redesign was required. Hamish suggested a much simpler system, which clamped onto the flexible cable rather than the metal sleeve on it's end, and thus allowed some lateral play as the steering arm moves through its arc. The same kind of bracket was used, but a second was added 100mm or so further down the cable. Whilst this would likely have been strong enough, we decided that putting hose clamps on the inside of these brackets would be good insurance and would keep the whole assembly more rigid.

Hamish quickly whipped up a helm station at the back of the cabin, and it all worked great! One less thing to do before launch day, yes!

Painting the Deck

The deck of this boat is made of plywood, and it didn't respond very well to varnish. It all looked a bit grubby and was bringing the whole boat down. I had been told by both my boatbuilding buddies to varnish the rest of the wood, but paint the deck in grip paint, and for once I decided to follow their advice! After enquiring at my local paint shop, I was recommended a product called 'Don't Slip!', which they recommended over other products in spite of the name. I figured any product that survives in spite of marketing blunders of that magnitude must be good, and decided to give it a shot, and kiss goodbye the mankyness of varnished plywood forever!

The paint is extremely viscous, almost sour cream-like in viscosity. After spreading over the deck, the anti-slip profile is applied using a roller that resembles rough velcro. It has a tendency to flick paint all over everything, so if you're going to give it a jam then mask everything carefully, or be very cautious! I was a bit sparing with the stuff, and used only a litre over the whole deck(remember its super thick!), which has led to do darker patches around the place, but it still looks great I think. I'll touch up these patches later. Grip wise its very good, certainly a rougher profile than the type that uses aggregate mixed in with the paint.

I put the bow rail and deck fittings on a couple of days later, and the thing looks transformed. Painting may not be the most exciting job out, but its unbeatable for instant gratification :{D

Onwards and nextwards!

Giving the New Engine What it Needs!

Diesels aren't typically very needy (older ones anyway) when it comes to outside connections. Most will run with just:

Fuel send line (from tank)
Fuel return line (to tank)
+12v to diesel solenoid (not always a neccessity)
Battery negative wire to the block
Positive wire to the starter
+12v to starter solenoid

My Volvo has mechanical stop control rather than a solenoid, so its just the other five!

The boat came with the fuel tank pictured, and all the framing is the for it to fit snugly under the port berth. It has a couple of downsides however. The first is that it only holds around 30 litres, which is only an hour and twenty mins or so at cruising fuel consumption (calculated at 70hp). The second is that it has no baffles.

Baffles are internal plates inside a fuel tank designed to stop fuel sloshing around, which its prone to do both during changes of pitch or roll, and changes in direction. With a petrol engine this is less of a problem, because the fuel tank pickup can suck up a bit of air from time to time, and this will escape from the vent in the top of the carburettor. With a diesel however, the injectors need hundreds of PSI of pressure to open and squirt fuel into the cylinders, which is supplied by the injector pump. If air gets into these high pressure injection lines, it acts as a cushion, since it is compressible, whereas diesel is not. The cushioning effect means the pressure in the injector lines drops and the injectors don't have enough pressure to open, and the engine stops running. It won't run again until the injector lines have been bled of this air, which is a time-consuming and sometimes difficult process. Hence baffles are a good thing!

Anyway, thats of small concern until we're actually close to boating, so we'll focus on the neccessities. First, a send line must be run from the fuel tank to the fuel inlet of the diesel filter housing. This was made from 6mm ID copper, flared to fit the tank fitting and connected with hose to the filter at the other end. A return line was also made from the same tubing, which takes excess diesel (used to cool the injectors) back to the tank.

Since the tank was designed as a petrol tank, it has no return fitting. In the photo above you can make out the return fitting I made, from an elbow of steel fuel line (has a hose attached in photo), glued with epoxy into the tank. Epoxy has good resistance to diesel (and many other things) plus a high mechanical strength, so it made sense to make the fitting this way. With that taken care of, it was just electrical matters to take care of. Or was it (spoiler alert)?

I then put battery terminals on some heavy gauge wire I took from the SR20. The negative was connected to ground, and the positive to the non-live copper bolt connection on the starter motor solenoid. I put an alligator clipped wire on the solenoid trigger, so that when the other end was touched on the +ve terminal, the engine would crank.

I'd half bled the diesel send with an old primer bulb, and expected it to fire up without too much difficulty. I pulled up my car alongside with jumper cables to the batt expecting to have to crank it for a bit to get diesel through everywhere it needed to be.

