JAMES ROBINSON TAYLORCAMBRIA
crew have done an amazing job looking after the steel
work everywhere they could get to and a lot of it was in
remarkably good condition. But we had a final list of
steel repairs which ran into 200 items or more, from a
single weld to the whole of the stem. We did some
repairs and renewals to the chainplates as well, partly
because they had corroded, partly because they weren’t
brilliantly put in. We had three or four welders on site
for nearly seven months to get it all done.”
Cambria is no longer in Lloyd’s class, but all the new
steel used was Lloyd’s Grade A, coated with Intershield- “Sticks like the proverbial,” said Matthew.
There was a fear that the stem might distort during
the time it was off the boat, so templates were taken as
soon as it was removed. In fact it was stable enough to
be refitted as it was. Of all the planks that were removed,
70 per cent were repaired and refitted while the rest
(about the same number above and below the waterline)
were replaced. The original teak garboards remained.
The new topside planking is African mahogany, whereas
the original was probably from Honduras or Brazil, in
lengths of up to 9 metres; and the new underwater
planks are all teak, up to about 6 metres, made from
boards which the captain had sourced two years earlier
(with a view to using them to renew the deck). A total of
6,240 new stainless steel bolts were used to fasten the
planks to the framework with Tufnol washers isolating
the stainless steel washers and nuts from the steel.
The seams were caulked with boat cotton, before
mahogany and teak splines were epoxied in. “We don’t
know if she was splined originally,” said Matthew, “but
we had to make sure the hull was as strong and rigid as
we could to minimise movement before we put the new
glass cloth on the outside of the hull. It is a crossover of
traditional and modern techniques really.” After fairing
Above Post-refit
she was delivered
south and will be
in the Med this
coming season(11mm) thick flat keel plate and ‘vertical’ side keel plates
(although their changing angle matches that of the
planking), which are connected by forged angled plates
riveted to them. The angled plates were found to be
particularly corroded and at some point link plates had
been fitted between the bottom ends of the frames and
the floors to compensate for this. These link plates were
now removed, the flat keel plate was renewed down to
the waterline, and the angled plates to a position just aft
of the mast step, fabricated this time and welded to the
neighbouring components.
The other main part of the steel structure which
needed major attention was the sheer strake: 19in x
0.28in (0.48m x 7mm) for two-thirds of the length of the
boat, deeper in way of the mast and reducing at the ends
of the boat. Deck leaks had caused its outer face to
corrode to the extent that the top planks were being
pushed outwards. But there were complications in
accessing it because the fastenings holding in place the
bulwark and capping – which were in perfectly good
condition and therefore not being removed – went down
through the top plank. So this was cut out while the next
two planks down were removed more carefully. The steel
sheer strake was then made good with needle guns and
grinders, and just a few local repairs – rust being ten
times the thickness of its original material, it had looked
much worse than it was – before being epoxy coated.
New top planks were then fitted in two laminations with
the inboard one being slid upwards between the sheer
plate and the bulwark capping fastenings, before the
outboard one was glued in place with epoxy. The next
two planks were then refitted conventionally.
“Because we took the boat apart more than it had
been for many years,” explained Matthew, “we exposed
parts of the boat no one had seen for a long time. The