Red Yeti Shipwrightrefits, repairs and honest timber

The Gallus

a long haul Cruising Smack

Come in out of the wind, Captain, and mind the shavings. You have the look of someone who has slept one night too many on a dhow's deck with a crate for a pillow. Sit. I have something on the slip you will want to see.

She was built by Aquilartz, the Old Chronian master, and built well. I will say that before anything else, because none of what follows would stand without his hull under it. She came to us from his yard a fishing smack: thirteen metres, one mast, a bare hold and a skylight. A good sea boat with nowhere to live. We took her lines and drew her again a fifth larger every way. Then we framed her, ballasted her, floored her, housed her over and gave her a deck you would not be ashamed to walk a harbour master down. She will still fish if you ask her. But she was refitted to go a long way with one hand aboard and come back with that hand rested.

Walk round her with me. Everything I show you is fitted here at the yard, one piece at a time, as your purse allows. Nothing is forced on you. Take her bare and add to her each time you make port.

Before you begin. This is an add-on, not a ship. The Gallus herself comes from the Old Chronian ship mod by Aquilartz, the original modder, who made her and the rest of the Old Chronian fleet. You must have his mod installed first. Without it there is no Gallus to refit. You also need Old Chronian Fixes, from the same place, which gives her her bilge pump. This refit is made with his blessing and changes nothing in his mod.

Plate IHer lines

The Gallus: side view, rig and deck plan, with the outline of the smack as first built — Her side and her deck. The pale dashed line is the smack as she was first built.

Sixteen metres on deck now, and four and a half in the beam. The extra is not for show. It is headroom in the hold, a drier foredeck, and enough weight under you that a short sea no longer stops her. Her mast and spars are one piece of seasoned timber each, with a knot here and there to prove it. Sails are your own affair: she takes whatever the sailmaker will hang on her.

Plate IIA deck laid the proper way

Most yards run their planks straight down a deck and saw off whatever hangs over the side. We do not, not in teak. Ask for a teak livery and I will lay her deck as a yacht's is laid.

A covering board follows her rail. The planks are sprung to her side and run her whole length. A king plank lies down her middle, and where the planks meet it at bow and stern each one is cut off square and let into it, never run out to a feather edge. Every hatch, the deck house and the mast stand in a margin board of their own.

Her teak deck from above, with the small cargo hatch — Her deck in new teak, with a small cargo hatch. Bow to the right.

Her teak deck with the deck house — The same deck laid round the long deck house.

Weathered teak deck — And silvered by sun and salt, on the Weathered Oak and Teak livery.

Flush hatches

On a teak deck her fore and aft hatches are flat teak lids, level with the planks, each on two brass hinges with a lifting ring let in. Put your hand to one and it swings up and stands open. Nothing to trip on in the dark, and a clear run of deck from stem to stern.

If you prefer her old raised sliding hatches, say so and you shall have them back.

A flush teak hatch lid — A flush lid: frame, boards, hinges and ring.

Plate IIISix ways to roof her hold

Her skylight amidships is what we call the cargo hatch, and it is the first thing most captains change. I build it six ways. Every one of them opens.

The six cargo hatches in side view — The six, seen from her side. The two tents are glazed down their long sides and wooden at their ends.

The two long deck houses are the ones to look at if you mean to live aboard. They turn the after half of her into a cabin you can stand in, with windows down both sides, a raked forward end you can see the bowsprit through, and a companionway aft with its own ladder. Their corners are rounded off so they are kind to a hip in a seaway. The windows carry brass bars, strapped and screwed to every post. Houses are mahogany with teak lids on every livery. I do not paint them and I will not be talked into it.

Cargo hatch
What I build	What you get	Price
Tented Skylight	Hers as she was built.	0
Barred Butterfly Hatches	Two glazed mahogany leaves behind brass bars, hinged at the ridge.	120
Raised Hatch, Grating and Canvas	A mahogany grating on a raised box, and a canvas cover rolled on its own pole to batten down when it blows.	90
Deck House Hatch	A small glazed house over the opening, two lids for a roof.	150
Deck House and Companionway	The long house: windows all round, roof lids, companionway and ladder.	260
Deck House and Companionway, Portholes	The same house with solid mahogany sides and five brass ports a side. Square windows forward only.	210

Plate IVBelow

Go down by either hatch. The ladder folds itself away under the lid when you shut it, so it is never in your way and never adrift.

