History and Restoration Of sailing vessel La Belle Epoque

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Sylvia Bryant
5 years ago
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History and Restoration Of sailing vessel La Belle Epoque La Belle Epoque was built 1976 78 by a german family for intensive travels.

1 History and Restoration Of sailing vessel La Belle Epoque La Belle Epoque was built by a german family for intensive travels. She sailed the North and Baltic Seas and even reached the Norwegian coast. But later she was put on land by her second owner, who did not have enough time for maintnance. While waiting on the hard time took its toll... Summer 2004: we found our dream boat but she is only a very run down dram boat anymore. We organize the transport to Austria and know that we just bought very much work. But we are faithful: we do have some practice of restoring boats and working with metall. We know we are facing a complete restoration, but we are convinced that we can handle the work and get a seaworthy and strong boat again. To reach that goal we know we have to bring her home and put her right behind our house in Austria. There we have tools and time, to fix her back up.

2 Transport and restoration site for La Belle Epoque

We are happy that this is the only critical area of our boat.

3 First of all we have to get right of old paint an rust and of course close the whole in front of La Belle Epoques rudder. Jürgen uses a plasma cutter to get the old and thin metal off. We are happy that this is the only critical area of our boat. Where ever we did believe the hull would be thin, we did drill a whole into the metal and measure its thickness. Just to make sure... Off course we did weld the wholes tide again!

4 Getting ready for new and strong metal At all other areas the hull is rusty, but still strong. We will sandblast her and give her a new paint job.

Off course we also close the old dorade ventilation. We will use our hatches to get fresh air in!

5 We do not like wholes in the hull not even wholes to fasten gear on deck! All wholes will become leaks one day... So we decide to weld every whole tide and use welded on bolts to fasten deck gear. Off course we also close the old dorade ventilation. We will use our hatches to get fresh air in! There is more work to do: cut away the swimming platform fasten extra cleats and cutting out extra hatches mounting a new rail and weld a pilot house

6 After years of bluewater sailing on board La Belle Epoque we know now that most of our changes on deck does perfectly fit our needs. But we also think that we could have done some more... new storage area in the cockpit new hatches

7 Welding a pilot house to close the middle cockpit

8 The boat does have an open aft cockpit with separated steering. But we are hoping to get a boat that can coop with all sea areas and give us some comfort in the cold areas. We design our pilot house only for navigation: with second steering station, motor panel, navigation instruments, big chart table and comfortable steering seat

9 In the meanwhile we rip out all old inventory and the old insulation

10 Taking out the engine for rebuilt. More rust inside We are planing to sand plast the boat inside and outside. Therefor we are preparing the whole boat and try to get all changes to the boat done before plasting.

12 Producing everything ourself keeps the costs down and does realize our ideas.

13 Pulling out the weight of the keel does give us a bad surprise: the keel is filled with water and oil. We have to get everything out for restoration. The weight is made out of steel bars

14 We take the bars out of the boat for cleaning Luckily there is no rust under the iron bars. We only have to clean the whole area out and give it some new paint.

15 Reduing the weight with lead

16 After a year of work: La Belle Epoque is ready for sand plasting:

19 fixing on 9 layers of paint: epoxyd and polyurethan

20 Sand helps us to create a anti slip finish

21 Time to work inside

22 Finally the engine room is ready for the rebuilt technic

23 Painting the inside

24 Meanwile Jürgen starts working on the outside: constructing the hatches, fixing deck gear...getting the rudder back in place...and preparing the cockpit steering unit.

25 We use Polycarbonat (Lexan and Macrolon) instead of glass: the material should be able to withstand even the power of braking waves.

27 Fun work: painting the boats old name back on her stern! We learn to know the builder of our boat. He told us, that he always did have troubles with dirty Diesel: we decide to cut the tank open for cleaning.

28 Ready for insulation! We use Styrodur and foam to insulate the whole boat down to its waterline with 6 to 8cm insulation.

29 Starting to do the interior. We want to have a light and friendly finish and decide to use birch plywood and oak hardwood. We have old tried oak planks from our own forest, therefor we have to cut everything ourselves.

32 Soon we can put in the portholes and are happy to have a try vessel from now on!

33 Time to work on the technic: putting back the drive shaft.

34 Second steering station inside the pilot house construction for the Dickinson Diesel stove

35 Ready to use! More wood work...

36 instead of a second head we design a workshop in the boat Gally Salon

37 owner cabin Gally and Salon

38 owner cabin head pilot house

39 Installation and technic

40 Electric: 12 and 24V We do have water tide chambers on our boat: thats why we need tide through holes for wires and hoses

41 not all the work is easy to do... but we are getting there!

42 Outside work: La Belle Epoque will soon be splashed: time for anti fouling.

43 Ready to take the roof away.....and making everything ready for the truck!

44 It fits!..and we are on our way! Yupie!!

45 But we are not doen jet: there is still some work to do on the Danube: Rigg and outside steering. We do need a non magnetic steering unit to fit our magnetic compass on top.

46 Fixing Covers and Bimini, some pillows and small fabric work. And finally we are putting the masts back on deck. What a excitement: La Belle Epoque is back!

47 2009 we are happy to finish our work. We did all of the restoration work ourselves, beside working in regular jobs. We did not work all winters through, since it was way to cold to get paint jobs and metal work done during Austrian winters. Looking backwards we are glad we did make the decision to restore La Belle Epoque, even we never sailed the boat before. But after years of bluewater sailing we can still say we made the right choice for us: La Belle Epoque is still our dream boat! Learn more about us and our travels:

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