Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Zac wrote:There is about 4 feet below the shell of the boat, depending on the drydock as well. Bayship has a tad higher blocks than Fraser and PW.

That has to be tad uncomfortable to work under there all day and not be able to stand up straight.
Do they scoot around under there on those little chairs with wheels on them like a body shop worker has, or just have to crawl around?
How do they get sheets of steel around under there if they are replacing some damaged hull plates?

There is about 4 feet below the shell of the boat, depending on the drydock as well. Bayship has a tad higher blocks than Fraser and PW.

Ona hot afternoon more than acouple years ago we drank a case of beer under the Coverdale when she was being built in Midland.
Nice shade there, & a lot cooler!

It's hard to get a reference in the pictures as to the size of things. How much head room is there between the bottom of the boat and the dry dock floor? Could you walk upright?

Thanks all, it was rather unique crawling around underneath her. Kind of scary at first, but once I got used to it, was really cool seeing the side of a boat you never see. This was the Anderson a number of years ago. Some of it is just natural age on the steel, other parts you can see some scrapes from where shes rubbed bottom in shallow areas as well as some surface pitting, it wasnt too bad, and still rather smooth to the touch. Overall it looked absolutely amazing for the vintage. I remember hearing that she ran aground a decade or so earlier and damaged some plates, however I never read about that in history or books anywhere, but it looks like some plates had been taken off and welded back on. But you could still see some definite scrapes along the oldest steel on the bottom.

In the picture where you can see the rivots you also can see how rough the surface of the plates are. Is that actually the pitting of the steel you can see?

Guest wrote:Question for anyone that has worked in a dry dock, or might know.
When they paint the bottom of the boat, how do they clean and paint the ares of the ship that are sitting on the blocks? Can they move those blocks one at a time once a ship is sitting on them?

They refill the drydock enough so that the vessel floats and shift her just enough so that those spots can be sandblasted primered and painted.

Great photos! I couldn't help but notice the riveted hull. Which boat is this?

Those are very impressive photos.

Question for anyone that has worked in a dry dock, or might know.
When they paint the bottom of the boat, how do they clean and paint the ares of the ship that are sitting on the blocks? Can they move those blocks one at a time once a ship is sitting on them?

Awesome pictures. I could have done the same with the Cliff's Victory in 1964 but the thought of being beneath all that mass caused a rapid change of mind.

Here is a couple shots of both. Keel blocks are the pyramid stacked blocks, while the bilge blocks are the square blocks.

I'm looking for a close up photo (with detail) of a typical dry dock keel & bilge block.

Rob