You will find a ship down there now, not a box. A frame stands under every deck beam and runs down to a keelson laid from stem to sternpost. Round stone ballast is packed into the bilge either side of it. She is a real ship's height below, so you duck to go under the deck and stand up again wherever there is room, under the hatch or the house.

How you floor her is up to you.

The eight platform layouts and the bare hold, seen from above — Her hold from above, as if the deck were lifted off. Larboard at the top.

The Cargo Beds want a word. They are not two of the same thing. Aft, to starboard, is a broad cargo platform. Forward, to larboard, is a proper berth with a leeboard and a board at head and foot. They sit caddy-corner, so the walkway winds past one and then the other and you never climb over either. Take both, or whichever one you need.

Platforms
What I build	What you get	Price
None	The bare hold.	0
Cargo Benches	A bench down each side, bins under them, a walkway between.	30
Cargo Beds	The platform aft to starboard and the berth forward to larboard, caddy-corner, a plank walkway winding past them.	40
Forward Cargo Bed Only	The berth alone, the walkway wall to wall everywhere else.	35
Aft Cargo Bed Only	The platform alone, likewise.	35
Raised Aft-Cabin Deck	A cabin floor aft and a plank walkway carried on to the bow.	45
Aft-Cabin Deck, Bare Forepeak	The cabin floor, the forepeak left open to her frames.	45
Fully Raised Deck	The whole sole raised to walkway level.	50
Aft-Cabin Deck with Berth	The cabin floor, and forward of it a slatted mahogany berth.	60

Every aft-cabin deck has a storage hatch in its floor, two long leaves lifted by iron rings, with the bilge and its stones beneath, and a small stern locker abaft it for bottles and stores.

Plate VThe cockpit

Put an aft-cabin deck under the long deck house and you have what I call the cockpit: a place to sit dry, look out of your own windows, and lay a chart flat for once.

The cockpit from above, and studies of the chart desk, dash shelf, ladder door and shelves — The cockpit, and four of its fittings.

The bulkhead and its ladder. A planked bulkhead closes the cabin off forward, with a doorway in it. A short ladder hangs from the sill down into the forepeak. Lift it and it stands up in the doorway as the door.

The chart desk. Mahogany and brass, on the bulkhead to larboard of the door. One touch brings it down to a writing desk. Its brass knob swings a leaf out to larboard, and the knob again folds two more leaves out toward you: a table 0.82 by 0.66 of a metre, big enough for a chart with your dividers on it. Folded, the whole of it is four boards flat against the bulkhead. Tell me how high you sit and I will hang it to suit.

The dash shelf. Across the doorway from the desk, under a deck house. It hangs flat against the bulkhead until you want it, then swings up level with the dash under the forward windows. A place for the lantern, the mug and the glass.

Cubbies and shelves. Built in under the side decks, mahogany, their backs her own planking: four boxes a side, and a long shelf with a top abaft them. A chair fits between them and the desk.

The berth. Forward of the bulkhead to starboard: slatted mahogany for one, its head on the bulkhead and its side to her planking.

Cabin joinery
What I build	She must already have	Price
Cockpit Bulkhead and Ladder	An aft-cabin deck	80
Chart Desk (and the dash shelf, under a deck house)	The cockpit bulkhead	40
Cubbies	An aft-cabin deck or the Fully Raised Deck	45
Shelves	The same	30
Cubbies and Shelves	The same	70

Plate VIThe stern pit

Here is the piece I am proudest of, and it was a captain's idea, not mine. Her counter is shallow under the after deck. Too shallow for cargo. Just right for a pit beside the tiller.

The two deck lockers from above, and the large pit in section — Both sizes from above, and the large one cut down her middle.

