Snow Flurry – March 2018

retrospective
18 December 2009 – MARABU has arrived on the European mainland from Ipswich UK on a flat bed trailer. We will continue our journey across Germany to Radolfzell on Lake Constance. The phone rings at the destination – at Martin-Yachten.
The truck driver reports unusual news from a rest area in the Netherlands. The weather was bad, the highways were full of snow and the bridge a few kilometres away… well, that was a few centimetres too low for the loaded freight.
The detour of 300km under these conditions is almost impossible, waiting time expensive. The helplessness does not last long, however: The driver asks Josef Martin whether the crate would still be needed up there on the deck, inquiering about the usefulness of the deckhouse built in 1952. In such cases, he would always have a chainsaw with him in the back of the cab.
9 years and 9 months later, the decks are now being dismantled more professionally by the boatbuilders Axel and Moritz. At first glance, all demolition work appears brutal and squeamish , but they are planned in advance.
Again and again, the supports on which the fuselage rests are shifted, adjusted or further struts are inserted inside the fuselage. It should neither endanger the dimensional stability nor hinder the work on the load-bearing parts. Each blow with the hammer, each approach of the crowbar and each saw cut is chosen with caution, because some of the dismantled parts still have to serve as exact templates for new productions as possible.
In addition, the deck is especially full of old copper nails. Attention must therefore be paid to avoid injury or damage to the tool.
The cautious approach is worthwhile, because MARABU always reveals surprises. Parts of a deck beam in the area of the mast gate, into which the official number as well as the measured register tons were stamped in 1936, are still preserved.
In the rear area, where the load is to be transferred on the interior walkways on both sides via a wooden “knee” to the beam behind it, there is a structural peculiarity: on the port side, one “knee” has been manufactured in which wood fibre and rounding run parallel. On the starboard side there was obviously no corresponding piece of wood with turning growth at hand during construction, so that several parts were put together to form a “knee”.
Why the substance left is still in worse condition than right remains unclear. The thesis that X10 as a successful regatta yacht was sailed more frequently on the port bow, which is entitled to right of way, is probably more boatbuilder’s Latin.