Well the rescue of this classic from a bonfire fate in Callander began in November 2012 with a hair raising run from there to a field north of Orangeville. This week saw her make it to the boatshop where the hull cleanup and stabilization can be carried out. Longtime volunteer Scott dropped what he was planning to do on Thursday morning and joined me for the run to Jingo. Volunteer John Way whose farm the boat was stored on, met us with a "no problem" cheery view of the extrication!
 |
| Jingo is behind all those trailers... |
 |
| and up to her knees in mud! |
Frankly the situation looked dubious, the roadway in to her was mud and ruts 18" deep in places. There were several trailers parked between her and less muddy ground - all of which was quite downhill from the road. Not a perfect setup. However farmers have quite a different view of things as we were about to see....
John went for the front end loader and began to grade the driveway by back-dragging the blade so he could move high dirt to low dirt places. Along came his nephew who turned out to be a wizard on the excavator - which just happened to be sitting around - this really got things moving. He swung the bucket in a huge arc which flattened the surface then drove back and forth with the crawler machine which further solidified the drive way. Eventually we could get our truck in to move the miscellaneous trailers out of the way. They then used the excavator to drag Jingo's trailer up to the roadway where we could get hooked up. Scott was on board for this ride securing loose items - so he is the first volunteer to have a ride in Jingo!
 |
| out of the mud - Scott at the windshield.. |
 |
| up the ramp to the road... |
 |
| onto the road and .... |
 |
| ready for us to hook up! |
\
Once on the road the excavator made picking up the tonge and landing it on our hitch a moments job. We intalled our magnetic lights and magnetic plates, tied her down and off to the farmhouse for tea and air in the tires!
 |
| need 4x4 in the driveway! |
The ride back was uneventful - thank goodness and she trailed smoothly even on a pintle hook connection.
Once maneuvered into position at the boatshop we had a first real look at her outward condition. Going to be a big job and the move didn't help. More ribs have broken on the port side with considerable sagging evident. Our first task will be to stabilize the hull even before we go inside to clean the junk out. I suspect this can be a tricky thing to do and none of us has done it before - if you have some knowledge of how to proceed - your input would be timely as this needs to be done sooner than later!
 |
| We have made it to the Glen! |
 |
| there is an area of soft in the deadwood strut |
Jingo was built in 1929 by Ditchburn in the Orillia plant - one can see the family resemblance to Windswept III built in the same plant a few years later but the hull construction and style is the same. She may be planked in cypress, I didn't find any soft planks to speak of which is quite amazing considering her last decade or two of life. The cabin is a much later addition, she originaly had a windshield, hard top over half the cockpit and canvas sidecurtains.
 |
| a bit sad looking but... |
 |
| most of the hull looks promising. |
|
So what will her future look like? Hopefully we will get her stabilized and the junk out of her including the ugly cabin - pretty soon. After that we will be looking for indoor storage while a restoration plan is conceived and made ready for execution. Your thoughts on this or your willingness to be on a team to look into creative solutions would be welcome...
 |
| let's get back to this condition! (C. 1970) |
No comments:
Post a Comment