For those of you thinking about another boat (and for those with metal boats) we thought few comments on the process for welding in the water might be of interest.

One of the great advantages of metal construction is the ease with which you can add or modify structure and fittings by cutting off the old stuff and welding on the new.

Generally speaking, the biggest part of the job is preparing the boat, and then putting her back together after the welding is completed. The metalwork process itself is usually very quick. This is especially true if you have unpainted aluminum, as we do (which eliminates any touch-up of paint).

In our case, we’ve just added a large deck beam between our coamings to take the luff load of our mizzen genoa (840 square feet), added some tangs on the coamings for better jib sheet adjustment when sailing to weather, modified the lifeline stanchions on the stern, and did miscellaneous welding in five oter areas (including chocks for our new dinghy).

To get Beowulf ready, the biggest job was dropping the headliners and removing hull liners in the saloon and office area (so we could watch for “blow throughs” – where hot metal would penetrate the deck and possibly start a fire or otherwise damage the interior – luckily there were none). We also disconnected all our electronics, and turned off all other circuit breakers. On deck we needed to strip running rigging to make clean areas for Carlos, the welder, to work.

We used 1/8″ (3mm) plywood – “doorskins” and cardboard throughout the interior to protect our timber and wall coverings, just in case.

One of the problems with welding outside is weather. It needs to be dry, and there cannot be too much wind (the wind blows away the gas mixure which keeps the weld area clean). In our case, we were lucky on both accounts. Winds were generally less than five knots, and it has been nice and dry. When Carlos was welding, one of us held pieces of plywood to block the wind and prevent weld splatter from getting on nearby hatches.

We spent a full day preparing the boat while the pieces were being made up in the shop. Another day was spent cleaning up on deck, putting electronics back, and re-rigging the various control lines we’d stripped. In between, Carlos spent three hours on actual welding. That’s about the normal ratio.

Now that we can crank hard on the mizzen genoa luff, it will be interesting to see how much faster we go when reaching.