Two Beach Peas in Ireland

My new build. A Doug Hylan Beach Pea. Or should I say two Beach Peas! They will keep me busy this winter! I previously built an Ilur and an Auk. Ilur.tumblr.com for more on these.

[beach-pea-ireland]

Peapod on the running mooring.

[beach-pea-ireland]

The oars are mass produced chandlrey bought oars. They are 8 1/2 feet long so are at the maximum length recommended by the designer. On my first row I found them very heavy to lift out of the water. They were causing pain in my forearms almost from the get go. 

This meant that they needed to be counter balanced to make rowing the boat enjoyable. So how to do this quickly and effectively? My solution was to wrap some old roofing lead around the looms up by the handle. It worked a treat! I covered them in leather to avoid the sheet lead damaging the boat. The leather was also a handy way of hiding the grotty lead. The centre of balance of the oar is still about a foot below the collar of the oar leathers. That means that the blade will still sink into the water. 

I rowed for 3 hours on the second time out with no fore arm pain!

[ilur]

Went for a row today in the peapod. Out to Eve Island, then to Glandore and up to the old warehouse in Leap. It is an excellent little pulling boat. An app I use on the phone gave me a speed over the ground of three knots against wind and current and four knots with. There are spring tides at the moment and the wind was light, force 2-3 I would reckon. There was a moderate southerly swell from the south out by Eve. The peapod is a fantastic boat for skinny water. She only draws around 3 inches. Many times the oar blades weren’t fully immersed due to it being so shallow yet she didn’t get stuck.

[beach-pea-ireland]

I’ll be documenting all the trips I make in the pod on my main blog. There will still be a few more posts on this one of interest...

[beach-pea-ireland]

A mad rush to get her ready for a splash today before the weather breaks tonight. Still a lot of snagging to do - paint splashes, scratches, etc. I will be antifouling at some stage but seeing as she’ll be going nowhere near a mooring till spring that can wait. There will be a proper photo shoot with more details after Christmas some time.

[beach-pea-ireland]

So this is the pod this morning. The gunwales and breasthooks are shaped sanded and sealed with epoxy. I just have to wait for the epoxy to cure a bit more before sanding and painting the rest of the boat. The only thing I have left to make for the boat are the oarlock pads. I will probably leave them until after the painting is finished. Then its just a case of screwing on the keel band and she is ready to launch! I would be very surprised if that doesn’t happen before Christmas! Fingers crossed for some dry and settled weather!

[beach-pea-ireland]

Here is the first of the breasthooks after being shaped into the inwales.

[beach-pea-ireland]

Inwales in! I have screwed them after glueing with 50mm gauge 8 silicon bronze screws alternating from inside and outside the boat through each of the spacers. I wasn’t too worried about the placing of the holes as they will be filled with epoxy and the gunwales painted.

[beach-pea-ireland]

Meanwhile the sternsheets and thwarts are getting the deks olje 2 treatment in the spare room!

[beach-pea-ireland]

The boat has been sanded inside and out now and I am taking the chance to paint to the seat stringer before I glue the thwarts in. The inwale can’t go in until the thwarts are in as the thwart knees get lock in by it.

[beach-pea-ireland]

Dirty job today - 3 coats of epoxy to the inside. I’ll leave it for a week to cure before sanding. Bit of a cold snap this week so it will need it. I epoxied the underside of the thwarts and sternsheets as these won’t be seen. I’ll deks olje 1&2 them and then glue them in after sanding the inside of the hull to make things easier.

[beach-pea-ireland]

So i just glued the gunwale spacers on one side tonight. The clamps are cut up pvc pipe. The work a treat!

[beach-pea-ireland]

The thwart posts will not be glued in. Apparently this is to make them easy to replace if they break. Unfortunately I have just realised that I wasn’t supposed to glue the mortised block to the underside of the thwart. I guess they will be removable in Pod two!

[beach-pea-ireland]

The “stern” sternsheets are larger than the “bow” sternsheets(oxymoron?!). Hell it’s a double ender so it has two sterns and two bows right??

[beach-pea-ireland]

The curve of little template was taken from a fuel funnel I had lying about in the shed. Happily it also worked perfectly for the convex curves on the front edges of the sternsheets. A batten clamped in gave the large convex curves.

[beach-pea-ireland]

The sternsheets are quite straight forward. I am just going to screw them on so I  used spacers to keep them away from the planking of the boat. This produces a small channel for water to run down the seat risers. It also means that I don’t have to bevel the seats to the planking. I scribed the template using one of the small blocks that I will use later as the gunwale spacers.

[beach-pea-ireland]

I am carving stars into the seat beams. It is becoming a bit of a theme in my boats at this stage…

[beach-pea-ireland]

The roof leaked once or twice over the year and a half! It’s only a little water staining and besides, it will be painted over. Plywood looks shite varnished anyway!