MiToS re-built/fit- versilcraft Mystery43

[Robg71]

Slightly off topic, ok lots, but i know you chaps know your timber boats.
a rather nice chap i was taking to, had a stunning Italcraft, older than me, and about 42 or 45 ft in length. He was trying to find out if they were still on the go.
Anybody know?? Beautiful boat.....

 

[vas]

Vas, just to be sure that we aren't at cross purpose: I understand that MiToS was built (hard to tell now from your pics) with wooden panels covering the frames internally.
In other words, the same as I have along the stern in my boat (see pic below). Is that correct?

If you will cover the frames with wood panels (which I accept most folks might prefer, aesthetically), you'd better make sure that they are VERY well sealed.
Just my 2c....

MM,
your are correct. MiToS had 6 (or 9mm) ply panels lining the frames.
And I'm going to replace them with 6mm ply + 3mm alucobond (sandwich alloy+rubber+alloy) that I'm using for lining parts of the hull in the cabins.
What you're missing is that the guys in Vercilcraft had thought of it and have done something quite clever;
The aft deck DOESN'T reach the hull but stays short by around 60mm (obviously that's not the case where the scuppers are, but then the inner lining stays short of the deck by a good 100mm) This means that all the enclosed area (in theory) is not that much enclosed as it hasn't got a "floor" so to speak. So any water that finds it's way in there (the way Bart describes) is just going to go straight down to the bilges
So nothing to worry other than sealing the side panels properly with the deck to avoid rainwater in the bilges.

Fwiw, in my boat the pump sucks from stbd side, so that's bound to be the right choice.
Jokes aside, in the lower point of the bilge, which is (obviously) where the pump sucks from, there's a hole also through the keel, hence "joining" the whole bottom in terms of water flow.

Interestingly I was about to use the stbrd side as well (it's more convenient as the manifold is on the stbrd side )
However there isn't a through the keel hole anywhere to be seen and it's not possible to drill one now with the hull deadrise at 20degrees. So I'll skip that.

From my limited knowledge and reading, I'd avoid sealing up both sides of the ply as I think it's unlikely the CPES would penetrate right into the central cores of the ply and as you say, there'd be no ability to breathe. That said, I'm not sure how well the inner layers breathe anyway as they're surely bonded together with epoxy anyway? Presumably that will have the same effect? I certainly wouldn't want to leave the bottom part of the bilge 'bare' either however and I think I'd look for a quality bilge paint that would provide a barrier to water but not penetrate into the ply and then paint the minimal amount - to allow 6" of water perhaps?

Rob that's a decent idea, and tbh I have to decide fairly soon as by end of Jan I should start reassembling all the pieces of the puzzle in order to have a boat by June sometime...

I think on a vessel that size, I'd want two pumps anyway - fed from two different battery banks each with their own float switch and one float switch higher than the other. This way, the 2nd one really is a backup and should only kick in when the 1st is either failed or overcome (panic stations! :ambivalence I'd wire the manual override to either the backup (to ensure it gets run from time to time) or (even better) both.

+1 for the hole through the keel however to join the two sections.

One manual 1.5inch diaphragm pump through a manifold from the three compartments.

1 fully auto/manual override on the front compartment (cabins)
1 fully auto/manual override on the e/r
2 extra electronic no moving parts bilge switches wired to the boat BMS making loads of different things beep within the boat + send SMS to me and wife (slightly pointless as she wouldn't know what to do )
plus a 3way valve in the 1.25inch engine intake (probably both) so that I can switch the intake to the bilge and help empty the space quicker if something awful happens.

Not keen on messing with different battery banks though. Haven't seen anyone doing it (factory that is) and I feel that having the engine batteries in decent condition so that I can at least start the engines is a plus.

B, just a thought:
I can't remember exactly how the internal plywood panels are made on BA, but IIRC they are basically just a cover of the internal side of the hull and its frames, with no structural function, right?
Because if so, it might make sense, instead of trying to seal them perfectly (which is an almost impossible mission), to cut a very small gap (I mean, min 5/max 10 mm) along the bottom of all panels, where they touch the deck.
This way, the aesthetic would be almost unaffected, because a linear thin cut goes much more unnoticed than any scuppers, and water could freely escape out.
I guess it's not easy to make such a cut, linear and well finished, on the already installed panels - it would have been much easier during build, in fact.
But other than that, I can't think of any cons to such solution, so maybe worth checking with some good carpenter?

v.good idea MM, careful marking and a fein (or equiv.) multitool should get the job done fairly quickly and cleanly.

