My thanks to Steve Mehlmann for most of the photographs, place your cursor on them for a description, click on them to make them full size.

Kirkenes was built in 1932 at the RisǾr Boat Yard in northern Norway, she was built as a 45' pilot vessel for the town of Kirkenes and was designed by the well known naval architect, Colin Archer. She was craned out for a refit at Vila Real St Antonio in southern Portugal in 2007, the photograph below right was taken shortly after her arrival at the boatyard.

RisǾr is known for its beautifully preserved wooden buildings and for the building of wooden boats, in August there is a 'Wooden Boat Festival' which people visit from all over Europe to see what must be Europe's largest collection of elegant wooden boats built on classic lines using traditional methods of construction.

Pilot boats in Norway had a reputation for going out to sea and not returning, prior to Colin Archer's designs they were just not up to the bad weather that can be encountered off the Norwegian coast. He started designing Pilot boats in 1870 which soon proved to be excellent for their work.
 
Colin Archer shown in a picture to the left was born in 1832 and died in 1921, in addition to being a naval architect he also built boats at his yard Larvik, Norway. His parents were Scottish, they emigrated to Norway in 1825.

Prior to his career as a naval architect in Norway, Colin lived in Queensland, Australia and was one of the first people to sail a boat up the Fitzroy river.  Returning to Norway he started designing and building boats which included boats that sailed to both the North and South Poles, he also designed boats for the Norwegian Lifeboat Institution. His careful designs took into account the height and length of waves that were likely to be encountered and as a result his boats quickly earned a reputation for seaworthiness.

Sir Robin Knox Johnston's 'Suhaili' was a 32' Colin Archer design and built in India of teak in 1964, she was sailed to England by Sir Robin soon after she was built and in 1968 he sailed her right round the world non stop spending 312 days at sea encountering waves as large as 20 meters in height in the Southern Ocean.

Kirkenes was found by her present owner at anchor between Alcoutim and Pomorão about twenty nautical five miles up the Guadiana river, the border between Spain and Portugal. He bought her in the full knowledge that she was in very bad condition.  However on lifting her out of the water at the Marina Guadiana boatyard at Vila Real Santo Antonio it was discovered that every single plank and almost every frame were completely rotten.  Un-deterred in 2007 her new owner gave instructions to the yard to rebuild her from stem to stern.

Surveyor Steve Mehlmann (Tel: 0034 959 502030 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) now living in a house on the Spanish side of the Guadiana was brought in to oversee this complete re-build, Steve is well qualified for this task having been the maintenance manager for the very well known Berthon Boatyard at Lymington before he retired and came to live in Portugal.

It was not long before Steve could see that the methods still being used in Portugal and Spain for building wooden fishing boats were almost identical to those used in Norway in the 1930's to build Kirkenes.  Every single plank and many of the frames have been replaced with new red pine from Spain or Portugal and attached to the frames with iron nails. In her original construction in addition to iron nails, wooden nails called trennels (tree nails), made from Juniper wood preferably from trees that were growing north of the arctic circle, were used.

These very slightly tapered dowels were driven in from the outside and then the ends split on the inside and a wooden wedge driven into the split to insure that the trennel was a tight fit, when securing planks to a blind hole the wedge was partly driven into the spit dowel prior to the dowel being driven in and so when the wedge came up against the end of the hole the wedge would drive itself into the dowel thus tightening the dowel inside the hole like an expanding bolt.

Trennels have not been used in Kirkenes' re-build as the correct wood would have been difficult to obtain, and this method is now both time consuming and expensive.  As about 35% of Kirkenes' original frames were considered to be in good enough condition to be re-used, the trennels can still be seen on the few original frames as can be seen in the photograph to the right and in the photograph to the left the trennels can be seen on the outside of the boat where the original planking had been sanded down so that the condition of the wood could be assessed.

It was not possible simply to remove every plank and frame and then re-build her, because her original shape, an important part of her Colin Archer design, would have been lost. It was therefore necessary to remove a few planks at a time and replace them with new planks immediately. Kirkenes has also been fitted with a brand new Iroko deck as can be seen in the photograph below & to the left.

It can be seen from the photograph to the left that the original guard rail was positioned about 10 inches inside the toe rail, this was and still is normal practice for a pilot boat because their work involves coming alongside ships at sea to transfer the pilot either to or from a ship and had the guard rail been on the outer edge of the deck it would have suffered damage on a regular basis. 

It was noticed that deck beams and other woodwork under where the guard rails vertical posts were mounted through the deck were completely rotted through as a result of ingress of water, so a decision was made to fit the new guard rail on the toe rail at the edge of the deck with the advantage that water would not then infiltrate the hull through the deck.

Kirkenes days as a pilot boat are over so it is no longer necessary for her to have her guard rail positioned on the deck; this has had the added advantage of increasing the usable deck area as can be seen in the photograph to the left.

Work is now almost finished – Her masts and spars were also completely rotten and so have been removed, her new owner lives in Scotland where he has reserved two 200 year old pine trees to replace her two masts and spars.

Steve has offered his services as skipper to take her to Scotland under engine where her new masts and spars will be fitted.

Her ballast consisted of a bolted on iron keel, shown to the left, which was removed and as was suspected the bolts were almost completely rusted through, new bolts have been fitted and the keel has been replaced.  In addition she had removable ballast in the form of iron ingots situated under the sole which were also very corroded, these have been removed. New ballast will be put on board when her new masts are fitted in Scotland, until then she will not need this addition ballast and in fact without any masts her motion at sea would be very uncomfortable with it.

Down below the accommodation was in very bad condition with much of the wood completely rotted as a result of water infiltration through the deck. This has also been completely rebuilt and consists of a fo'c's'le cabin with two berths, two berths in the saloon, a dining area with a table, a well fitted galley on the starboard side and a heads opposite.

It is planned that she will be re-launched in May 2009 when she will be 77 years old, it is appropriate that she will begin this new  lease of life by going back to sail in almost the same latitude where she began her life as the Kirkenes pilot boat.