After several minutes of glowing and cranking on and off (ah forgot to mention, the other connection needed is lots of amps to the glow plugs, done here with a jumper lead from the battery) there was no sign of life. I tried all kinds of things; checked and cleaned the glow plugs, tried some WD40 in the intake, tried running the primer bulb in-line and bleeding that way, cranking with injector lines off till diesel came out, but nothing worked.

Sexy primer bulb can be seen here, at the front of the motor

The next day I got it going briefly, but it couldn't manage more than 30 seconds at a time. I noticed the feed pump pictured in the manual hadn't been supplied, so suspected that it needed one. Knowing that some cars had 'lift' pumps, I thought I'd have a look around a junkyard.

After many hours of sweaty, grimy junkyard perusing with no success in finding such a pump, I thought I'd try a better quality primer bulb with nicer check valves. For $25 it was worth taking a chance on, as it'd be an easy fix if that was in fact the problem. After bleeding at the filter, injector pump and the injectors it started after 15 seconds of cranking, and has since run fine. THANK GOD.

Out with the Old, and In with the New!

 The Sr20 gazed pleadingly at Wee Dave's rugged, bearded face. They'd been through a lot together, but they both knew its time was up. Mustering all its inanimate persuasion, it tried one last time to reason with him, but it was much too late. He had a new love, and there was only room enough in his boat for one of them. Tear tracks lined his face like the streamers of yesterday's foam party, but he pulled the chain, and the engine rose, as if in resurrection, out of the boat in a catharsis of emotion and strident protest above the mounts that once imprisoned it. It was the end.

It was the end -  of the banging-one's-head-against-a-brick-wall phase of the operation! Sayo-fucking-nara!

Right: Volvo Penta MD 21 A, Left: Stricken Nissan SR20DE

A week earlier I'd been stumbled upon a diesel engine, with low hours since a rebuild, all the appropriate bits, and soft green paint that seemed to whisper "I'm an actual marine engine, use me." I very much intended to, and I was lucky enough to be the only bidder in the auction! $500 later I had it back in the drive, and was absolutely besotted with it!

The first thing to do, as far as I was concerned, was to make up a connection between the driveplate (or failing that, the flywheel) and arrange a connection for the stern drive (takes a universal joint). I cracked off the bell housing, and the drive plate, and found no existing easy way to do it. However, by carefully measuring around the splined insert in the drive plate, I was able to drill holes to attach the UJ, and all was good. I popped the bell housing back on, and arranged for Hamish's A-frame's and block and tackle, and that night Hamish, Euge and I got her in there.

The only tricky part was lining up the bolts and the sterndrive UJ, as I'd welded the bolts to the back of the drive plate, but it turned out that the drive plate was some kind of metal that didn't produce strong welds to the bolts. We quickly unbolted the bell housing and the drive plate, and popped some new, longer bolts in there, and just hope that they'd find enough resistance on the weld-roughened drive plate to tighten properly.

With the extra length of these new bolts, it was a bit easier to line up and thankfully the nuts did tighten up ok. We laid in some new girders (2x1" box steel) and sat the front mounts on those. All in all a much easier mounting system than the SR20. In the end we had to lay another piece of 2x1 across the girders to raise the front, as the sump was hitting a crossmember of the boat's skeleton.

Next, a back mount was required, to take the weight off the UJ. Euge kindly donated a engine mount tie-bar he had spare for his mini, and I got to it the next day. I used the bushings in a short length of 25mm tubing, which bolted to the engine's sandwich plate. An M10 bolt was then welded to that (aligned vertically to take the weight of the engine), and a piece of box section drilled and tapped, to provide a base that could be rotated to allow for height adjustment. A nut is tightened onto the base plate to stop rotation when its adjusted to the right height.

The cross piece for the front mounts was then centred, and welded rigid with the girders. This piece was drilled and tapped once the engine was properly aligned, so the mounting feet could be bolted down. Height adjustment is provided within these feet, so unless I'm mistaken, that takes care of that!

"Now I just have to get it running!" thought the wee fella gladly.

"Just" turned out to be the wrong word. Read on!

Timber Sealing

From my experience, this is something that should be done as soon as possible, providing the boat's dry. I made the mistake of putting this off, and spilt a bit of oil and power steering fluid on the unsealed timber whilst fitting the engine. The affected wood had to be planed off, and where that wasn't possible, delicately pared off with a chisel.

