Let’s talk about Amadea a little bit now, because she has a story to tell which goes back 50 years now! I’m only 34, so you can understand that when deciding to take over such a boat and work so vastly on it, I was also taking on a very big responsibility - or at least so I felt!
The boat that is now called Amadea was built in the late ‘60s in the Swedish boat-yard of Rosâttra and given the name of Skrållan. It’s built in mahogany, excluding the stern and fenders’ list which are made out of oak, and the lists that run along the edge of the deck which are made out of teak. The deck is mahogany plywood, a double 6 mm layer glued together that gives a fairly solid feel. The keel is made out of iron in accordance with the Koster rule and runs along most part of the length of the boat. In fact, if we compare Amadea with the Koster rule we see that it sticks to all 6 the points in it set. (cfr. http://www.laurinkoster.dk/Laurin__Wiki_/laurin__wiki_.html)
It’s worth noting the slender lines that the boat shows, the beautiful whale-back’ shape, rounded above the fenders’ list: a typical feature of koster boats and in particular of Laurin’s ones.
It’s also amazing that at 50 years of age Amadea still shows all the wood she’s made out of, no paint needed, no rot to hide, no dodgy patches or the like, no epoxy replacing wood bits or anything like it: all plain wood.
I’ve learned from the previous owner (which himself had the information from the previous owner) that Amadea went under restoration for the last time in 1991, which is when - I guess - they gave stain for the last time on the wood to make it darker and they replaced the benches’ pillows (or maybe just the covers).
In fact, as you can see from the pictures in the second post, Amadea’s wood was very yellow and patchy, a clear sign of our much loved star’s rays’ work on it over time; I had spotted a little rotten bit on the aft deck (by the stern post) while scraping varnish from hull and deck, the keel and hull were affected by some cracks that had opened between planks and that needed some tender, love and care (TLC) and the keel was very rusty... So she needed a full restoration on the outside, and that’s what I was going for!
I had bought it, I knew what the process would have involved, it was late spring, beginning of summer and the plan was that of dedicating to this operation from May to whenever it was necessary, but possibly before the end of July, because after then the værft would close and would have gotten me stuck on land for a whole month with no chance to take the boat in the water. I was doing the most part of the job on my own, and I knew it was going to be a full time job for the whole duration of the summer, possibly more, very unlikely any less. At the beginning I was hoping to get it done in one month, maybe two... This should tell the experienced reader something; I didn’t have a clue of what I was about to dive into, and that’s exactly how it was! My experience with sailing boat, after the Optimist’ sailing classes I took when I was about 12, was basically none, not to talk about varnishing and boat building in general. You might call me mad, and I did that too, very many times. Anyway, at the beginning of June I moved into the boat (on land) with all my gear, and got started with it very eagerly! I was really working 12 good hours a day, plus breaks, so as soon as I was up, and until it was time to go to bed, I was working on the boat, stopping only to keep hunger at bail and studying the boat carefully, assessing progresses and deciding further developments, and most important of it all: I was asking questions... Endless questions, many times to many different people - working for the værft or on their own boats at the værft - and many times the same question to the same person, to make sure I had understood everything, to double-check suggestion I wasn’t very happy with, and to make sure I had expressed myself properly with the others and they were telling me the whole story.
As a matter of fact I’m no carpenter, let alone a boat builder, nor a painter or a mechanic: I’m a philosopher and a photographer with a lot of different experiences and interests, I’m a maniac of “The Process”, struggling along the long road towards perfection while learning from repetition, and doing it with a rather autistic attitude! The triumph of here and now while something is being done: varnishing happens a stroke at the time, sanding a square inch at the time, every bit I take off the boat could generate a permanent mark on its wonderful body... This were my thoughts all the way along.
This attitude, combined with the kindness of the managers and workers at Holmen Yacht Værft let me make it through the restoration of Amadea without too many troubles! in fact I regard this thing that I’ve done as a collective process: I was the lucky hand delivering the final gesture of a cooperative birth-like process, a very humble gesture, that could only happen through a million millions “Excuse me...”, “Please” and “Thank you!”
