Snow

I was off visiting and not in my shed one night and we had a great snowstorm. It was one of those wet, heavy, snows that you know is going to cause you grief somewhere.

Do you remember the pony walls I mentioned back in the beginning? They were there to help support the roof because of the large span of the shed.

When Roger and Warren built their boats, they had open wing decks so the pony walls fit between the main hull and the floats. How convenient. Unfortunately, my boat has solid wingdecks, so out came the pony walls.

Everything seemed to be OK when I removed the walls. The roof was very light, being made of ¼ plywood and tarpaper. I am sure I would have escaped unscathed if it hadn’t been for that snowfall.

I was pretty worried about the roof, but could not get to the shed to shovel it off because the roads were blocked with snow and stuck cars. Remember, all I had was a boat builders truck, and a light one at that…no traction.

By the time I managed to get to the shed the next day, nature had done its’ work. The roof of the shed was caved in. Wow, it looked like hell from outside. I thought there was little chance of salvaging anything, maybe the floats would be OK and I could use them on a new boat.

When I went in side, I could not believe my eyes. No damage, none! The roof must have eased down slowly and came to rest on the cabin top of the boat. There was a slight mark in the plywood of the cabin top near the main strength bulkhead number 4. Nothing a little putty wouldn’t fix. I checked the cabin top inside to see if there were any cracks. None. 

OK, how to fix this thing. I did not want to build a whole new roof. I jacked up the roof using a couple of hydraulic jacks and sistered the broken rafters with 2 X 10’s. I over jacked it, thinking it would sag a bit when I took the jacks away. It did, but only a little bit. I lost about 2 inches of headroom above the boat.

The roof lasted till I moved out of the shed. It leaked a bit, but I would go up and try to spread roof patch here and there. Ever try to walk on a roof made out of ¼ inch plywood over rafters on 24-inch centers? Don’t miss a rafter when you take another step.