I used epoxy resin, in most places just one coat, and that has provided a very satisfactory seal. I did the sternmost part of the boat in the middle of winter, after removing the SR20. It was raining incessantly, so I made a frame under the boat cover so water wouldn't drip through, then put a halogen worklight and dehumidifier under a piece of old carpet to facilitate drying.

This worked very well, and I was able to seal the rearmost part. For the rest, I again called upon my good buddy Cal, who provided his garage for a coupla days to dry, then I was able to seal the whole bottom in about 4 hours.

Its not a very difficult job, I would recommend vacuuming the hull carefully, and using disposable brushes. I think I used about 10 in the process, and maybe 5L or so of resin.Also, epoxy is a mild irritant and gets worse this way the more you use it, so gloves and possibly overalls are a good idea!

Boring, but neccessary. Onwards and seawards!

SR20DE: Nice engine, but is it right for me?

No! It isn't!

The motor makes 145hp, and weighs less than 120kg. These are intoxicating figures when other engines are compared. It was also free, quite compact, and the turbo version makes 250hp reliably in standard form, which bodes well for this one's aquatic life. For all I know it could be a great marine engine, but the cost and effort required outweigh the potential benefits, and when I chanced upon a marine diesel for less than the cost of a heat exchanger and I realised it was a better option.

Reasons for Rejection:

Cost: A raw water pump, heat exchanger, exhaust mixer and other miscellaneous parts in serviceable condition would've cost at least $800, and may not have worked reliably with the SR. On top of that there was things I didn't immediately think of, like a waterproof box for the ECU ($30), seawater proof wiring and connections ($50), marine engine paint ($60), plus many other little things like that which add up.

Time: I spent several days welding a tank around the exhaust manifold (marine manifolds should be jacketed where possible). I also spent a couple of days making a mount and adjuster for the raw water pump. It would've been more time still wiring the thing, painting it, putting sealing silicone on every injector, plug, and join, as zinc plated connections just don't last in a saline environment. On top of that I'd have to make a water mixing standpipe, which may not have worked first time - it all seemed like a huge amount of work for a result that may not be all that great.

Engine Design: One problem I noticed was the small, shallow oil pan on the SR is mounted at the very front. It seemed likely that when the boat is trying to get on the plane and the bow is lifting, that the oil pickup would run dry, and thus oil pressure would be lost. The engine wouldn't last long if that happened every time.

Also things like the dsitributor being right at the back, and completely inaccessible should a problem arise at sea. Similar story with the air flow meter.

I couldn't help but wonder if having an engine so dependant on electronics was such a good idea. If something goes wrong with an older style petrol or diesel, its much easier to troubleshoot. Having EFI means that the fuel lines are under pressure also, so if the send line becomes damaged it will spray petrol everywhere at 60psi or so.

As such, the diesel was deemed the better option and the SR was keelhauled. I'm a bit miffed at having put so much work into the old configuration, but it was a learning experience and I'm super excited for the diesel!

L'interieur!

After many weeks of attempting to navigate the boat by standing on the framing (and consequently many a mild ankle injury), it was decided that a floor should be made in the cockpit, plus seating on the already constructed berth frames. I called my builder friend Hamish, and we began construction that weekend.

His parents were away so we were able to put the boat in their spacious garage and have access to all the woodworking tools a man can dream of! The deck came together very quickly, largely due to Hamish's incredible efficiency at such tasks, and I mostly kept back and attempted to take in the effortless brilliance of the man. The carpeted ply that came with the parts boat was used, and before long we had something that closely resembled a complete floor.

Saturday's progress was the floor and berths

The original builder had done a majestically good job on the berth frames, all perfectly joined and finished to his exacting standards, so all we really had to do was trace the tops onto ply, then cut them with the jigsaw. At this point a box of cider was retrieved from the fridge and progress slowed to a complete standstill while we "tested" the seating arrangements with our friend Euge. I'm pleased to say that they performed completely adequately and that they facilitated me and Hamish's consumption of no fewer than 18 bottles of cider without missing a beat. All three sailors had an excellent evening of boating without ever having to endure the safety risks and unpleasant rocking motion of a real ocean, so the day was deemed a complete success!

The next day we groggily resumed the process, and made an engine box around the SR20. This came together rather quickly, but we were spent, and took the rest of the day off to recover.

On Monday I resumed woodworking, and made the back two seats on either side of the engine box. I was quite pleased with myself, as these came out very nicely. The last few days progress really spurned my enthusiasm, and I couldn't wait to push on. I made the panels to cover the boat's skeleton from 7mm ply (one is visible in the photo on the left) and then cracked on with marinising the SR20.

