Readers will have followed my workshop rebuilds on various Luggers over the past years at Dragon Design in Wales, along with the latest rebuild on Tiki just last November. My earlier Luggers, Annie B and Paxi, had their original rebuild in 2011 & 2012 respectively and after over 10 seasons of being out on charter they were starting to look a little sad and faded. The sun, sea and use on charter takes it toll so all 4 needed a full freshen up, and some repairs and replacements were necessary.
So last year I made the decision to strip out the internal joinery and fittings of four of the older boats and carefully pack into boat units and return them to my Dragon Design base at Tredegar for a total overhaul and repair followed by a re-oiling procedure. This will give these boats a further five years before another refurb, given they are cleaned and re-oiled within each season which slows any deterioration.
There was some damage to a few hatches, broken catches and loose hinges. They get a lot of hard use, and people wedge oversize rucsacs into the hatch then try forcing the lid closed, hence my reminder about using my neat and adequately-sized dry bags.
Given the nature of the use that the boats get it’s a testament to the quality of the original manufacture that they have lasted at least 14 years and have come up well in the refurb process. Aspects like the mainmast thwart I replace every season, re-sand and oil, and then refit in the following April.
With an empty hull I’ve power washed her thoroughly and when dried out, painted the inside of all 4 hatches with Danboline. This is an oil based hard wearing bilge paint.
It’s now time to make a start on the re-fit. I do not have a conventional workshop out at my boatyard, so instead I use the shade of a large tree which forms a great canopy over the boat. It’s facing the sea so in the mornings there is a delightful sea breeze. To make it easy to work inside the hull I fit the flooring and Lazarette panels first, which gives a stable base to work off.
I have bolted the cleat onto the port side of the facing that is fitted onto the centre plate casing. Then follows the starboard side and top board. These are all originals manufactured by Just Lugger Joinery&more, great work.
My final task is to fit the original cockpit hatches, with a neat cream caulking edge to take out the ‘waviness ‘ and small discrepancies in the side wall of the cockpit – their moulds back in the 1970’s were not brilliant!
In a few days I will be starting to fit out Paxi , it’s the last of the 4 refits this summer.