Ciao Bella is a Hurley 20 bilge keel sailing yacht, she is my second 'proper' boat. having had some great times in a Fantasie 19 called Jelly Bean I decided it was time to increase my sailing range with a boat that could successfully bridge the gap between the huge fun of being able to explore every nook and cranny of a harbour or estuary and proper sea going ability. I hope this will be the case :~)
Having not been on the boat for a while may not be good for me but it's certainly good for the Mirror dinghy. What started off a a quick project boat which required a couple of weekends work to get it back on the water has dragged out to nearly a year and it's still not finished.. As the temperature was ok this evening, I broke out the West epoxy that I had bought at the boat show and set about repairing the centre board case to hull joint.
The old joint had looked good until I started scraping off the old varnish the other month. I'm not sure if the old joint had been made with epoxy or polyester resin, either way it hadn't bonded to the wood and pretty well just pulled away in one lump.
I knocked it back until there was enough clean wood to bond to woven tape, I then cleaned the surface back with sandpaper and wiped the whole area over with acetone.
The battens down each side have sharp edges, I took these edges off to help the tape adhere. The West system mixes and spreads easily, soaking into the tape was remarkably easy as well. I made up 36ml in the first batch, this didn't look a lot when I was mixing it up but it was plenty to do the whole if the centre board case joint and I didn't need to mix any more.
I am genuinely getting close to finishing the Mirror, just in time for winter :) All that is left to do now is prepare the wood for varnish and apply the varnish. It will be great to get out and give it a go :0))
It's been a long time coming but there has been some progress on the Mirror Dinghy. The outside of the hull had been previously stripped of paint as best as I could get it without going through the outer ply or taped seams.
The artful Roger had supplied me with some special epoxy which he'd used to seal voids in the hull of his Hurley 24/70. I was able to use this to coat most of the outer hull of the dinghy. This has really helped to soak into the wood and seal it prior to the undercoat. I applied two coats of undercoat, flatting back and filling gauges and fairing in between the coats. Then finally a coat of Black Toplac was applied.. I wouldn't have chosen Black but it was available cheap from a family member who bought it for an abandoned project... thanks Adam, it's gone to good use.
All that's left to do is varnish the bare wood, varnish also came from Adam, and source any parts which are missing... Then it needs a name. In the mix at the moment are... 'The flying Coal Scuttle' 'Baby Bella' 'Nero Porco' and 'Black Pearl'... other suggestions welcome :o)
Back to work on the Mirror last night, I have now largely finished scraping the old paint from the hull. I feel this DeWalt hot air gun deserves a special mention. I had a Bosch hot air gun which stopped working suddenly, so I borrowed this one from a neighbour. The difference was remarkable. The DeWalt seemed to get hotter quicker so the the paint would go softer quicker meaning that the heat build up in the wood was more localised and would cool down quicker.
Tools - Hot air gun and a triangle type scraper (Regularly sharpened).
Sorry about the quality pictures below, it was starting to get dark :o). I refrained from going overboard with the heat gun on the edges and the epoxy taped seams.
There are some areas of epoxy that need repairing, particularly around the centre board slot and skeg. The wood is really sound with only one small repair found, a puncture in the bow which looks like it had been in a colision at some time.
I shall remove the fittings next and go over with the sander to get rid of all the wee bits and pieces. Repair the areas of epoxy and get some paint and varnish on her.
Mrs Ciao Bella and myself slipped away for a couple of days in and around Bath. We stayed in The George, a fantastic old Inn from the early 1500's. As well as the Roman Baths, shopping, cake & coffee we also found some fabulous pubs and cider houses :0)
The George Inn at Norton St Philip. A great place to stay.
Tuckers Grave Inn, a hard to find traditional cider house.
Despite this, I did still managed to get a bit done on Sunday afternoon. As I still had some strippit left I applied that to as much of the Mirror as I could.I left that on overnight and gave it a good Jet wash off in the morning. I'm quite impressed, I haven't been near it with a scraper yet but considering the limited amount that I had it has done a great job. The other worry was that it might attack the taped seams, these are absolutely fine. The wood is pretty solid, the only filler that I can see is where small knocks have been repaired.
Back to business, after the strippit had been jet washed off.
While the Strippit was working it's magic I climbed aboard Ciao Bella to see what else could be done.. who says blokes can't multi task? The headlining needed refitting after I had removed it to fit the clutch on the coach-roof. This was an absolute bugger to get back in and as it has a tendency to slip out of the slots I decided to drill and screw it into position. This I did on the starboard side as well.
Looking around me I could see that she needed a right good tidy up so I started chucking everything that was in the cabin out into the cockpit. I stuck my head under the starboard quarter berth to retrieve some junk and was confronted with and odour like no other. The rear of the bilge keel is hollow and when I looked down it there was about 3 or 4 inches of black stinking water in there. Unfortunately the only way I could think of getting it out was to roll my sleeves up and reach down with a sponge to soak it up.
