Paul Smith’s quietly efficient magic

There has been terrific progress on Sjogin’s restoration over the last few weeks. Paul has been hard at work with deck repairs, installing the ply deck cover, applying the Xynole and epoxy fabric, laminating and fitting three new floors, extending the upper frames past the nasty bits, setting up the old and installing new rivets below the waterline, steaming and installing the rubrail and more. The mind boggles.

It looks more and more likely that we’ll have a Spring launch. I hope it will still be cool enough for fire down below and the scent of sizzling Joe Leone Bread.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since Sandy passed through. Every time I drive down Route 35 to go to the Beaton’s, the evidence of the storms destruction is all too evident. There are and will be for a while, acres of nothing but hastily pushed up dunes where there used to be dozens of homes. The scary thing is that it could happen again. All we need is a nasty, slow moving Northeaster during a full or new moon.

We’re back to normal. The floors that were wet from the surge eventually laid back down and seem fine. We were so very lucky. Here’s a link to my post Sandy Post.

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This was recently sent to me by Suzanne Beaton. It’s from a aerial photo taken the day after Sandy. Sjogin’s visible on the left, laying on her starboard side and awash. The piling on her Port side is the one that pierced her planking. You can see the Starboard dock line was still attached. I can only assume that after the Port dock lines failed she laid against the piling for a while until the surge lifted her high enough to allow the piling to break the plank. I think she was full of water when it happened for she was a leaker in the calmest conditions and banging against the piling and tossing about would have opened up her already iffy seams. The more I think about it it was the remaining dock line that kept her from going into the debris pile and turned into kindling. Lucky boat.

Photo by Andrew Mills of the Star Ledger

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Here the plywood has been glued and fastened to the existing deck and the screw holes filled. Should be almost bullet proof.

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The rub rails were set up in a jig and run across the table saw at an angle. The groove created will be filled with bedding compound and will lie evenly on the sheer strake. The dark coloring is two coats of sealer. I hope to never see this side again.

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Paul set up what look like shelf supports to bend the ends of the toe rails. They’re Mahogany for ease of milling and for cutting the spaces as in the original rails.

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Paul bending White Oak strips fresh out of the steam box. When cool and dry the will be glued together and then fashioned to replace the old floor.

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And here’s the almost finished set of new floors. The upper frame ends will have the ends cut back to good wood and have laminated extensions added.

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New rub rails. After I did some preliminary shaping, Paul and Jeff installed the rails. Now that they’re on, I’ll finish the fairing. When done I’ll prime and paint them the usual Malachy Green. When done, 3/4 inch Bronze half oval will be installed.

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Paul and Jeff fastening the new rub rail. Very solid.

Once again, sorry for the delay between posts.