This year has seemed to slip by, with Victoria in various forms of lockdown for most of the middle of the year. This has also made work distracting, and time limited.

Happily, Ferdi and his team were deemed essential to the ongoing maintenance of Pt Phillips’ maritime sector, and in particular to its fishing vessels, and so was able to continue on.

So we have some good progress to report.

With the stem and apron replaced with a sturdy new laminated items, there is some additional good progress on the transom, and what Ferdi is calling two ‘fashion pieces’. These connect to the transom with some large knees, and serve to fasten several planks. Like the transom, they are large solid pieces of kauri pine, that have retained most of their structural integrity. There has been a need to repair some areas of damage, as this area of the boat was grown over with a large apple tree, with a large accumulation of leaves (and apples!) over what looks like a decade or more. The knees were completely rotted away, while the kauri survived better. Most of the kauri planking remains sound also, with some damage. The transom will be deepened to provide options for plank fastening, and hopefully less plank restoration.

Repaired transom can be seen above lying upside down on scaffold boards, on the aft of Wyruna. Quite a large piece of kauri, that would have been difficult to source I suspect, if full replacement was required. The repair timber was luckily left from the restoration of Ferdi’s own boat, Ruthean.

This photo is a little blurry (screen shot from a video) but shows several points. Transom is out, along with the side pieces (fashion pieces), but also shows better the frame constructed around Wyruna. This provides a work platform, but is primarily for keeping the hull shape, through a series of internal braces, with an horizon to work to. Probably the subject to a longer post.

Starboard fashion piece, showing the nibs for the plank ends. Some repair to this one, but otherwise in good shape. Less apple tree over this side of Wyruna.

Port fashion piece, again showing nibs for the planks. This side had more apple tree ‘cover’, and had some resultant rot, seen as a repair of new timber to the top side.

View of the port side looking forward, showing where the plank ends are staggered to fit into the fashion piece. Also shows the rear of the bracing system, against the stringer here at the stern. At this point, few of the ribs removed, although that is the next step and is well underway at the time of posting.