Ginger rebuild XI

 

With the hull and the interior completed I now had to decide what to do with the lead. Ginger uses about 400 lbs of lead to help keep her upright against the pressure of the wind. This lead had been kept on the inside of the boat under the floor but I dislike having hundreds of lbs of loose lead that could shift about the boat in bad weather. So, I decided to melt all of the lead and recast it into 4 long keel weights that I could bolt to the bottom of the keel… easy to say, hard to do.

First, I had to build forms for the new ballast weight then I had to melt 400+ lbs of lead and pour it into the forms. After a day to cool and a bit of shaping I had new ballast lead ready to mount onto the bottom of the boat. I had cast notches into the lead to provide an overlap with the one in front. I took a sludge hammer to the lead and bent it to the curve of the keel. Then with help from Bob, I jacked the lead up to the bottom of Ginger, built bolts and bolted it into place. All that was left was a bit of trailer work and after a 5 year wait, Ginger went back into the water.

To all of you who have waded thru this very long series of blogs, I hope that you enjoyed them. It was a long, difficult project to rebuild 58 year old Ginger but as the results show, well worth it. I will give you a report on how well she sails in a few weeks. Until then, I hope that all of you enjoy the remaining summer, I know that I will!
 

The form was built on OSB, 2 1/2 inch deep.

I used this (close to) 100 year old stove to melt the lead on.

Very tricky business, each container weighed about 50lb of HOT molten lead

The finished product then had to be shaped, I used an electric hand planner to do the work.

To fit the lead to the bottom of Ginger I had to bend it. Notice the gap under the level?

This doesn't look like much but drilling lead is very tricky, the lead quickly melts and locks the bit into the lead. To prevent this you have to drip Acetone into the drill hole. It cools the bit and makes drilling lead from a pain in the a-- to a dream.

Good shot of the cast overlap in the lead.

All four pieces set up in their proper places ready to be mounted. There is a gap in the center because Ginger has a center board that you can drop down and so had to have a split ballast down the middle of the keel.

Fitting the lead onto the bottom of the boat.

Bob making bolts out of bronze rods. He's threaded the end, put a nut on and is pounding the end over so that the nut will never come off.

Spreading roofing tar onto the top of the lead just before raising it into place.

Pounding the bolts into place.

Finished !!!

One happy man!!!!

Because of the added distance from the lead, we had to take the wheels off from the trailer to roll it back under the boat.

Ginger on the trailer, masts loaded and ready to go.

Ta Da !!!!!!!!!!