Where did the summer go?
June - September 2020
With lockdown ended and some social distancing restrictions eased we were able to make some further progress on the restoration – not as far and fast as we would have liked, but here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to over June, July and August.
On 26th June we visited Tim Goldsack at Ham Wharf where he is working on Sailing Barge Lady Daphne. Unfortunately, he lost three months during lockdown and now it seems likely that work on Raybel will not commence until late 2020. This is frustrating but we know that Tim and his crew are the right people for the job.
During July and August, the volunteers courageously continued to prepare the dry dock and site for the arrival of the shipwrights. The dry dock was cleared and work was started to service the four valve sumps which allow the dock to sink and float. We found the valves couldn’t be fixed, and so sent out a Facebook request on the Sailing Barge site for donations. At start of September we had a positive lead of valves that look like they will fit.
The sump boxes in which the valves sit have proved to be extremely delicate. All four sumps were cleared by volunteer John Waterman – a dirty and dangerous job clearing nasty mud and sharp metal often by hand and touch. They have all leaked a bit but on Wednesday, August 5th John was carefully scrubbing away at the final box when large lump fell out of the bottom leaving a footprint sized hole. With an incoming tide there was nothing we could do and the drydock didn’t rise. Repairs were affected and the dry dock is now ready for the new valves and extension handles.
Elsewhere on site the shipping containers were painted barge black by Alan Hooper and Richard Stephens and an amazing cantilever roof constructed by volunteer Roger Whalley to give a dry covered area between the containers. Roger designed the roof to maximise the dimensions of materials and he was left with one tiny piece of spare wood. Excellent engineering!
Volunteers Colin Aker and Rod Trueman constructed and painted a handrail around the raised plinth and ramp - an essential safety feature.Museum Chairman Clive Reader excavated the apparent blockage in the service pipe to the wharf and found out that the two pipes didn’t meet This was rectified, to be ready to lay in the permanent power supply to the wharf.
We were indebted to Bob Telford who delivered a grit blasting machine and several bags of sintered bronze grit. We don’t know how Bob got them on his trailer because it nearly killed us getting them off! Thanks Bob.
The next stage of the plan is to get Raybel’s gear down and crane off the spars and leeboards. A quirk of the rudder design means that that we will have to wait to get into the drydock before the rudder can be removed. We still have to do a test sinking of the dry dock in its correct berth to know what size tide we need to clear the blocks.