First three rules of wooden boats.

1. Ventilation.
2. Ventilation.
3. Ventilation.

nice one Ben

I guess followed by:
4. Never keep her in fresh water
5. try a place with lots of sun for at least 8 months a year

I see your point Mapism. We need hull/cabin dividers for cosmetic effect, pushed a little forward to allow a gap all round, rather than solid wood panels making a box. There is insulation in there too though isn't there?

Not sure that Vas is as soft as the rest of us (...or should I just say me and let the rest of you decide for yourselves). Are you having airco Vas? I can't remember it being mentioned, but what about running airco vents into the void so that when you run the airco, it will also dehumidify the hull at the same time...and you will have 'cool walls'

There's an airco onboard. I've gone through the trouble of rerouting the ducts so that they can cool the two side cabins and the saloon and galley. I'm leaving our cabin without it as tbh on anchor with the bow portlight open (I'm installing it raggie way opening towards the bow) the breeze is going to keep the place cool.
Mind even last week with max temp of 12C but plenty of sunshine saloon is almost hot and a bit of water that was in the lazarette bilges evaporated (quite impressed really!)
The hottest place is the lower helm and galley, saloon is almost bearable, cabins are cooler. But since I wont bother staying onboard in the marina (home is 400metres away) and not planning on spending lots of time in marinas anyway aircon will be used rather rarely.

Hm, looks like I reached the quoting quota and cannot add MM and Rob's last posts:

MM, what type of insulation have you got down at the cabins? Hullsides had just lining screwed on the frames, nothing at all. Was thinking of adding something rockwool would be ideal, but not v.happy with water so still thinking.

Rob: Italcraft Espada 42 and the Mediterraneo (if that's the one you're talking about) is a quite interesting craft, GRP and ply decks.
Italcraft AERMAR 36 is a much better f/b design with volvo engines and surface drives, lovely boat, viewed one in Athens but was too expensive, rather small for what I wanted and the double bed was in a small open boat manner (grave style) with minimal headroom.

and a short update and a few pics.
Didn't managed any work at all over the week, last week of teaching, all students anxious to get comments on their work so that they'll work during the two week break (or at least they'd wish they worked...) so today spent 3h in the evening and managed this destruction work. I reallise I'm getting v.good at dismantling, took me almost double the time to do the stbrd side. Mind port is again more affected than stbrd so ripping off the deck was definitely easier.

first bit, seriously soaked and rotten:

nice detail with polyurethene foam used to fck knows what! Amazingly all iroko frames under the deck are solid. There's only one hull frame at the level of the deck that's practically missing for 100mm Will be replaced and reinforced with a 18mm ply:

following two strips removed are definitely more solid (and less wet)

had a go at removing the middle part. It's going to be a bit more difficult as I'll have to remove the hatch ss frame. Will probably NOT fit the frame back on Sunday but leave it off to properly clean it and refit it in the new year:

Plan is to finish off the deck removal tomorrow, treat the dried beams and spent Sunday with George putting new decks on.

Monday lunchtime got to finish everything and drive to Athens for a week of resting and meeting friends and family!

cheers

V.

 

[RIN]

You deserve a week off! Have a relaxing Christmas break (and if you can post a pic of the new decks on Sunday, that would be nice)

 

[Robg71]

Do you think you have broke the back of it yet, at least the bulk of the structural timber work anyway.
Great progress again. i may have to come and pick your brains in exchange for a few day graft

 

[vas]

Do you think you have broke the back of it yet, at least the bulk of the structural timber work anyway.
Great progress again. i may have to come and pick your brains in exchange for a few day graft

Yep see pics below that's the last bit of structural and generally heavy timber work left. Coming to think of it, only the f/b deck is left original (except for the last foot or so )
Sure, come down, just let me know and I'll have some ss welding for you

You deserve a week off! Have a relaxing Christmas break (and if you can post a pic of the new decks on Sunday, that would be nice)

thanks RIN,

I definitely wont post tomorrow with all the pieces in place as I'll have to shoot off to Athens as soon as I finish early afternoon, but will post one of the following days. For now a few pics showing last two days progress.

