The life of N2760 Grimalkin. Design: Cheshire Cat, designed by: Michael Jackson in 1973
on ebay 27/03/07
Purchased the Boat from Ebay, spent days sanding/ painting/ varnishing it. Then sailed on the Tamar for the season. Great little boat, no leaks or problems but now i'm off traveling to NZ and it's up for Sale.
New wheels on launching trolley, x2 sets of sails (one set is very old but usable).
Marine Paint and Varnish new this season.
Collection from nr Saltash/Plymouth or can be sailed and delivered somewhere along the Tamar!
Ready to sail!
11/ 10/ 07 - purchased Grimalkin. Currently in weymouth, hoping to come to some open events soon!
Grimalkin after some fettling :)
And when the boat was new a Needlespar Mast cost £45.05 fully rigged and the boom was £11.95. A main from Ace of Clubs (now Westaways!) was £31.00 nd the jib 13.50.......................................................
Grimalkin sold to Jemremy Farrow. I understand she shall be sailing in the Evesham area on the river.
Yes indeed !
Now residing in Evesham and about to hit the water!
A few little fettles yesterday ( gooseneck position, haliyard cleating, elastics etc, a few more this evening ( adjusting trolley to fit my combi) and we will be on the river this sunday.
Plans for the winter include a light rub down of the outside and repaint in a bright Cheshire cat Orange complete with graphics but a serious strip of the varnish. She seems to be in really good nick and I would like to have her as attractive inside as out. She is made of rally good timber and it should be shown off. New mast probably and Santa might even come up with some new sails ??
Oh, and that name has got to go .....
Something Cat related I think ??
I was thinking of 'Ginger Pussy' but my wife said NO, cant think why ?? ::)
Jeremy - - don't know if you were aware but her name is already cat related. It's an old word for 'cat'
A grimalkin is also a word used for an old or evil-looking she-cat. The term stems from "gray" (the color) plus "malkin", an archaic word for demon. There are some famous cats of that name in literature too - starting with Shakespeare going right through to some great kid's stories published recently. The boat, like the name, carries a lot of history - I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to change it - she might get upset and put a curse on you!
Jemery,
As Tim says, the boat has always been called Grimalkin - right back to the day that Richard Holtum launched her at Queen Mary all those years ago - so a name change could put the curse of the Wicked Witch of the North on you!!!!!!!!! Also the light blue is actually the original colour that she was painted by Impact Boats.
Having disappeared off the classes radar for a while, I saw her racing on Plymouth Sound whilst I was racing my Mini Tonner, she then appeared for sale in the Western Morning News in the autumn of 1994, just as I was thinking about buying another Twelve (I got bored of keelboats!). All it needed was a quick look to see that she just needed a lick of paint and varnish and she would look as good as new - those Ace of Club's sails you have were unused when I bought her!
I took her over to race at Salcombe and that was the start of the classes resurgance on the Estuary! I kept her until 1998 when I sold her on to Chris Cleaves and bought 3396. Chris decided to re-deck the foredeck in the winter of 2000,having broken the original Needlespar mast that Autumn, and then living up to his nickname (Chubby!!) decided that he was too heavy and sold her to Peter Sturgess's son. She rarely touched the water after that, living in a barn outside of Malborough where she languished until rescued in an ebay auction 03/07.
John / Tim,
Thanks for filling me in on the missing detail.
The name issue is amusing - you can see I never benefitted from a classical education !
I might think about the name - but sorry - the colour has to go. It has made me think though - could be that a nice sharp grey would go well ??
Sails are 'OK' will last us for a bit whilst we get used to her - then a new boom and mast as well as a new suit!
She seems ideal for the river, really quite nimble. Now its just Lesley and I that have to get up to speed !
Well !
SWMBO had a real go at me last night !!
The name stays or she reckons I will be hexed!
The colour stays !
No work on the inside till the kitchen is refurbished !