The period of the boat's history that followed is known as "the Great Fuck-Up", as ultimately I wasted several months making bits to get the engine marine-ready, but ultimately it was a sub-optimal choice. Most detail will be omitted, but the next post will explain my logic in reaching this conclusion. The interior (happened March 2011) was the last significant piece of progress until around a month ago, but I'll get to that later. Adios readers!

The Parts Boat: A Neccessary Digression

At some point soonish after the engine was in, my friend Rob and I purchased another boat. It was another bargain from the trade and exchange, with a vague description and an uncontactable owner. However she did specify it was in storage and in what suburb, and after narrowing down the options we found it.

The operator of the storage place explained that she owed over $1000 in storage fees and that it was being sold to recoup those funds, as such he had the authority to sell it to us. It was a Pelin hull with a disgusting centre console, rotten and missing sheets of plywood, on a rusted trailer with both tyres completely flat. Naturally we bought it the next day!

It had a bunch of good deck fittings, a large outboard motor, remotes and steering, lots of carpeted plywood in the cockpit, plus lights and handy bits of stainless for other stuff. We'd offered the guy $200 and then were surprised and alarmed when he accepted, but we hid it well and set to work the next day.

My pal Jack and I headed out there in my Bedford van and started stripping it. With no means of lifting the outboard off, we needed an innovative solution. We failed to come up with one, so instead we backed up the van to the motor and cut the transom off with an axe, then pulled it in with ropes. Both of us narrowly avoided losing fingers, but in the end we escaped with mild depression and backache, so we'll consider that a victory!

The plan was to dump the boat and drive the trailer home, but after 9 seconds on the road it became clear that it wasn't going to happen. We unhitched the boat by the dump and left a note written in my then-girlfriend's eyebrow pencil- that we were sorry and would be back the next day.

Sadly, our consciences got the better off us and we did go back the next day, feeling increasingly like we were part of some kind of Truman show-esque re-enactment of the Paddington bear stories. We grabbed a few more things, and rolled on up to the dump, with one tyre now half-off the rim, making every revolution a time of jolting sadness. It was $200 to dump, which was a kick in the balls, especially as we saw a metal salvage place 100m up the road which would have saved us half the dump fee and given us scrap money, which might have been enough to buy us a well-earned Popsicle each and a small bag of chips to share. But alas, such is the life of a mariner!

The sale of the unwanted parts proved surprisingly profitable, on top of which I got a bunch of great stuff for my boat, including:

A bow rail, anchor bollard, cleats, fairlead, nav lights, stern light, a sheet and a bit of carpeted plywood, lots of stainless crews, bolts and coachscrews, some rope, and an absolutely massive tarpaulin. Woo!

I painted the deck with grip paint and fitted the bow rail and anchor-y stuff, seen here looking sexy!

The bow rail took a lot of un-bending and re-bending to fit. Since I chose to do this over the top of a low wall it also involved a lot of risk to personal safety, but after fitting it was all worth it! One of my buddies couldn't see why I'd go to the trouble of changing it when it vaguely fitted before. I believe however, that it is small details that complement the intrinsic beauty of something like this boat that make all the difference.

What I disliked about the rail at first, was that its foremost point was 6 inches behind the tip of the foredeck. I wanted its foremost point to be where a line extended up along the stem would end, IE in front of the tip of the foredeck. I've since noticed that handsome bowrails always follow this line, its part of what makes the bow of a boat look majestic and defiant and sleek and sexy. All I knew upon first trying on the rail (pre-modification) was that it looked wrong, and that Neptune would exact his wrath not just on me, but the entire human race if I didn't fix it immediately. Thank goodness I did eh!

Propulsion!

I smoked many a wistful cigarette by stern of the boat, looking into the engineless abyss and wondering, how, and when, it would ever be filled :'( . After doing this for almost 10 minutes, I remembered that a friend had gifted another friend and I his old Nissan Bluebird in exchange for removing it from his property, what luck!

My buddy Rob posing with the SR20DE from the Bluebird

That weekend we popped over to where we were storing the car, and we swiftly removed it using a handy tractor that is also stored there. I then borrowed an engine hoist from a friend who was borrowing it from our old school, and once the dust from all these givings and borrowings had cleared I found myself crudely welding a universal joint to the torque converter and welding in mounts, only to pronounce it mounted but a few short days later.

