Repairs & Maintenance
As well as manufacturing traditional wooden boats, canoes, oars & spars, Tavy Wooden Boats will provide a quotation for repair and maintenance work on a wide variety of wooden water craft. The repair shown below is typical of the work we can undertake.
2021: Gannet Sailing Dinghy
The Boat
Modifications, repairs and maintenance were required on an Oughtred designed “Gannet” sailing dinghy, built some years ago in glued clinker ply.
Repairs Effected
- Change rig from gunter sloop to standing lug, necessitating fitting a mast thwart further forward, with a mast gate and mast step on the keelson.
- Constructing buoyancy chambers in the bow and at the stern.
- Making a new mast, boom and lug spar.
- Repairing broken glue joints between some floors and the clinker hull.
- Modify floorboards and re-varnish the hull
Original boat
Forward deck frames
Finished foredeck and bulkhead (hatches not fitted)
Aft deck frames
Completed aft deck and bulkhead
Completed hull, mast and spars
2020: Wayfarer Sailing Dinghy
The Boat
Repair and maintenance was required on an elderly GRP Wayfarer.
Repairs Effected
- Replace rotten mahogany rub-rail
- Replace distorted and cracked wooden aft locker/buoyancy tank hatch
- Replace cracked and broken plywood floorboards
- Re-varnish all brightwork
The rub-rail was replaced with iroko, laminated in two layers with West System epoxy and attached to the hull with Sikaflex and A4 stainless screws.
The hatch was replaced with 12mm marine ply overlaid with 3mm thick “planks” of alternating beech and mahogany, glued in place with West System epoxy.
Floorboards were replaced with 9mm marine plywood, sealed with epoxy and painted with non-slip deck paint.
2008: International 12 Racing Dinghy
The Boat
In November 2008, Tavy Wooden Boats carried out repairs to a glued plywood clinker International 12 Racing Dinghy. The boat was built 40 years ago by Rowsell of Exmouth, Devon.
The Damage
The glued marine plywood planking had been damaged during transport. The boat slipped sideways and the road trailer hull support punched up into the bilge, causing two plank lands (laps) to separate over a length of 1.30m.
Repairs Effected
The opened plank lands (laps) were :
- Sanded to remove glue residues
- Sealed with West Systems (www.west-systems.co.uk) epoxy and then coated with epoxy thickened with cotton fibres and silica
- Clamped together using temporary screws installed through flexible battens
- Strengthened with a fillet of thickened epoxy on the outside
- Hull ready for repair
- Sanding open lands (laps) between planks (viewed from the inside boat)
- Plank land glued and clamped with temporary screws through batten
- Fillet of thickened epoxy applied to underside of plank land