Oh, and adverse comments regarding my lowly status as a 'Cabin Boy' - thinks I need to try harder:o
Just to add a contemporary tag to the comments already posted re. the name I can add that the creator of my character, the author Joseph Delaney, adopts the name 'Grimalkin' in his series, 'The Wardstone Chronicles'. Five books in a series have been published so far beginning with the title 'The Spooks Apprentice' and the sixth is due early in 2009. In the forth story, 'The Spooks Battle', the Malkins are one of the three clans of Pendle witches at the centre of the plot. 'Grimalkin' is a most feared elder witch of the Malkin clan who has been reponsible for murder.
..............'Grimalkin' is the 'assasin witch'.
Warner Bros hold the film rights to the first story and the film of 'The Spooks Apprentice' is well into pre-production. I should be appearing on the big screen soon, staff in hand.
The stories are directed at children but just like Harry Potter they are attractive to adults. They are fast paced, exceptionally well crafted, and I highly recommend them to parents of 8-14 y.os. for encouraging their kids to read. ...................available at all good book sellers!
Tom Ward, Appentice to the Spook.
Well there you go !
I guess I have to keep the name or the Pendle Witches will have me !:X
Small update - re -extended mast is good - less bumped heads.
Anthony, my keelboat sailing neighbour and I had her on the Avon this sunday, great fun again but oh dear did we make a hash of things.
We WILL do better next week!
Our roll-tacking was very poor at Anthony had no dry suit - and boy did that water look chilly so not enough effort by either of us, other than that by the time we finished we just about had her under control and my goodness does she point well !:)
Refurbishment Starts.
A good bit later than planned but frankly Lesley would have beaten me to a pulp if I hadnt done the garden etc etc first.
Work with the hot air gun has produced startling results, the timber is even better than I thought and I am hopefull of a good cosmetic result.
The area stripped in the photo has produced a whopping 1.9Kg of varnish scrapings ! Thats going to help.
Plan is to strip inside bare and epoxy with SP 203, adding some fillets around the Center case, transom and knees to stiffen her up a bit. Then varnish with an epoxy compatible material.
A couple of questions though :-
1) What about the areas under the gunwhales on the inside - I cant get my hands in to strip and I dont feel inclined to 'Un-deck' her. Will this be OK just to run the epoxy up to overlap; or does someone have a cunning solution ?
2) With regard to stiffening fillets, could someone please advise me what kind of dimensions / radii I should be looking at?
Jeremy - just give me a call if you want to talk about filleting! My number's in the book. Tim
Thanks for that, at the moment epoxy seems a distant dream !
Another 10 hors scraping and more inner hull is revealed - total mass of varnish bits removed so far - an unbelievable 4.9 Kg, that is two full large bin bags ! I just hope this will be worth it .
Very pleased to see some nice mahogany being revealed.
Scraping at last finished, with some 5 Kg of varnish and other Yuk removed.
Starting to look quite OK as the overall picture might show.
However as the inner and outer view of the transom show all is not well there.
Firstly the old fitting screw holes are black and ugly, but as the inner view shows there is a crack from the corner of the port flap hole across. I guess epoxy and microbaloons will fill this but what about the aesthetics ? Should I let in a new chunk of timber to replace the center section ?
Any ideas please ?
Hi Jeremy - yes - it looks a well used and abused transom. How are you off for overall length?? One option might be to add a thin external ply/solid timber plate to cover the damage and tie together the split (see attached pic of N2255 - although yours would be more aesthetically shaped I'm sure!) But don't go down this route if adding it it means you will then exceed max hull length.
Alternatively, if you are handy with a router you could route out the affected area 3-4mm deep and epoxy in your new transom plate to cover all the damage
Another way would be to try and get some epoxy in the crack but also to add a couple of narrow matching vertical mahogany battens on the inside of the transom on either side of the transom knee to hold it together. Then either drill out and plug the holes, or use a sharp countersink on them to get back to clean timber and then fill with appropriately coloured epoxy.
Or indulge in some serious transom surgery....! Hope that helps. Tim.