Considerable time was spent making frames to attach to the engine, since this was a FWD car and the mounts that came with it were ultimately unsuitable for the longitudinal mounting. 2x1" girders were used along the framing of the boat to take the weight, and  the two were joined with rubber mounts from a Nissan Silvia. Cranking the engine suggested that all aspects of measurement were satisfactory, and the job was considered done.

In my enthusiasm and drive to get it done while there was still some summer left, I overlooked a lot of factors surrounding the engine issue, including the suitability of the engine itself, and these will be discussed in more detail later. I should stress, lest anyone happen upon this page and decide to do the same thing, is that the hull should be properly sealed (IE with varnish or epoxy etc) before something big and oily like this comes near it, and that the criteria met in making a good car engine are very different from those in a boat. That's not to say a car engine can't be a good boat engine, but many facets must be considered.

Read on for interior!

First Steps Toward Nautical Ecstasy

HMS Wee Guy After waterblasting

My mind was abuzz during the drive home. Aside from the usual "I wonder if the boat's going to fall off as we ascend the harbour bridge" and "Did I ever tighten that vital brake bolt after that time I borrowed it for something else" type questions, there was the far more complicated and concerning issue of diffusing the parental shitstorm that was bound to eminate in the next few hours, as it was for their driveway that I was headed.

The stimuli that evince said parental reaction are as follows:
1. The eyesore factor, both of the boat and associated mess around the site.
2. The noise associated with tool use in ameliorating the eyesore factor.
3. The strong-smelling chemical compounds used in every stage of these processes.
4. Previous experience suggesting that completion would take around 11 times longer than my estimates (proving correct so far, haha!)


Essentially it can be said that they are concerned with the environmental impacts. As middle-class British people they are bound by the constraints of what can be considered fair on the neighbours, and no doubt struggle to understand how they're son has comparatively little regard for such matters. They no doubt also struggle to understand how I've become some kind of hick reprobate who more understands pistons and carburettors than civic responsibility and the importance of working regularly.

The few minutes after arriving home are a blur in my memory. I know there was a lot of frantic waterblasting of the hull and wire brushing and spray painting of the mankiest bits of the trailer, nervous looks over my shoulder and tidying of my existing mess in the hopes of softening the blow.

However, a glance toward the front door destroyed all hopes of a peaceful settlement, as the stare of an incensed scorpio woman brought me close to cardiac arrest. Luckily this conincided with the arrival of a student she was about to tutor (she's an ESOL teacher) which bought me two hours until the full force of her wrath.

I set about to sanding the hull, as painting it would ultimately reduce the eyesore factor and immediate, visible progress would repress their concerns about the amount of time the boat would take to complete. Forty minutes later it was ready to go, so i went and bought some marine acrylic enamel for the topsides. I hastily brushed this on after some quick filling, and was pleased to see that even one coat had reduced its eyesore factor at least 112 points!

I went and bought a cover for it immediately after (-27 eyesore points), and began to think that I was in the clear. I definitely wasn't however, and got a (perhaps justified) verbal explosion that evening. The response from neighbours and pedestrian traffic was positive however and within a week or two the threat level was reduced and we were again on speaking terms, yuss!

Rain was forecast for the few days following the purchase, after getting increasingly frustrated i arranged to borrow a friend's garage for the day to do a couple more coats, and she came up beautifully! Here's a photo from right after:

I'd done a sealing coat of varnish at some point also before this photo was taken, I think it must have been that first day... It came up very nicely, though since I didn't recoat it it now needs re-sanding and doing again with more coats, grr!

But times were good, and I now sought to fill the sad, empty stern with some kind of delicious powerplant. You, dear reader, will find out about this in an imminent post!

HMS Wee Guy; A 16ft Hartley Trailer Boat

Wee boat, a Hartley Flareline 16, taken after approx 3 months ownership

It was the stinking hot summer of 2010 and I'd just sold my old Toyota. The $900 I got for it was to last me the nine weeks until uni started up again. However after two days I was down to $500, and decided it was time to 'invest' in another project, so I began perusing the (now defunct) Trade and Exchange website.

The T & E had been an institution in New Zealand; at it's peak a twice-weekly newspaper-thick publication with all kinds of junk for sale in it. However, in the wake of eBay's success, the now hegemonic TradeMe website began, and the T & E was steadily marginalised, becoming a weekly paper and website, then just a website, and finally merged into sella.co.nz, TradeMe's only significant competitor, which isn't very significant.

By the time this stinking hot summer had rolled around, there were only two groups of people still using the T & E: those too poor to pay TradeMe's exorbitant seller's fees, and those so incurably elderly that they had yet hear of this newfangled interweb business.