In fair weather it is a deck locker: lift the lids, drop your stores in, shut them and walk over the top. In foul weather take the covers off the large one and you have a place to sit low with the tiller in your hand and the sea going past above your elbow, on a bench of honey elm built across its after end. The pit and its lids are framed in whole strips of her deck's own wood, whatever deck she wears. Below, a bulkhead shuts it off from the cabin so nothing rolls forward. There is a small door in that bulkhead that folds down into a table, so you can reach your supper from inside without going on deck in the rain.

Deck lockers
What I build	What you get	Price
Deck Locker, Butterfly Hatches	Two leaves that meet on her middle line and swing up together.	60
Large Deck Locker, Removable Hatches	The pit carried forward to the bulkhead. Its covers lift off at a touch and are laid back by a touch on the board at its forward edge. Stern seat built in.	80

Plate VIIOn deck and aloft

Deck rails, ratlines, bowsprit netting, name plaque, flush hatch and bilge pump — The smaller work.

The rest is what keeps you aboard and what keeps her afloat. Take the rail first. Everybody means to and nobody does until the night they need it.

Deck and rigging
What I fit	What you get	Price
Safety Rail	An open rail round her deck on stanchions.	90
Topgallant Rail	The same rail planked in above her bulwark, with scuppers cut through it and an opening left at every cleat.	140
Ratlines on the Shrouds	Rope rungs to the masthead. Look at one and climb.	50
Larboard Bowsprit Netting	A net slung on a whisker boom to work the headsails from.	60
Name on the Nose, or on the Stern	A board with her name on it, in the letters and the paint you choose.	20
Bilge Pump	By the tiller, its pipe run down to the keelson and forward into the hold.	see below

The pump is the Caelanor pattern from Old Chronian Fixes, cut down to her size, which is why that mod is needed. Its price is set there.

Plate VIIITimber and paint

Last, what she wears. Ten liveries, every one of them real wood or real paint over real wood, inside as well as out.

The ten liveries as samples of deck, topsides, trim and bottom — Cut from the yard's own stock: deck above, then topsides, trim and bottom.

The three teak liveries get the laid deck you saw on Plate II, which is why they cost what they cost. The three weathered ones are for captains who want her to look as if she has already been somewhere: silvered planking, a mast gone grey, deck houses the colour of driftwood. Over any of the ten I will put a coat, or not.

Protective coat
Coat	Finish	Price
None	Flat, as the timber comes.	0
Linseed Oil and Wax	A satin sheen.	30
Spar Marine Varnish	A gloss you can see the sky in.	60

Prices are in the coin of whatever port's yard she is lying in: lions, dragons or crowns, it is all the same to me. Change your mind as often as you like. Every piece can be taken off again and set back to how she was built.

Fair winds, Captain. Bring her back and show me what you did with her.
Red Yeti Shipwright

For the ownerOwner's notes

Working her fittings. Lids, hatches, ladders and covers are worked with a click. Anything you can put things down on is opened by its ring or its brass knob instead, so that your hand stays free to set a thing down: the storage hatch by its iron rings, the chart desk, the dash shelf and the stern locker's door by their knobs.

Going below. Use the game's crouch key to go under her deck. She will not let you stand where there is no room, and you straighten up by yourself where there is.

Settings. Press F1 (Configuration Manager) and find Gallus Hold Fix. The short list is what most captains touch: her name, lettering and paint; the chart desk's height; the standing and crouched heights; deck and inside sheen; the waterline; the stone ballast; the pump's place; flush hatches on or off. Tick "Advanced settings" for everything else.

What she needs. Sailwind with BepInEx 5; the Old Chronian ship mod by Aquilartz, which is the Gallus herself; and Old Chronian Fixes, which gives her bilge pump (only the pump needs it). Nothing else. On the first start the package puts a readable copy of the Gallus in place so the yard can measure her, and keeps the original beside it as a backup. The README in the package has the details.

If something is wrong. Send BepInEx\LogOutput.log from that session with what you were doing. The plugin writes a line for everything it builds.