Rebuilding Tally Ho

This week we take on a job that we have been putting off for many months - to sand back and varnish the entire deck structure. It’s a little crazy to try and varnish in such cold weather, but it’s going to be a lot easier to do this before we install the deck blocking and deck planks! Luckily we have plenty of hands, with Patrick returning for a third time, Jake’s final week, and some extra help from our friend Nina. We also continue to process the Yellow Cedar deck stock, adding the caulking bevel and chamfers and painting the underside. Backtrack makes a rare appearance at the lunch-table, and the travelift rumbles past the workshop with another unwieldily load.

After a snow-white turn of the year, Richard braves the cold to cut the engine beds out of some huge pieces of Purpleheart. These beams will support the engine and connect it to the hull, so they need to be extremely strong and well fastened. In an unlikely looking white van, we find a large wooden crate - the engine itself! Having broken it out and stared at it for some time, I discuss how this Parallel-Hybrid Diesel-Electric engine functions, and why I chose it.

Finally, the time has come to begin working on Tally Ho’s new Ballast Keel!

EPISODE 118 Pouring a Lead Keel (Pt 2)

Having cast the 17,000lb Lead Ballast Keel, we finally break it out of the mould and take a proper look at it! After trimming the ends and cutting a key with a chainsaw, we have to figure out a way of moving it around, in order to get it underneath the boat.

Catching up on all sorts of work that has been going on whilst we were casting the keel - deck strapping, engine bed bolts, bulkheads, and so on!

After so much design and preparation, the time has finally come to lay the deck strakes! It’s a hugely exciting and rewarding process and it goes pretty well. We also take a close look at The Lady Washington (Washington’s State Ship), and build a mezzanine deck for better working access to Tally Ho.

At last, it’s time to bolt the ballast keel to the bottom of the boat - before we sail off without it! Auger bits get welded, counterbores get sharpened, and a series of huge holes are drilled through hardwood and lead before Aluminium-Bronze bolts are driven in. In other exciting news, we lift the engine into the boat, paint the engine beds and bilge, cut an access hatch, and fit the staunchions - it’s been a busy couple of weeks!

In this episode we focus on the interior of the boat - finishing the engine-access hatch, building bunks and slats, and making corner posts and partitions. We also add more coats of varnish to the hull interior, and even get a visit from our old friend Pancho! Finally, it’s time for me to take a trip back to the UK.

This episode may not be for everyone - It is all about the basic theory of sailing boat stability, and the details of the stability calculations that we have done to ensure that Tally Ho floats properly to her designed waterline and maintains her original sailing characteristics. I’ve been back in the UK for a month and no physical work has been done on Tally Ho during that time, so this video is entirely dialogue and diagrams! However, this less glamorous work is extremely important for authenticity and sailing performance.

There has been so much going on in the workshop this week! …and to top it off, I think this is one of the best videos I’ve made! The other guys aren’t back yet, so it’s just been me and Patty holding the fort. We’ve been working on sole-boards, engine drip-tray, chain locker cladding, cockpit design, diesel tank design, fitting the stern tube, painting bulkheads, varnishing cypress/oak panels, and sailing Stromboli!! This is actually a pretty normal couple of weeks around here, but in this video I’ve tried to give a sense of all the different things happening at once, rather than focus on one specific subject.

Pete and Zeal fit the covering boards… these wide planks go around the outside of the deck and cover the connection between the deck and the hull. They are a very complicated shape due to all the plank-nibs, and they are cut out of huge boards of Teak.

It seems like Tally Ho may be nearly finished… but is she really? And when will she finally be re-launched? In this episode we take a look at the work left to do, the steps left to take, the order of tasks, and the likely timeframe. We also catch up with the progress over the last couple of weeks, with a lot of interior joinery, a sliding bunk mockup, drip-tray and sole board installation, and a mysterious teddy bear.