Lazarette hatch, in mixed condition:

The gutter in ss, coated in at least 3layers of paint (wtf?):

Surrounding iroko beams in good nick, except for the aft side where the hinges were. Big bits of material missing (presumably from original hinges)

Removed, replaced and reinforced. Here it's the "removed" bit

Weather is brilliant, chilly but plenty of sunshine. Unfortunately aft deck is facing North and there's a tiny breeze from night till 12midday. Needless to say it's v.chilly, unbearable so at 10am when the pic was taken. Later on both of us got rid of gloves and wooly hats.

Rob, to answer your question, yes replacing rotten wood is more or less complete. Need to remove the sliding saloon doors (when it's a bit warmer though) and tackle the beam where the door rests. You can see in the next pic I've been carving wood some strong some mushy out of it in order to fit the new ply deck. Iroko beams underneath are perfectly solid and sound.

Port side scupper area cleaned and repaired ready for tomorrow:

Overall view (was getting dark though). All this ballerina moves I had to perform throughout the day taking care which beam I'm standing on and making sure I don't overstress any got me knackered.

so next report from Athens in a couple of days.

WARNING: my server's connection to the world is flaky over the last couple of days (don't know why though) so you make have to reload the page after 5-10mins to get the pics.

cheers

V.

 

[Robg71]

Great stuff.... Reckon you must be like fiddler on the roof dancing across the beams...

 

[rafiki_]

Thanks for the update Vas. Have a great Christmas break, and enjoy the rest.

 

[BartW]

it might make sense, instead of trying to seal them perfectly (which is an almost impossible mission), to cut a very small gap (I mean, min 5/max 10 mm) along the bottom of all panels, where they touch the deck.
This way, the aesthetic would be almost unaffected, because a linear thin cut goes much more unnoticed than any scuppers, and water could freely escape out.
I guess it's not easy to make such a cut, linear and well finished, on the already installed panels - it would have been much easier during build, in fact.
But other than that, I can't think of any cons to such solution, so maybe worth checking with some good carpenter?

thats exactly what I had in mind P,
I'll post about that later in my rebuild thread, to discuss a few small details on this, such as:
the cut cant be on deck level, as there is a horizontal beam
and then there is some cabling inside..on the lowest part
and on the bow, the gunwale is not vertical, it is 45° so rain will fall in these cuts instead of flow out...

 

[BartW]

the guys in Vercilcraft had thought of it and have done something quite clever;
The aft deck DOESN'T reach the hull but stays short by around 60mm (obviously that's not the case where the scuppers are, but then the inner lining stays short of the deck by a good 100mm) This means that all the enclosed area (in theory) is not that much enclosed as it hasn't got a "floor" so to speak. So any water that finds it's way in there (the way Bart describes) is just going to go straight down to the bilges
So nothing to worry other than sealing the side panels properly with the deck to avoid rainwater in the bilges.

yes my Canados is buyld completely different,
the deck goes all around touching and fixed against the hull, (which is GRP by the way)
and makes a watertight construction, (which I quite like)
even the teak on the deck reaches the hull corner
so no risc of rain water going in the bilges

the gunwale is a separate wooden construction on top,
with steel beam supports inside, to make it strong and rigid fixings for the capping and railing
so open it as on MM boat not really is an option,
good idea to work with panels,
but in my situation the most easyest solution are these vent cuts as sugested.
all tbc in another thread.


Vas ones again many congrats on your dedication,
I'm so impressed how you keep up your mood and enthousiasm even after 2 years doing so much dusty and arm greasy work

wish you a nice Christmas,
and all the best for 2014, hopefully on the water with Mitos.

 

[vas]

yet another change of plans, meant I had enough time to finish today (12:00-18:00!) All went according to plan and now MiToS has a new aft deck. George will cover up the whole area tomorrow and next week I'll treat it and lay a mat and epoxy to finish it off for the time being.

details:

I know I know, but I did forget to take a pic of the whole thing prepared and ready for the first piece
Test fitting the middle part:

epoxy applied, ready for fitting:

George finishing off the screwing down of the middle piece and me having a break taking pics:

Note, there's no lazarette hatch, I'll cut it from inside driven from the iroko beams surrounding it with my multitool when I'm back. This way I'll reuse the piece for the actual hatch

so enough from me, time to relax, so back with the new year.
have a happy and enjoyable festive season everybody!

cheers

V.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Well done Vas, real progress. You deserve a long break to enjoy the festivities! Have a great time.

 

[RIN]

Vas
Don't want to badger you but any progress? Its January and depressing and I need my rebuild fix!

 

[longjohnsilver]

Vas
Don't want to badger you but any progress? Its January and depressing and I need my rebuild fix!

On another thread a few days ago Vas said he's not been well so nothing more to report for the moment.

