Winter is coming | Perdita 2 Wooden Boat Little Ship

I spent Saturday afternoon doing some little Sika flex jobs around the boat in prep for her being undercover for a few months. I’ve run out of time to finish the rubbing strakes this year, so that’ll have to be one of the first jobs in the spring time.

Saturday was the first time I’ve seen the boat in daylight since I’ve rebuilt the freeboards and painted her, I’m sort of pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t look as bad as I’d feared. I have much to thank West System and Interlux for. 🙂

There is still lots to do on the interior, but insulation is the hot topic. I’m in two minds whether to rip out the insulation that’s in there. I hesitated putting it in this year and for that reason it’s the cheapest stuff I could buy. I’ve had advice both ways on and there’s lots online (see footer of page) but I’m inclined to remove it. I doubt it will actually do anything anyway. Respected advice says it will prevent circulation of air around the side hull planks creating damp (conditions for rot).

Here’s me back in March on Instagram thinking the foil was a good idea – including self doubt caption:

Decided stapling loads of tin foil insulation is a good idea. Probably not but at least its shiny. #boatrestoration #perdita2 #oldboat #woodenboat

A post shared by Rob Horan (@hashrob) on Mar 30, 2017 at 9:10am PDT

Basically it’s about ensuring that there is air circulation around the planks. I’ve left a gap between the foil insulation and the hull planks (i.e. its not glued) but maybe not enough. I may just opt for insulation in the berth between two sheets of ply separated from the hull/ribs to ensure air flow but hold a bit of heat in at night.

Anyway, insulation aside here’s a few photos from Saturday, the main task of the day was seeing whether I could single handed put a bloody massive tarpaulin over the boat, a 12m x 8m single sheet with a bunch of bungees.

Sika flexing the centre rubbing strake and adding some more screws.

The office for the day, bit cold.

The view is getting better, stern still covered in workshop dust:

Getting the big tarpaulin on, I need to go back and prop the deck area so the rain spills off.

The deck in the daylight, still lots more paint to go on both the deck and cockpit roof. Loads of work to do there… (photo is a pano hence distortion).