These factors, in conjunction with the site's impossible interface, made the dying site the perfect place to look for this next 'investment'. And on that website, after an hour's searching I found an intriguing post entitled "marine ply."

"Hmmmm.." thought the boy, "I could go for a few sheets of marine ply!"

Clicking this title, I found a still more intriguing ad which went something like this:

MARINE PLY bot, Kauri, needs reglassing, hull sound needs motor and TLC. $375
 Please contact : A very, VERY old person, somewhere in South Auckland - 555-7865

With my impeccable investment record I know a good deal when I see one, and what better investment is there than a (wooden!) boat!

I called immediately. It was engaged. Same thing a few mins later. I tried again in half an hour, then the half hour after that. Then every half hour till 9pm (old people need their rest), then again at 8am. GRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! At 11am the next day I got through, which took me completely by surprise, but I somehow managed to regain my faculties and not yell " JESUS CHRIST WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT  THAT YOU NEEDED TO BE ON YOUR DIAL-UP INTERNET CONNECTION FOR THE LAST 24HOURS GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and arranged to see the boat the next day. YAY!

I arrived giddy with excitement! The old guy emerged and explained that he was selling on behalf on the old guy next door, who (in addition to probably having similar dial-up habits) was almost completely deaf. This initiative was only adopted after six months of the deaf guy trying to sell it by himself, and I silently thanked the gods of kindness, patience and sanity for not letting me stumble upon that ad whilst the selling process was in its first phase. We walked at an frustratingly elderly pace to the other guy's house next door, where the deafer of the two introduced himself and attempted to engage me in jovial conversation. Luckily he was quite short so I was able to inspect the boat over his shoulders from a few metres away, and during a pause in his incessant ramblings I was able to say: "I WILL BUY THIS BOAT PLEASE THANKYOU YES."

I may have been a bit scathing here about the old seadogs, they were really quite sweet and their attempts to ready the boat for its great voyage were an image I will never forget. The vendor dissappeared inside and emerged with a tiny upholstery hammer, with which he began hitting the towhitch, explaining that he was "burring it so it won't come off for ya mate!" The other guy began throwing things from nearby in the boat including parts of the other guy's waterblaster and a home-brew stirring paddle. This continued for a couple of minutes and then I was able to leave, once they were completely sure that I'd been sufficiently briefed for the journey.

The "post-purchase inspection"

I pulled over after 100m or so and had a proper investment inspection, and was absolutely overwhelmed with it. Such amazing craftsmanship; some poor bloke somewhere had put in hundreds of hours laying out the frame, planking the bow, plying the rest, glassing the whole thing... only for it to be sold to me for $370 after years of sitting in various peoples driveways not getting finished. I hoped (and still do) that I one day do it justice.

An Introduction:

Hullo there! My name's Dave, and I've been in a stage of prolonged adolescence for a long time under the pretence of getting a tertiary education. The function of this is to have an excuse to not have a job very often and work on various projects most of the time, with impunity from the outside world.

I developed an interest in mechanical things at a young age, and began buying motorbikes from classifieds in my teens, and set to 'fixing' them. 'Fixing' them meant attacking them with various wrenches with my tongue poking out the corner of my mouth, then selling the dissassembled mass of parts (minus a large proportion - generally anything smaller than a milk bottle, as these were lost on the ground near my 'work' area) to fund the next project. The extent of these losses are of a magnitude that would make an large scale iron and aluminium mine on the site a viable business idea in the near future.

Eventually, however, I began to amass the skills required to put the things back together, and sometimes they even worked! I remember at around age 15 I had a honda moped which ran after 'fixing', but would leak the entire oil capacity of the engine in around 15 minutes. I've always been a lateral thinker, so I attached a container from a recently-consumed Indian takeaway with a bit of wire to collect spillage, rather than refit the gasket which I'd forgotten to install. Now you are beginning to understand the extent of my wisdom even at that young an age, but things improve still more!

Phase three of this magical journey began when my definition of 'fixing' began to resemble the rest of the population's. I rebuilt the forks of my motorbike at around 16, and it actually rendered an improvement! Thereafter I bought cars that had been sitting for years and got them going again, learnt to weld and fill panels, learnt to troubleshoot and repair electrical systems, and got all but one vehicle through the requisite road safety test. And that brings us up to date!

This blog will document the progression of my projects herein; currently a wooden Hartley fizzboat, an old G60 Nissan Patrol, and various little things and my ongoing homebrew obsession. Wish me luck!