Into the water

It took some time after before the boat went into the water , I had the impression that most of the planks were closed and minimum gaps were left in the boat by June.
The hot summer after June did not help as planks below and above the water line were opening again.

Another issue was to find a suitable name for the boat, since the boat originates from Sweden we came up with the name Lycka, which means luck and still sounds like a ladies name for us Dutch.







































Eventually I waited till the end of August till the boat was put into the water.
The height of the tent which served me over the last few years of restoration was just high enough that the boat could be moved out with a boat lift without taking the whole construction down.

It is always a kind of scary moment when the boat hits the water after being so long on land and have been totally dried out.

But the good news was that it floated directly with a minimum of water ingress between some planks.
This was the first day.

The first 24 hours about 7 liters of water entered the boat and actually I would have more expected if I did not seal some of the hairline openings between some of the planks, where water was coming through, on places where one would not expect this.
Did a test run with the boat the next day to make sure that there were no issues with the engines steering etc. before the boat would be sailed over from the wharf to the Marina and the good news was that boat sailed as expected and no extra water did enter.

Few days later the boat was sailed from the wharf to the Marina where the boat will be for the summer and winter season.
The Marina is at the big lake in the middle of Holland and the wharf is at one of the canals so we needed to go through locks with a height difference of about 18 feet.

From there over the lake to the marina.

After sailing over all did look good with minimum extra leaking of water into the boat, but I think that due to the sailing and movement some settlement of the boat structure took place and the next day we had far more water in the boat even up to almost 30 liters in one day.
Most of this water came through the blocks, Port and starboard, where the propeller shafts supports are mounted onto.
These gaps were closed with the Ettan grease and this stopped the large ingress of the water.
After about two weeks the water ingress is decreased to around 2 liters per 24 hours , which shows that it takes longer then one hopes that a wooden boat will get water tight, all gaps between planks 100% closed.

Below some pictures of the boat at the Marina.

Since the sea trial was done without major issues we decided to make it official and the boat was christened with some champagne which was pored over the bow for good luck. The rest of course consumed by us, my neighbors and my wife and myself.

In a later stage I will follow up with additional blogs with regards to work performed on the boat as well as with pictures of the finished inside.
Not only the inside was restored but also new beds new sitting cushions as well as a new tent was made.
The tent and cushion where made by my neighbor Jan who can do miracles with a sawing machine.