I was worried that a mouse may have fallen in and drowned but the smell was from bits of thin ply that had rotted in the water.. who'd have thought that would smell so bad.
I spent the rest of the evening tidying and putting tools away that I thought had long since vanished.
I nice piece of good fortune while sat it the cockpit sorting the wheat from the chaff, one of my neighbours stopped for a chat, the upshot being that he has a trailer winch that I can have and also a roll of genuine boat quality foam backed upholstery fabric in Tan.
Planning to get her in this coming weekend, Woe betide anyone who has other plans for me :)
Most of Sunday was spent at the sailing club helping with the spring clean and attaching new galvanised ladders to the pier. It was bitingly cold but that was fended off with Nigel's ballistically hot Chilli and rice... Thanks Nigel, it was just the job.
I was home by 4:30 and still in my scruffs so I thought I'd spend an hour or two on the mirror dinghy. I had previously started to DA the paint back but had decided that it really all needs to come off. I set it up on boxes to help with working height then set about it with some paint stripper.
After a few minutes the paint started to blister up quite nicely, I thought this might turn out to be an easy job.
Not so, it was quite sporadic where it wanted to work and where it didn't. I left it for an hour to soak in (recommends 20 mins on the tin) but it didn't really make any difference. I scraped off the best I could then tried sanding, too slow as I'd run out of 80 grit pads, and scraping with a heat gun; really need a narrower scraper than my wall paper scraper. As neither was really effective I tidied up again and will reconvene when I have some more paint stripper, coarse pads and a better scraper. Watch this space for progress but don't hold your breath :)
Normally I moan about the weather when it's cold and wet but today it meant that I could work on Ciao Bella instead of going for a walk. Obviously I needed to work inside so the galley received my attention. I had picked up some dry wall insulation, some expanding foam and a roll of aluminium tape during the week so I was able to crack on with the cool box.
I started by cutting the insulation to fit the spaces within the cubby hole and then squidged in the expanding foam into the gaps. This closes the gaps, insulates and effectively glues it all together.
I then used the aluminium tape to cover the whole of the inside, to give it a clean gap free finish. The tape was also used to cover big gaps which were then filled with expanding foam.
With the top attached and the cool box almost complete I just needed to make up a door for the front. This is just a piece of ply with some insulation sikaflexed to it which pushes in to seal the opening. I have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off so hopefully there should be some real progress over the next few days... watch this space. Right I'm off for a Guinness :)
I had one of those eBay moments the other day. I was strangely drawn to an auction for a Mirror Dinghy. The paint looked poor but the other pictures showing the inside look remarkably good. It had the added bonus of coming with an outboard engine.. I have a Laser dinghy that I keep at the sailing club, I bought it for James but he has since discovered cars and has no interest in sailing, this would give me the drive to sell the Laser on as I am a bit too sedate to be balancing on a those kind of boats, a Mirror is more my style.. Older, creaky, leaky and slow :) it had to be worth a punt, no pun intended.
UP FOR GRABS IS THIS GREAT LITTLE
MIRROR DINGHY
comes with all rigging
anchor
gaff rig
2 hp motor
all the original paperwork
(from when it was first built)
the only thing that it hasnt got are sails
she needs a little TLC i.e. rub down and repaint apart from that she is sound .
No reserve
she must go owing to other commitments
no spare time to use her
This is cash on collection only and winning bidder to make contact within 48hrs of end of auction and collection within 7 days of end of auction.
LOW STARTING PRICE
so grab a bargain.
HAPPY BIDDING
The lack of sails is not a problem as I have two spare sets from previous boats plus mast, boom, gaff, rudder etc. I put in a late bid of upto £200 and I won at £125.. Happy days. All I needed to do now was pick it up from Northampton (£130 miles away), find time to tidy it up, sail it and sell my Laser to pay for it :(
I hadn't asked any questions before winning so I was a little disappointed when I found out the outboard was a British Seagull of unknown condition.
The next day we set off up country to collect my new toys. When we arrived the couple that were selling the outfit were absolutely fantastic. The chap had bought it as a project but poor health had got in the way. A real shame. Before going to the hull he led me to the shed where he stored all the accessories. He pulled the seagull out and I was pleasantly surprised. It looked in good condition and had the nicer looking brass fuel tank.
We loaded all the bits onto my makeshift mirror trailer and headed home. I was slightly gutted when the mast dropped onto the road and shaved a good chunk of the top in a very short space of time, good job I have a spare. That made me think back to my motorbiking days, how quick would your knees and elbows disappear if you fell off at 60 -70 mph?
Anyway, back home and really happy with my purchase. There are some mad websites around Cruising in Mirrors and racing with Seagulls. Click on the links below if interested.
