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Dragonfly 45 “Goldfish”, formerly
“Wingsang”.
Originally bought by an American
Serviceman at the Bentwaters air force base in Suffolk in 1963, when I
acquired her she was in a very sorry state. She joined our family on August
28th, 2002 and for the first year or so I really did very little
to her. That and a period of not being too fit means the true elapsed time
has been about a couple of years of fun, sweat, slog and big rewards too.
The cost, albeit “on the drip”, has been significant but still less than,
say, buying a new basic Lark dinghy. I quickly realised that rubbing down
and re varnishing and painting were not going to do the business so set
about finding out the pros and cons of different restoration methods. That
autumn I shared my proposed plan of action with the Class at AGM and sought
and obtained their approval to proceed.
I will happily expand on the detail
if anyone is interested but in summary this is how the project ran:
1
Obtained all available drawings of the boat. These were in poor nick
so I traced them and enabled the next step.
2
Built a full building mould comprising 6 frames to be positioned at
approx 2ft intervals. The stem and transom, although part of the hull are
also frames 1 and 8. These were mounted on a hefty strongback and diagonally
cross braced to assure alignment.
3
The entire “innards” of the hull were removed, deck (as a complete
frame), seats, Samson and king posts, centre board case complete and a
couple of ribs. Not much left really!
4
The frame was fitted in the empty hull and secured in place with
thumping great coach screws through the keel and smaller screws through some
of the planks.
5
The keel (2 parts) and garboards were removed. All were stripped back
to bare wood, cleaned, degreased, repaired (one garboard had an anchor hole
through it) and then refitted. Then onwards, working through all the planks
one at a time fixing each back where it came from before moving on to the
next.
6
The difference in this boats case is that every plank has been
secured using nothing but epoxy resin adhesive. The copper nails are still
there but serve no structural purpose.
7
New ribs made of oak. Again, not dealt with by traditional steaming
but by laminating 4, 5 or 6 thin lathes. Very strong, minimal internal
stress. Indistinguishable from steamed variety.
8
Strip, clean, repair “innards” and refit, again with epoxy resin.
9
Refit deck frame, gluing all component parts as with the rest of the
hull.
10
Only the king plank is original of the visible deck. Rubbing strakes,
wash boards, carlins, rowlock hole pads are all new but faithful
reproductions of the original
11
Entire hull has been fixed with epoxy resin, had at least 3 coats of
saturating epoxy to make it waterproof and 3, 4 or in some places 5 coats of
two pack polyurethane varnish with UV filters. The deck is painted cream to
be faithful to the most popular colour scheme when the boats were first
built. Contrast with rich red mahogany is just gorgeous!
12
New wooden mast and boom and new sails. Wooden spars because there is
no reason not to and it enhances appearance of what is, essentially, a very
attractive and one day, possibly classic design.
13
With the deck not fitted, easy to see how to fit a spinnaker shute,
but not quite like our Irish friends. Asked the Class AGM and they didn’t
like the idea. At 10 paces hardly visible and made of timber.
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