I’ve been on a search for Irish Felt. Sample came today…it is not what I expected. It looks like, um, roofing felt that’s just a little bit thicker than regular roofing felt. Not as thick and soft as I thought it would be. This is 1/16″ thick, a little bit squishy/soft and a bit sticky with the bitumen. One side has a very light dusting of limestone powder. It is jute not flax and uses bitumen not pine resin/tar/pitch. In theory “Irish Felt” is made from flax with pine resins instead of petro products…I don’t know…I can see using it in some applications for Irish Felt–for example between worm shoe and keel or padding for tanks. Its more stretchy than regular roofing felt but not so stretchy that I could see it conforming nicely to sharp curves.

Here’s a pic of David holding the sample sent to me by the distributor:

Mahdee’s portholes are a little different than other portholes we’ve seen. First, they are secured with a “cam” system that locks down with the rotation of a single lever rather than the system that other portholes have where there are large nuts that turn individually on screws to tighten the porthole at one, two, three, or more locations. The cam system provides even pressure such that glass shouldn’t break when the porthole is securely tightened against weather.

The other “different” thing is that the portholes are held in place by fasteners through the inside rim only. Going through the hull there is simply a thin-walled tube that extends from porthole itself to end flush with the outside face of the hull planking. Each tube is a different length based upon the thickness of the hull, ceiling, and porthole combination. These thin walled tubes are in poor shape due to almost 80 years of corrosion; so we are trying to find replacement bronze tubing. If we cannot find the large diameter thin-walled tubing, we will have to braze/weld bronze plate into a tube and use that instead. Click on image for very large view of the portholes.