booktalesy Chapter 114 Dragon Bone
Chapter 114 Dragon Bone
Chapter 114 Dragon Bone
The day the old tugboat was towed from the east end of Hongjia Island to Moon Island, it was still dark.
Hong Laowu and his nephew pushed the boat out from under the crooked banyan tree with the tide. A hemp rope was tied to the rudder, and the end of the rope was tied to the stern of Hong Laosan's fishing boat.
The fishing boat towed the tugboat slowly, its hull cutting through the gray-green seawater.
The churning waves crashed against the old ship's side, splashing the old scar that ran from the hull edge to the bilge wet.
Jiang Haiping squatted on the reef and waited.
Old Fang stood by the dock, a cigarette dangling from his lips, the ash piling up long without being flicked away.
Ah Hai and Ah Guang swept the pebbles off the boat raft and replaced the stone blocks.
Lin Xiu'e brought out the steamed sweet potatoes from the kitchen, wrapped them in old newspapers, and placed them on the stone slab, steam rising from the seams of the newspapers.
When the ship was towed to the dock, the sun had just peeked out from the horizon with a red glow.
Hong Laosan brought the fishing boat ashore and jumped off to help Hong Laowu push the old tugboat onto the raft.
The hull of the boat hit the stone block with a dull thud, and rust chips fell from the crack on the side of the boat, accumulating in a small clump on the sand.
Old Fang walked to the side of the boat and squatted down.
He ran his hand along the bottom of the boat, from bow to stern, stopping when he reached the middle of the keel.
He looked up at Jiang Haiping, said nothing, took out a chisel from the toolbox, and scraped off the old, white mortar from the outside of the middle section of the keel.
The scraped-off ash crumbled into powder and fell onto the sand, revealing the grooves underneath.
The hemp fibers in the grooves were completely dry; they crumbled at the slightest touch with a finger.
"Xiu'e, come and take a look." Old Fang placed the chisel on the side of the boat.
Lin Xiu'e stood up from the stone slab, wiped her hands with her apron, and squatted down by the boat raft.
She ran her fingertip along the seam, stopping when she reached the joint between the middle section of the keel and the plank.
My fingertip touched a fine line; it wasn't wood grain, but a crack on the keel itself.
She picked up the chisel and gently scraped along the fine lines. As the lines deepened, the chisel blade made a soft tearing sound when it went in.
"The middle section of the keel is cracked." Lin Xiu'e put the chisel on the side of the boat, stood up and wiped her hands on her apron.
Hong Laowu was squatting by the side of the boat, scraping the rust off the bottom of the boat with a shovel.
Upon hearing this, he left the shovel on the bottom of the boat without picking it up.
He stood up and walked to Lin Xiu'e's side, looking down at the groove that Lao Fang had just cut open.
The hemp fibers in the grooves had dried and crumbled, and the fine lines on the keel extended about two inches inward from the seam. You could feel a very shallow indentation when you touched it with your finger.
"Can it be repaired?" Hong Laowu's voice was dry and monotonous.
"Yes, but not grouting. If the keel is cracked, you need to install keel nails. You need to sandwich steel plates on both sides of the crack, bolt them through and lock them in place, and then fill the crack with tung oil putty. The steel plate service station has used parts, you need to buy the bolts, and the tung oil putty is readily available." Old Fang stood up and put the chisel back in the toolbox.
"How much do the bolts cost?"
"Eight are enough. They cost two cents each at the hardware store in town. One dollar and sixty cents."
Hong Laowu squatted by the side of the boat, his hands resting on his knees.
He looked down at the pile of rusted iron filings shoveled off the bottom of the ship, which had been turned upside down by the sea breeze.
The service station has already used old ship planks, welding rods, and tung oil to repair this boat, but they haven't charged the workers.
Now that the keel is cracked, Lao Fang says that keel nails need to be installed, and the material cost is one dollar and sixty cents.
He still had five yuan in his pocket, which he had saved from fishing before the start of summer to buy anti-rust paint.
