Lilian. Putting her back in shape.

This nearly foxed me for a while. Lilian is a carvel built open motor launch, about 7 metres long, and was in a terrible state. She had been lying on her side for some time before she came to college to be rebuilt, and this meant that she was terribly misshapen. She was severely flattened all along her starboard side, and for a while seemed determined to stay that way. I put in a centreline and began horning from this to establish a better shape with the use of a couple of stiff battens around her sheer to help.

Then I reworked her grown floors and futtocks. Starting at the stern and working forward. Some had been made by other students, I made or heftily altered and refitted the rest. None had been fixed into place so I gained experience of making up and fitting keel bolts and the bolts to hold lower and upper futtocks together. What isn’t the pictures are the large A frames that we eventually installed to hold the stem and stern plumb. Five sets of frames later and she was back in shape, and ready for the next step.