The story starts there where someone else says she actually was expecting a boat shiny painted with wood work, whereas I was already fine with what I had and intended to do some minor repairs to start with boating as soon as possible and then see what could be changed or refined. This someone was off corse no one else than my wife who then bluntly said that she will not join any kind of trip with a boat which was not completely overhhauled and probably putting our family's live into risk on sea.
- Please mind the safety regulation on sea!
One boatbuilder, whom we consulted, made her believe that for all such repair work we should pay already so much money like for a new boat, because what was only useful would be the hull and nothing else. Which meant that all russian onboard equipment should be going directly to scrap, especially the engine. In fact he was right in what he said because we went to hell with my obsession to repair an engine originally (I certainly will be back on this issue) . I think that his intention was rather to sell one of his ready boats, which bursted somewhere in the darkest place of his body, due to the crisis. He tried to make his own boats more attractive propagating that they have a camera and also a toillet of which he said, that this is what women want/need.
Besides this the prices given for the overhaul were so expensive, that I had to made up my way to experience it on my own.
The boat was in a very bad condition after the transport from Batumi. Deck was bumped at several places, paint was so old and top coating was of poor quality cracked and dirty.
- Hull bumped and paint cracked at several places
There was no other way than painting and mending the deck.
The guy who repaired the bumps on the hull did not want to stress the hull too much as he feared the rivvets to crack.
- Hull cleaning took some time and was all done by hand (soda blasting was not available)
He wanted to fill remaining gaps with mastic. Another option would have been to cover the boats deck like some other Volga owners did. Now Volgas have a rather flat deck compared to other contemporary wooden boats and according to me this can in some cases look like glueing a table on deck.
- Example for a flat topper.
- Example for a rounded top (Riva Olympic)
- RivaFront.jpg (30.44 KiB) Viewed 62092 times
In the istanbul boatshow fair I ran into a boot/fair, which was selling superlight PVC hardfoam sheets, which can be glued on the hull with epoxy resin and later easily shaped by sanding. The material is extremely hard against impacts and superlight. It is extremely easy to shape and when used together with epoxy and glassfibre or fabric it becomes even more resistant. I bought 20 mm thick sheets glued them on deck with 2K epoxy resin,
- Sheets glued on an cut.
cut away the edges and rounded them with sandpaper
- Sanded and rounded
. Later on we applied on the top one more layer with fabric,
- White wedding
fibreglass
- Fiberglass cover
and epoxy resin. This was then also sanded. The deck was now completely even, 22 - 25 mm higher than original and with a rounder shape.
- Difference between sanded and unsanded
The sheets where so firm and robust that they did not show any deformation even when you were jumping on them.
Everything was ready for Sika bonding of the wood. With the wood layers of 5 mm the deck will get taller by about 30 mm, which was also intended.
(Frankly speeking this could also have been done with ultralight marine plywood and the result and sturdiness would have been probably better than of this material. The rounding effect for itself was not significant. I didn't want to exagurate it.)
The wooden deck design was copied and/or refined from other Volgas or Rivas. We started with the edges where there used to be the rub rails.
- Wooden rail
Later on we made the sides and the middle for the frame.
- Wood applied on deck
- Middle beam with anchor hadge
The wood was applied in such way, that all parts had the width.
- Width control
- The sides of the cockpit were rounded, too.
.
- Front view ''wooded''
- Wood applied on deck
- Back wooded
We then inserted white wood between the mahagony.
- White wood between at the bow
- White wood at stern glued-in
After sanding the front this is what revealed itself:
- Bow wood sanded.
- Stern sanded
Lamination of the engine room hatch
- Lamination of the engine room hood
Fitting of it
- fitted without wood yet
Although we have shortened some components on the engine like filter and decreased height of water tank, we had to make a cut-out for the engine.
- Cut out for engine. For proper breathing of the engine room and engine we had to do it anyway.
To make a nicely shaped breathing hood will again be a challenge.
