Work Bench

Work Bench

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Terry Everitt with Bill and 'Swinging

This restoration was something of a contrast to the mammoth task undertaken with Stan Clifford’s Hell’s Bells. In many respects, what I have finished up with looks little different to what I started with, but that hides a great deal of work.

It all started with a trip down to Enfield to pick up the motor for ‘Melody’ ready for the Model Engineering Exhibition. As well as the motor, Terry Everitt pointed to a large hull in the corner and said I could have that as well ‘if I thought I could do anything with it’. It was ‘Swinging’ the second of the ‘A’ Class boats run by his dad, the late Bill Everitt, which we featured in Pitbox in April this year. The new hull was built for the 1962 season to utilise the existing 30cc motor from his previous boat ‘Melody’. ‘Swinging’ as it was named was capable of running at over 70mph and gave Bill many regatta successes over the next two seasons until his untimely death in 1964.

A named boat with a history is always an attractive project and there seemed little that needed to be done until I turned it over. Half of the palm plate was missing, along with a substantial piece of the bottom and one of the frames where the power of the motor had proved too much for the shaft mountings. Water damage had led to both sides of the boat delaminating, presenting me with something of a problem. I popped the original motor back in for a photo call before pondering on what to do.

I try to keep as much original material as possible, but as the boat was built around these two long lengths of ply, replacing them was not an option as what would have been left would not have been ‘Swinging’. The first stage was to remove the bottom of the hull, which proved to be far more of a challenge than anticipated. Scraping the paint out of a multitude of screw slots kept me amused for a while. Usually old glue joints will come apart with a little encouragement, but this glue was as good as the day it had been applied. The ply had to be taken off the glue bit by bit and then the glue removed by scraping. It transpired that it was Araldite, which must be a good advert for the lasting powers of epoxy.

The rest of the hull was fine so all remedial work had to be done from the bottom, which is not the easiest way to work. Each lamination of the ply had glue pumped into it and then clamped up over a distance of about five inches. Interestingly, the glue came through the faces of the ply when clamped. What had caused the problems with the shaft in the first place was a lack of any supporting structure so a new set of formers, sub frames and reinforcement was glued into place for the shaft. Before the slot for this could be put in, a decision had to be made about a motor.

As it is intended that this boat will run again, using Bill’s original engine was not an option, but the Watkins motor that had seen service in ‘Melody’ when Peter Hill was running it became available and that was an almost exact fit. The engine plates, bolts and spacers were all reused and soon there was something that looked like a boat, although with a large hole where the bottom used to be. The only work needed on the motor was a smaller flywheel and coupling and a lot of de-gunging. With the motor and skeg in place, a serious session or two with round files had the shaft fitting snugly and then it was a case of varnishing and repainting the insides of the compartments that would be sealed when the bottom skin went on.

Reasoning that if epoxy was good enough in the first place, that is what I would use, and so an hour or so with very sticky fingers followed, as the myriad of screws went back in. With the bottom trimmed and sanded, the motor and skeg could be re-installed ready for aligning the shaft. I had taken particular care with this aspect so was pleasantly surprised when the shaft slid into both couplings without any binding.

I had left all the original paint in place, so it was a matter of filling in the various holes and dings and building up the surfaces where the paint was missing before a couple of coats of International’s finest. Taken aback somewhat when I was informed that International had withdrawn this type of paint, as ‘there was no demand’. Is it back to Japlac or Valspar, or have they vanished as well? New name and registration numbers courtesy of Steve at Humberston Signs and we were nearly there.

All the original parts for the fuel system were still with the boat, including a very large tank made from an OXO tin that proved to have a couple of leaks. Suitably re-soldered and with a more substantial mount, that dropped back into place perfectly. The size of tank would probably be good enough for 40 or 50 laps so the existing fuel cut-off is connected into the fuel line. This only left a silencer, or lack thereof. The normal method of manufacture at the time was to wrap Gun Gum round a former and manifold and then stick it in the oven, preferably when the wife was absent. I was not going to get away with this and the silencing properties were not up to the standards required today, so I set to and made a entire system that should muffle the motor without affecting performance too badly.

All that remains is to wrestle with the exceedingly ‘whippy springy steel’ required for ‘A’ Class bridles and then sort out something that looks about right in the prop department and ‘Swinging’ should be on the water again.