The Western Flyer is a 73’ purse seiner built in 1937 in Tacoma, Washington. In 1940 she was chartered by author John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts for a marine specimen-collecting expedition in the Gulf of California. Steinbeck’s book about their journey, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, is considered one of his most important works. After a hard life of fishing, the Western Flyer sunk and was left for dead… until a marine geologist named John Gregg stepped up and purchased the boat. The Western Flyer arrived in Port Townsend in 2015 and since then has been painstakingly rebuilt and restored by the Port Townsend Shipwrights Coop. On the 29th June 2022 she was pulled out of the shed on rollers, launched, and towed to Seattle for engine and systems installation.

As Tally Ho's king planks get installed and the covering boards get trimmed and rounded-over, there is a dramatic change as the deck suddenly starts to look like the real thing. Also in this video; we meet the new shipwright on the team, we get a visit from Pancho the macaw, Leo catches the dreaded virus, and Pete launches his boat.

In this video we take a tour of Tally Ho’s interior, which is coming together pretty quickly now! George has been building some beautiful bunk-sides from the original 112-year-old Teak planks. Richard is building bunks and Oak cabinetry, and Patrick has fit a lot of Ash sole-boards. Meanwhile, Leo works on figuring out the companionway steps and battery locker, Clifton fits the Skylight sills, and Pete adds some more Purpleheart to the Centerline… there’s a lot going on!

In this video we finally get the batteries installed in the boat! But first we have to build the battery locker and a heavy-duty purple heart rack to hold them. We also install a lot of sole boards, bunk-sides, and a secret locker…

In this episode we install the Aquadrive thrust bearing (which requires an extremely shiny and strong custom stainless steel bracket), the coupling, the stuffing box, the prop shaft, and the propeller! Our neighbor Dylan help us with lots of machining work as we cut the shaft to length, cut the keyway, face the coupling, and so on.

After a quick review of our open house weekend, we meet the main characters who will be responsible for Tally Ho’s electrical system, as well as the other systems in the boat - plumbing, heating, diesel, etc. Tyson makes a great start with the electrical supply and distribution system, wiring in loads of shiny and exciting blue boxes from Victron. We also catch up with Patrick and George, who have both been busy with other projects on the boat, including some satisfying bronze-work and a Cherry cabinet / wardrobe in the aft cabin.

In this episode I search for - and find - the perfect sailing tender for Tally Ho! We also meet the crew of a local fishing schooner that delivers their Alaskan Salmon by bicycle, and witness a trawler-yacht be transformed with a spectacular paint job.

After a long wait, we finally receive our welded plastic Diesel tanks... and then it all goes wrong.

In this episode we follow some really interesting and complex joinery on deck. The hatch sills, built by Clifton, feature some mind-bending half-lap mitre joints and some very challenging coves. The bulwark termination block is an unusual feature that Tally Ho was originally built with, and gets remade from some large purple heart blocks. We also receive some beautiful new tanks which get installed in the bilge, and have a lot of fun playing with some knives.

In this video we make progress all over the boat - the engine-room sole is laid, the diesel-engine exhaust gets installed, and Zeal joins the team again to do some caulking and fair the keel timber. We start work inside the head, including the glamorous job of trying to position the toilet itself, and we meet Pat Mahon, who starts constructing the deck hatches! In other news, we watch the Schooner Martha get lifted out of the water, and George finds a creative use for an original keel bolt.

In this video we have some very exciting developments regarding the construction of the Mast and other Spars. Elsewhere, Clifton does some stunning woodwork building the cockpit coamings, and Nic drills several holes in the boat!

It’s time to build Tally Ho’s rudder! We start by purchasing a gigantic piece of Purpleheart from Edensaw, which Zeal cuts into several pieces using the chainsaw mill. Later in the video he starts the shaping and assembly process, using Coaks (blocks of hardwood set into the flying surfaces) to add to the strength. Elsewhere, Patrick makes some beautiful doors and drawers for the wardrobe in the aft cabin, Clifton begins the construction of the cockpit, and some of the crew take the dinghies on a camping trip.

In this video we cut and shape long boards of Wana (Red Louro) to plank the bulwarks with. The strakes are then fastened onto the Oak bulwark staunchions, creating a wood wall around the edge of the deck. We also meet Bob, a new member of the crew whose first job is to make the Channels - large Purpleheart blocks that get fastened on the outside of the hull in order to spread the rigging away from the bulwarks and cap rail.