History and Restoration Of sailing vessel „La Belle Epoque“
La Belle Epoque was built 1976 – 78 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.
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Transport and restoration site for La Belle Epoque
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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!
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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.
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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 platformfasten extra cleats
and cutting out extra hatchesmounting a new rail
and weld a pilot house
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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
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Welding a pilot house to close the middle cockpit
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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
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In the meanwhile we rip out all old inventory and the old
insulation
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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.
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
Producing everything ourself keeps
the costs down and does realize our ideas.
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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
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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.
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Reduing the weight with lead
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After a year of work: La Belle Epoque is ready for sand plasting:
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
fixing on 9 layers of paint: epoxyd and polyurethan
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Sand helps us to create a anti slip finish
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Time to work inside
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Finally the engine room is ready for the rebuilt technic
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Painting the inside
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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.
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We use Polycarbonat (Lexan and Macrolon) instead of glass: the
material should be able to withstand even the power of
braking waves.
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
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.
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Ready for insulation!
We use Styrodur and foam to insulate the whole boat down to
its waterline with 6 to 8cm insulation.
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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.
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
Soon we can put in the portholes – and are happy to have a try
vessel from now on!
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Time to work on the technic: putting back the drive shaft.
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Second steering station inside the pilot house
construction for the Dickinson Diesel stove
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Ready to use!
More wood work...
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instead of a second head we design a workshop in the boat
Gally
Salon
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owner cabin
Gally and Salon
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owner cabin – head – pilot house
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Installation and technic
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Electric: 12 and 24V
We do have water tide chambers on our boat: thats why we need tide through holes for wires and
hoses
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not all the work is easy to do...
… but we are getting there!
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Outside work:
La Belle Epoque will soon be splashed: time for anti fouling.
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Ready to take the roof away...
..and making everything ready for the truck!
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It fits!
..and we are on our way! Yupie!!
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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.
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
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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!
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
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: www.fortgeblasen.at
All pictures and texts belong to Claudia & Jürgen Kirchbergerand are only for private use und refaring to „www.fortgeblasen.at“
We are happy to hear from our readers: [email protected]
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