Hi Tim,
Thank you, I think I will go for routing out a 'slot' the width between the drain holes and letting in a strip. As I will be doing something on the inside epoxy wise I am not over concerned on strength, more looks. I may well go for timber to match the styling line on the gunwhales. I guess I will never match the mahogany exactly so I may as well make it a feature !
The easy way out of a capping piece is out due to the length issue and I am not feeling up to surgery ( I want her back on the water)
Regards
Several hours of sanding, and several more to go I guess, but getting there !
A visit to Dinghy Craft and some advice ( and timber) from Mr Herring has given me a solution to the transom issue, a piece of Mahogany will be let in to the area between the transom flaps, epoxied and filleted etc.
A few minutes attention with a fine bladed saw and I remoddled the transom to fit around my new bit of mahogany.
A quick slurp of epoxy and the hole was filled.
Now to cut it back out again - and to talk to Mr Gatti on the art of 'filleting'.
After a while sanding she has come up quite well - not exactly invisible - but at least servicable!
Saturday pm 16th May - finally sanded enough to move on to the filleting stage. I think if I had realised how much work was involved I would not have bothered. I shall be seriously depressed if she doesnt look good when finished.
Following advice from Tim, and armed with a supply of Tesco Icing bags I launched into filleting stringers , knees, transom and bulkhead with gusto. Turned out to be less than 3 hours work in the end.
I now need to invert her and do the bulkhead/ foredeck seam and the foredeck/stringer seams then phase 1 of epoxying is done. Just need then to 'sterilise ' the garage.
After closing up the garage, taking dinner and a couple of glasses of Merlot I couldnt resist nipping back to have a self-congratulatory look at how things had gone and saw to my horror I had left a piece of masking tape in place !
Dash it ! I thought............
May well leave it there and varnish over it.
Hey - nice one Jeremy - I said the filleting wouldn't take long once you got down to it. The one thing I've learned is that you always miss one bit of masking tape. She'll look fantastic once that first epoxy coat goes on. It's a real drag having to sand it all once it's gone off in order to provide a key for the varnish - but remember - it's a once in a lifetime job and you won't ever need to do it again .... on 'Grimalkin' anyway, there may be other boats waiting though!?.Tim
Thanks for that Tim, but You dont know my wife !!
I did fully expect to find last week out how much Cheshire Cat could be stuffed down my throat ( or elsewhere) , she has calmed down a bit now as she can see the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis but another one !! Oh No No No........
I am going for 2 coats of Epoxy, 1 of 2 pack varnish and then as many ( hopefully 1) coats of yacht varnish as needed to get the deep gloss I want.
Must say that getting the fillets in place has given me an uplift and the rest should be easy.
Thanks for your encouragement.
Wa Hey !!!
First coat of epoxy on - what a difference !
Question is now is Does she need two coats ?? will that add strength and durability or just weight ??
First picture of Grimalkins new top clothes !
Reasonably happy so far.
good effort jeremy, she looks stunning
Thanks Tony!
Here she is from behind - mangey transom now all but invisible.
Thanks to another car breakdown yesterday the hull was sanded back to primer and now has two base coats ( epoxy will be next winter) . Ready for a top coat tonight ( god willing)
Centerboard stripped back bare - so disapointed. It is a beautiful piece of straight grained mahogany - but with a great chunk taken out of the back which has been filled with isopon so clear epoxy was not an option.
Epoxied, undercoated and ready for a top coat tonight as well.
Hull rubbed down to the original base coats and a bit of 'Toplac' splashed on over a suitable intercoat. ( epoxy treatment in the winter).
Decided on Grey to match the name - as someone pointed out to me it is 'grey old cat' in old English.Also the hull matches my hair !
Quite happy with the result so far. She is now sanded up top to take the final varnish coats . I am pleased to have been able to get the stem post back to decent timber so it will be 'varnished' not in hull colour.
And a closing item I suppose - Grimalkin with her name emblazoned. Just about to blast around a cold wet and horrible Bala Lake