 

[RIN]

Get well soon Vas

 

[vas]

thanks guys,

today I felt I was well enough to go and check MiToS and do some work for the start of the season/year
Result is that I'm not 100% OK, so was struggling a bit with some of the tasks, but should be much better next week as I've only got tomorrow and then the w/e to work. Term ends in two weeks time and then it's almost full time on the boatyard A tiny problem is that the weather's lost the plot and we're missing winter this year. After a bit of snow on the mount Pelion on top of the city and the subsequent cooler weather for a couple of weeks in late Nov, temps are in the mid teens peaking 20, really spring weather. So looks I've lost the skiing season this year FWIW it was around 19 today, no wind, no clouds, just awful

So, after a bit of clearing up, I went in the lazarette and with the multitool cut the lazarette hatch on the lines of the frame. Smoothed a bit the cut, test fitted the old hatch (as if it wouldn't work ) and after a bit of head scratching decided on the approach. I'm applying a 280g/m2 matt with epoxy, wrapping it up the side frame and down the hatch and around a small 20x25mm section I need to secure at the bottom of the hatch frame where the alloy gutter fits. Most of the head scratching was due to the rather daft way they've designed it, but wont go into detail here. Once I have the 3-4 coats of white/grey/white paint of this gutter I'll explain...

the gutter frame on top of the old hatch. Note all the beams there, some doing a bit, some doing bugger all (imho):

also paid a visit to George's workshop where he lacquered most of the cabinets. Checked them one by one, they've come up really well except for two big pieces that had lots of mods on them. So these will be repaired and repainted over the next couple of days. Spotted a missing cabinet door (doh!) by the oven and sorted a couple of small issues. Everything's going to be ready by the w/e so got to rush and clear up the horrible mess in the saloon and galley in order to bring them back in place!

rushing to do some real work

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Good to hear you are back in action Vas. Best wishes for the weekend. Having suffered endless rain, it is now quite chilly. -2c this morning.

 

[MapisM]

rushing to do some real work

Vas, you would struggle to convince me that anytihng else you are rushing to do can be more real than this...

 

[vas]

Good to hear you are back in action Vas. Best wishes for the weekend. Having suffered endless rain, it is now quite chilly. -2c this morning.

yes, but at least you're going to have some water in your reservoirs in the summer (er, hope you'll have summer in 14, seems it's a gamble lately...), we'll be drinking the sea by the looks of it

Vas, you would struggle to convince me that anytihng else you are rushing to do can be more real than this...

that's easy MM, unfortunately I have to struggle to do all that, not persuading you

• instructions to colleagues on actions needed for UG course accreditation (that's fun!)
• 3h lecture tomorrow afternoon (needs preparation as I've not done it as planned before!)
• meeting tomorrow eve (got to summarize a full day meeting in Barca in 4 pages)
• 5h teaching on Wed afternoon (check student work, give comments beforehand)
• AND sketches for fixing some battens and organizing prep work for aftdeck seating (ok, that's real real )

happy?

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

evening all,

short report on work carried out during a day last week and today.
First of all preparations for the epoxy and mat on the aft deck. Did only one 1m strip across (rationale was that since ply was done with joints along bow/aft axis, mat should be crossed port/stbrd).
To be safe, I created a very shallow groove around 40mm wide so that the overlap of the mats wont be proud of the rest of the deck, means sanding it and effectively canceling the overlap... Next pic you can see the lighter (as in just sanded!) strip across the deck.

End result, nice and clean.

Today George came to help for a couple of hours and together we put the 15mm ply capping on the bulwarks on port and stbrd side. Remember the transom end is already built out of thin strips of iroko in order to follow the original curvature and strengthen the whole construction. Of course it will be also covered with a 15mm ply but I'm not in great hurry...

Here you see the other preparations and fittings at deck level where the hawseholes are going to be done. Needed to get level and finish it properly so that the mat wont be on thin air at points.

Beams prepared for the capping

and the only photo I took of the almost finished article

Found the old mirror frame that had the original colour and took it to George for a cross check.
Guess what, not that similar under broaddaylight (or any other conditions tbh...) but I don't mind.

If rain arrives late tomorrow, I may get some time to sand todays rough bits and get a coat of epoxy on the cappings.
Tue onwards rains are meant to stop, so I'll get some days work on, finishing the mat+epoxy and preparing the aft deck cabinets.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Thanks for the update Vas. Are you getting your work/life balance back?