A new forehatch

Enfys' forehatch was the standard, simple affair that she had been built with. The Finesse builder had constructed the coamings with drains through the outer coaming that aim to prevent water from passing as seas are shipped aboard. Then, for some reason chose to finish it off with a very basic flat-topped hatch cover with little strength and no camber to shed water!  In my opinion it looked out of place and, additionally the plywood top had started to rot from rainwater ingress and, to top it all the vent was broken... An ideal opportunity to make some improvements.....

Here is the rotton plywood cut from the old hatch with my penknife stuck in the softened wood:



The old plywood was cut away with the jigsaw and the frame cleaned up.  The camber of the surrounding deck was marked onto a template and transferred to suitable lengths of 3/4" thick iroko that were then glued to the fore and aft rails of the hatch frame and then carefully faired in:

The intention was to bend a new plywood hatch top over the cambered frame.  However the original top was 3/4" thick and it would have been well nigh impossible to bend such thick ply over the lightweight frame. What I did was to attach a temporary frame with identical camber half-way across the hatch opening to support the ply as it was bent over the frame:

The new plywood hatchtop was made from three skins of 1/4" marine (BS1088) 5-ply.  Each skin was laid at 90deg to the previous and glued with West Epoxy 205/106.  As the job was done in winter I had to do the job indoors where it was warmer. (In the workshop it was well below freezing and no place to cure Epoxy!)  Once the final skin was cured the edges were faired round, a hole cut for the vent and the whole top - and especially the edge grain of the ply - were sealed with a coat of epoxy prior to painting and varnishing:

Here is the finished hatch in place.  Painted with 'Interdeck' cream and varnished frame and inner and fitted with a new ECS 'Tannoy' type closeable vent.  The hatch is hinged at its after edge and clipped from below. There are two portable wedges that can be inserted into slots in the coamings (not shown) to prop the hatch open for ventilation. Water now sheds nicely off the hatch.

Finesse 24 Specifications

Some details and specifications of 'Enfys'.

'Enfys' is a Finesse 24 class auxiliary sailing yacht with external ballast keel, drop centreplate and bilge keels. She was designed and built by Alan F. Platt at his yard in Thundersley, Benfleet, Essex, UK. She is masthead sloop-rigged with burmudian mainsail and genoa jib on a rotary headstay.

We do not know her exact build date, as she was never registered, but from her sail number (26) we have worked out that she probably left the builder's yard in the mid 1970s.

Her principal dimensions are as follows:

L.O.A. 24' (7.315m); L.W.L. 21'4” (6.5m); Beam 8'1” (2.463m); Draft 7' (2.133m), Plate up 2'6” (0.762m); Cabin headroom (even at the highest point, so I am always banging my head!) 5'8” (1.727m); Sail area 259 sq. ft. approx. (24m sq.)

Construction details:

Iroko planking copper riveted onto steamed rock-elm ribs. The keel and deadwood are Iroko and the stem, hog, floors are laminated Iroko. The clinker planking was laid to a 15mm finished thickness and each plank has two fastenings between each timber. Ten gauge copper nails are used on timbers and 12 gauge on lands, roved up on 10mm copper roves. Hood end and garboard fastenings are silicon bronze up to the deck. All centreline fastenings through keel, deadwoods and floors are galvanised mild steel. There are four laminated Iroko hanging knees per side under mast beams and main beams. Carlines, breasthook, quarter knees, rubbing band and samson post are Iroko.
The fixed rudder is Iroko with shaped tiller and stainless steel hangings. Bilge keels are made of galvanised mild steel. The cockpit is framed up in hardwood with Iroko fronts and lift up sections are in solid Iroko. The deck is 12mm thick marine plywood laid to Iroko beams and is sheathed in glass woven cloth and epoxy resin overpainted with a non-skid finish. The companionway hatch slides and has drop-in boards to close. The forehatch is hinged at its after edge and clipped shut from within. 'Enfys' is finished in white enamel to her whalestrake, which is varnished as are her cab sides, coamings and all of the cockpit interior, margins and hatch sides.

Rig

The mast is anodised aluminium stayed with two lower and one upper shrouds (via crosstrees), per side, backstay with block and tackle tensioner and single forestay running within a rotary genoa furling unit with line lead back to the cockpit. The boom is anodised aluminium and is rigged with reefing pendants and tackles for two permanently rigged slab reefs to the mainsail. To make sail handling even easier she is rigged with a system of twin lazyjacks and integrated sailbag to allow sail stowage in a jiffy. This system is sometimes referred to as a 'stack-pack' and was made by Kemp Sails, as were her current wardrobe. The main halyard, topping lift, port and starboard lazyjack and kicking strap (vang) are all lead back to jamming cleats accessible from the cockpit. The mainsheet is a 3:1 purchase with jammer and works on a horse across the aft edge of the cockpit. The genoa sheets are lead via deck-mounted lazyblocks to self-tailing winches on the cockpit coamings.

Machinery

When she left the builder's yard 'Enfys' originally had a Yanmar YSE12 diesel installed but she was re-engined in a previous ownership with a 20hp Beta diesel. This marvellous little 3-cylinder engine is a marinised Kubota industrial engine. I will not go into any more detail here as the Beta is so well-known and, so I am told, quite well respected. The installation was supposedly professionally carried out (in approx 2005) but is actually quite poor. The work that we have done on the engine installation to improve the potential for long-term reliability and that we plan for the near future will be detailed in a later post.



'Enfys' on her home mooring in Pembrokeshire




'Enfys' sailing on the Haven

Here is a leaflet published by A Platt. It was amongst the information we received with the boat.  The price, written on by hand, is probably what one would have had to pay for a new one in 1992:



The builder's original specification sheet (Dated 1992)




The builder's original specification sheet (Dated 1992)