Moving The Hull, the Turn Over

|Peter Johnson
Turning the schooner hull over with a crane

Part 4 of 6 in the Moving the Schooner Hull series.  Start at part 1 →

Well, we had done all our prep work. I lost a little more hair, the co-op ran out of tea bags, and I almost started smoking.

The day was set for a Tuesday, and my friend Paul had the crane free, so we were going to go ahead. On the Monday, Paul phoned, concerned about the amount of wind forecast, so we made the decision to cancel and move the lift and roll to the Wednesday. This was to be a mistake.

Tuesday came, and I had nothing to do except look and think. Now, ladies will tell you how dangerous it is to let a man look and think, and yes, I decided the lifting strops were too short and needed to be lengthened by three metres. Always trust your first gut instinct; don't fiddle and change things.

So with new, longer strops, we were ready for Paul on the Wednesday morning.

Paul's crane set up for the liftthe hull in the field ready for the crane liftsetting up for the crane liftPaul's crane arriving for the lift

Once we had set up, the first thing for Paul was to make sure we had tea, then we were going to make the first lift off the caterpillars and place the hull into the field. My heart was skipping as the hull moved into the air, but the whole point in messing with heavy lifts is never to show emotion: keep calm, don't shout, and never lose your cool.

first lift of the hull off the caterpillarsone side of our caterpillar trolley on the floor

We now had to rig the rolling strops and realign the caterpillar for the trip back into the workshop.

rigging the rolling strops to realign the caterpillarrigging strops for the trip back into the workshop

Once that was done, we had to get on with the main purpose: turning the hull. The idea was that there would be enough tension on the strops to allow a turn but also to slow it down, so it stayed controlled. Do you remember those idle hands? This is where I really messed things up. I had extended the strops so the crane couldn't take the slack out of them, giving no braking effect but lots of splintering, hearts in mouths, and I believe Paul just went white.

starting the turn on the crane stropsthe hull mid-turn on the crane

Watch the hull being turned over on YouTube.

the strops taking the strain during the turnthe hull settling after the turn

Yes, we had damage, but remember the rule: don't lose your cool. I went and made tea, went right out of the way, spoke French with some Welsh, called myself the biggest idiot going, plus a few other choice words, then once we'd had tea and I'd told everyone it was okay and not a big deal, we started on the recovery.
Peter Johnson

Written by

Peter Johnson

Pete Johnson is the owner of Epoxy Ltd, trading since the late 1990s and supplying MAS epoxy and boatbuilding materials to professional and DIY builders alike, all under the philosophy of "Simple Perfection". When he's not helping customers, he's usually elbow-deep in one of his own projects, from building the 38ft schooner Iracunda from scratch to restoring boats like Junior, a 1950s Yachting Monthly dinghy rescued from the scrap heap. He writes the workshop blog to share the practical, often hard-won lessons learned building and repairing boats with epoxy.