Welding should be like carpentry, right? You cut large pieces of material into smaller pieces of material. Then you bang it, grind it, wiggle it, bend it and generally fiddle with it until it is the shape you want it. Then you join it together with all the other pieces you have fiddled with to make something. Straight forward? I would have thought. I have managed tradesman of many stripes; electricians, plumbers (and anyone who can handle a plumber should be able to handle any tradesman), masons, tilers, framers, plasterers, and the list goes on. So how difficult could it be to work with welders? Like on any project you should be able to have multiple tasks going forward. I should be able to be working inside the boat on the carpentry occasionally sticking my head out to oversee the welders working.

Right.

Sigh…

Wrong.

This is a boat and all things boat are difficult.

We wanted to make some serious changes to Taniwha to make her a substantially safer and more comfortable boat. As a French expedition sailboat she has certain features that make her incredibly seaworthy as a vessel but uncomfortable and unsafe for her passengers. The main problems are the lack of a companionway entrance and the lack of a dodger.

For the non-boaters out there a companionway is an entrance to the interior of the boat from the cockpit. The dodger is a kind of shield that protects the cockpit from waves and most of the wind. A cockpit is the area where there are seats and steering on the outside of the vessel, usually found at the rear of the boat. What is important about having an entrance from the cockpit to the boat is that in really bad weather the cockpit is the only safe part of the exterior of the boat so you can enter and exit the vessel in safety. The drawback of a companionway entrance is that if the boat is hit with an enormous wave from the rear it can allow a substantial amount of water into the vessel. In sailing lingo this is called “being pooped”. Additionally if the vessel is one of the modern boats with enormous cockpits the cockpit can be so full of water that it can dramatically affect the steerage of the boat causing an instantly critical and life threatening situation.

The French philosophy of the time was to have a hatch in the middle of the vessel that you would enter and exit the boat. This prevented the possibility of having large volumes of water enter the hatch when you were pooped. But it created the hazard of having to cross from the cockpit to the hatch in potentially horrible conditions. But this was also part of the French philosophy. The boat was built as strong and capable as possible and it was up to the sailors to be good seamen and deal with the difficulties associated with more strength and less comfort.

We bought the boat specifically because she was from the French expedition era of sailboat making. A superbly seaworthy aluminum boat that we could then modify to our needs. However, the hatch entrance and the lack of a protective dodger were unacceptable. The idea of taking a baby across a heaving deck that is leaning 15 degrees, wet and being swept by waves was just not on.

We weighed the safety issues and found that our small cockpit designed for bad weather with its oversized drainage nullified the concern with being pooped. I even went so far to calculate the weight of the water if the cockpit was full to see what possible affect it would have on steerage. The safety aspect of either entering and exiting the boat from the center of the vessel or from the cockpit was a no brainer so we decided to add this change to the immense list of work we were doing. Since we now had a companionway entrance it made sense to have a dodger and the labor here is so reasonable it was the same cost to have a canvas dodger as an aluminum one so we opted for the much stronger aluminum version.

We were more worried initially with the cost than the time it would add to the project. I assumed that it would take 2-3 weeks and maybe at most consume 15-20% of my time during that period. That seems laughable in hindsight. While the cost didn’t change dramatically from the initial bids the time to build and my level of involvement were substantially greater than the worst estimates.

There were several engineering issues that needed to be addressed and with the help of some research and some of the local boat builders we came up with an engineering design that seemed to address them all.

By cutting into the hull of the boat you weaken the structure, so to compensate for this we added a berm in front of the new entrance, this also had the traveler mounted on it which brought the mainsheet forward to make room for the dodger. The traveler and mainsheet are parts that control the main sail on the boat. We then wanted to make the dodger and companionway water tight so we integrated a garage into the berm. A garage on a boat is a closed box that the hatch slides into when open. When you add this to a hard dodger it creates a water tight system that prevents any water from entering the boat when waves wash down the deck.

With these all sorted I then did the unthinkable and cut a huge hole in the boat.

After that I had hoped it would be out of my hands, but this not to be. I ended up acting as a helper cutting this, holding that and being asked for approval at every step. I cant complain in the end because it all came out just as I hoped it would.

Installation

For this part of the project I recruited the Jacobs Brothers. Local boat builders who have built over 47 aluminum boats. They are also serious sailors. Fuat is the brother who came to work on my boat and he brought with him his two sons. The eldest son raced for South Africa in the Americas Cup, the youngest is an international competitor in 470’s and Fuat himself has raced Whitbread, King’s Cup and numerous other World Class ocean races. Top class welders and top class sailors – a dream come true. They were the most expensive of all the welders I spoke with but when I look back at their work they ended up actually being the cheapest because of how efficient they were.

We first cut and installed strips of aluminum to encase the opening. These were a critical step. If they weren’t perfect the hatch would not slide properly nor would it be water tight. They had to be perfect in three dimensions and were very difficult to install. I had no idea how much metal moves when you heat it. Aluminum is like a giant rubber sheet and moves amazing distances when a torch is applied. Once I cut the deck the flat metal had no support. Before a single piece of the flange could be installed hours of welding support strips on the deck called strongbacks and numerous jacks and pipes positioned on the underside were required to stiffen the deck. Once these were in place it was a quick matter for them to tack and secure the flange.

With the hard work done Fuat now really danced with his torch. The green flare moved so quickly it was really amazing. All the pieces had already been cut and bent to the specs I sent out and I had fine tuned them to fit the day before, with this work done and the deck already stiffened for the installation of the flanges the rest went as quickly as he could move the torch. He next put on the hatch garage in less than 20 minutes and the traveler berm quickly followed suit. That was enough for the first day.

After speaking to another sailor/welder in the marina on the s/v Jandy he gave me the idea to weld flanges on the deck of the boat to attach the dodger to instead of welding the dodger to the deck. This would enable the dodger to be removed and repaired more easily if it was damaged by a large wave, a nice feature. Fuat also thought this was a good idea, I however was nervous. The dodger consisted of several angles and curves and to get the front flange to sit at exactly 7 and one half degrees and scribe the perfect radius of the dodger seemed challenging at best.

2 weeks later the hard dodger arrives. The design of the front radius matched exactly that on the main windows on the front of the boat and the height was to give Jackie and I 10cm head room. Included were two mounts for lighting on each side for those lovely nights at anchor with friends, food and a glass in the evening. The front was all window with t-bar reinforcing the window to prevent it caving in from any wave impact. Exactly what the drawing showed is what he brought. With little fuss and no drama he goes to work making small fine tuned adjustments with a very large circular saw and voila in about 2 hours we are done and dusted.

One more project finished many more to go.