Well, I did draw attention to my fender, so it's my own fault that I have to try to explain how I made it. No, Bryn, there's nothing conventional about it, it took me absolutely ages to make, and nearly drove me mad. The end product, however, is handsome, serviceable, and can be removed for danish-oiling the sheerstrake. It is in two lengths, one down each side, the four ends terminating in wooden plugs a few inches short of stem and stern; I fared these in such a way as to look reasonably elegant.
I consulted the lovely chap whose name I forget, who presides over a rope museum in Ipswich, has written books, and has an MBE (I believe) for services to rope. He advocates a SS wire down the middle of a suitable size of hemp hawser, but couldn't really help with how I could fasten this securely but elegantly to a topstrake which also acts as coaming round recessed decks fore and aft, and along the sides of the cockpit; and in such a way that didn't look loopy between fastenings So ...(deep breath) I used modern plastic pipe, as used these days for plumbing, including hot water: and wound 6mm synthetic hemp round and round and round and round and round and.... nearly 150 metres (no, that's not a misprint) of the stuff, about 75 metres each side! However before doing that, I had to devise my fastenings. Holes drilled in the coaming approx every 30 cm (equidistant, except for one place dictated by the shape and structure of the coamings), reinforced on the inside by cup washers and on the outside by flat washers, all countersunk and araldited into place (you can see the inside appearance on the photo, far side of the boat), to take 4mm countersunk bolts. These screw into nuts, which are inserted and araldited into wooden plugs, which are in turn inserted at intervals into the pipe in such a way that each bolt has a hole in the pipe opposite it, through which it screws into the waiting nut-in-a-chunk-of-dowel, thus holding the fender invisibly and securely at frequent intervals along its length. It actually isn't a big job to undo all 26 bolts to remove both fenders. It's slightly more fiddly to get them back on again.
Could there possibly be a more complicated way of doing it? - I very much doubt it (there's a challenge). Is the bloke who did all that (I hear you asking each other) somewhat barmy? - very probably. Is the end result aesthetically and functionally satisfactory? - well, actually yes. Would I recommend anyone else to do the same? - don't even think about it. Apart from anything else, work out the cost of 150 metres of 6mm synthetic hemp. There are several hundred turns down each side. Plastic pipe 13 ft long doesn't behave gracefully or gratefully when you attempt to revolve it several hundred times while winding on rope as tightly as you possibly can. Then, from lack of foresight, there is the matter of several passable long splices (lots of practice needed)....... I could go on, and if the end result hadn't turned out (excuse the pun) rather well, I would have taken up golf or gardening instead.
You did ask, Bryn. But both 'Cadenza" and I are glad the fender is there. Just try to think of a simpler method, there's got to be one.....