He reached into his pocket and felt around, finding a few neatly folded bills.
I have one dollar and sixty cents.
"You don't need to pay." Ding Haifeng stood up from under the window of the secondhand warehouse. He put the micrometer into the box, closed the lid, and walked over. "The secondhand shop owner, Mr. Chen, sent someone to tell me yesterday that he has a batch of scrapped ship bolts with complete documentation and the same specifications as keel nails."
He said the service station was repairing Hong Laowu's boat, and he would give them eight bolts for free.
"Why did he give it to me?" Old Fang took the cigarette out of his mouth.
He said his father was also a fisherman.
He'd seen that old tugboat when he was a child; Hong Laowu's father had taken him out to sea in it once. He said the bolts weren't worth much, so he'd just consider it repayment for the fare his father owed Hong Laowu's father for that trip.
Ding Haifeng put the micrometer box into his pocket.
Old Fang put the cigarette back in his mouth and stared at Ding Haifeng for a long while.
Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked off the ash, bent down and scraped off a section of the old ash from the crack next to the keel. After he finished, he stood up and handed the chisel to Lin Xiu'e.
"Haifeng, go get the keel nails. Xiu'e, clean all the old mortar off the keel. After that, Hai and Haifeng clamp the steel plate. Haisheng, weld the bolt holes to position them."
In just one morning, Lin Xiu'e meticulously removed the old mortar from the keel with her chisel.
She stopped when she reached the end of the crack, which stopped right in front of the joint between the keel and the first rib, without going any deeper.
She placed the chisel on the keel and ran her fingertips along the crack from beginning to end, twice, before standing up and wiping her hands on her apron.
Ding Haifeng rode back from Baishakou around noon.
He parked his old bicycle at the gate of the courtyard, took out a bundle of old newspapers from the cloth bag hanging on the handlebars, and tied the newspapers with two ropes.
Inside, there were eight bolts. The bolts were slightly oxidized and darkened, but the threads were intact, and there were no signs of them being tightened.
Ahai took the bolt, measured its outer diameter with calipers, and then checked it again with a pitch gauge. "Standard specification. It works."
Ding Haisheng moved the welding machine from the new workshop to the side of the ship's hull.
He put on his protective goggles and squatted down next to the keel.
Ahai and Ding Haifeng sandwiched the old steel plate between the cracks in the keel, and Ahai used a torque wrench to pre-tighten the bolts.
Ding Haisheng lit the welding rod, the arc flashing, and spot-welded the bolt head to the steel plate for positioning.
Hong Laowu remained squatting by the side of the boat.
He held a shovel in his hand, the handle of which was worn smooth and shiny.
He watched as Lao Fang used a chisel to draw lines on the keel, watched as Lin Xiu'e cleaned the old mortar, and watched as Ding Haifeng rode back from Baishakou and handed the bolts to A Hai.
Watching Ding Haisheng squatting next to the keel, using welding rods to spot weld and position the bolt heads one by one.
He didn't say a word, but gripped the handle of the spatula tighter and tighter until his fingernails turned white.
By the time we finished work in the evening, the keel nails were in place. Steel plates were clamped on both sides of the keel, and eight bolts were used to lock them in place.
The grooves on both sides of the crack were filled with freshly twisted hemp fibers and tung oil putty.
The keel was repaired, but the cracks are still there, and it can't move because it's sandwiched between steel plates.
This ship can still go out to sea.
Ah-Guang spread the register on the worktable, turned to the page about the old tugboat, and wrote a line neatly in the repair record column: "Crack in the middle of the keel, drive in eight keel nails, and reinforce with steel plates."
The bolts were a gift from Mr. Chen, the owner of the Baishakou secondhand shop, and all the scrapping procedures were complete. After writing this, he looked up at the loquat tree.
Ding Haifeng stood under the loquat tree, clutching a micrometer box in his hand, the lid tightly shut.
The white tape on the box lid was worn and frayed, and the character "峰" written with a ballpoint pen had bled out in a blue ring.