over the last two days, in between swapping an internal rudder set up for an external rudder on Mick french's (Rottwieler) 47' Watson lifeboat I have been drilling holes for the "Ruffle holes" in the Keelson and rear deadwood of my three lifeboats.
Ruffle holes are put into all keels of the older (and some modern ) lifeboats, and are basically the anchoring points for slipway launched boats.
I say all older classic boats, with some exceptions ( not many) but as lifeboats were all supposed to be interchangeable for cover and researve fleets, they could possible all at some time in their life either end up on a slipway or on a carriage, and because of this, needed holes in the keels for rope, chain and shackles to pas through to hold them to either slipway or carriage..........and it was the ruffle holes in both bow and stern that are part of the makeup of the lifeboats hull.
Because of the build of the models, and the fact that at the bow, especially I needed to first pour some liquid polyester resin into the area to be drilled, or the hole through the keel would inevitably cut through space and allow an ingress of water, and pretty quickly at that, so a reservoir of resin was poured in and allowed to set.
The holes were marked, drilled and then a brass washer to cap the hole off was added and secured with cyano.
then it was a case of adding the water coolers, intakes outlets, filters and the scupper flaps to the two watsons......the Barnett doesn't have any scupper flaps visible on the outside of the boat. All these fittings are generic with other boats and so they were readily available from stock.