25.) Can't Wait to Plank

I can't wait to install those beautiful mahogany planks the Timesaver helped me make. It will be a real boost knowing that the work of rebuilding the boat has begun—as opposed to just removing material from it (which I have been doing for a long time).

Problem is, there's still stuff to do before I can start planking. I still need to remove the highs and lows inside the boat. The interior surfaces are very bumpy. I'll need to make them smooth and fair using a variety of tools and sandpaper, and I'll also need to do some fairing with epoxy putty.  The planks need to be able to go in with no air voids or bumps below them.

I also need to clean up some edges along the kelson—the piece that runs along the centerline of the boat and to which the planks are joined. This edge has been banged up, stomped on and battered from decades of racing, and is not straight enough right now for the new planks to fit flush.  Some of it is broken and in a few places missing entirely.

I am expecting this to take about a week.

And, yes, I blew it, because to do this work I have to remove all those screws and washers I painstakingly applied to get the boat to conform to the cradle. They can't go back in until the new layer of mahogany is applied.

Postscript: Friday was a fun day in the shop. Work was kind of slow so many of the woodworkers gathered outside with a homemade slingshot to try to shoot pigeons. The pigeons were not in great danger because the ammo consisted of large caliber wine grapes (courtesy of the Red Hook Winery's trash bin). I didn't join in the war against pigeons, but heard the groans and verbal jabs that accompanied many missed shots. It also sounded like the pigeons were laughing.

24.) Milling Strakes

I used the word strake in the headline because it's part of boat building vernacular. But it has a much easier to understand synonym: plank.  

The deeper I have gotten into this project, the more I've wanted to learn the skills required for building an Interclub 60 years ago  So, even though I could get by without installing new planks in the interior of #48, I decided not only that I would, but that I'd mill them myself.

I used wood from a supply of 5-inch wide, 7/8s-inch thick, 8-foot mahogany boards I ordered awhile ago from Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis. CLC's mahogany now comes from sustainably-harvested sources in Fiji, where vast tracts were planted just after World War II using seeds from Honduras.  It is genuine mahogany* but it isn't on the CITES protected list or illegally harvested in the rainforests of South or Central America. 

I used a bandsaw to resaw the boards into thin strips just over 1/8th inch thick. This is not hard to do if you set the saw up correctly, taking extra care to make sure that the blade is parallel to the fence. After a few attempts that didn't turn out as well as I hoped, I realized it's more important to focus on applying even pressure to the bottom of the board (like I am doing in the photo below) as I pushed it through the saw. I could easily see the top of the board (and take corrective action if the saw blade began to drift), but the bottom where the blade exits is hidden. I also cut slowly, giving the saw time to clear out waste. Each board yielded five planks and a lot of sawdust.  (Tool note: the blade on the saw was a Lenox 1/2 inch carbide tipped blade with 3 teeth per inch. It's specially made for resawing.)

Some readers who see the photo of the final step below may groan and throw up their hands because it's sort of cheating. Our shop is equipped with a powerful Timesaver sander. It is a great device that sports a three-foot wide sanding belt and automatic feeder. All I had to do was insert my rough-sawn planks into the machine; they'd emerge on the other end with one side sanded flat. I had to flip the board and make multiple passes to get the dimensions I'd set my calipers to, but it was a fairly quick and relatively foolproof (big plus for me) process. The Timesaver controls the tension the sanding belt applies to the wood with precise pneumatic pressure that is regulated by sensors. Check out the control knob wheel on the bottom left corner of the machine. Each full turn of that knob lowers the sanding belt to remove exactly 1/32-inch from a board. But a quarter turn is as far as you want to go for each new pass, removing 1/128-inch of thickness per pass. For the final pass, you put the board through twice without touching the knob. This achieves an effect similar to switching to a finer grit sandpaper.

The photo above shows a stack of finished and unfinished mahogany strakes, er, planks, on the cart.  I marked each with chalk before feeding them into the machine. When all the chalk dust was removed I knew they were fair.

Even though Interclub was originally built with 1/16-inch thick planks, I made these a little fatter: sanding down the 1/8th rough board to 3/32s.  This gives me an extra 1/32 of play when I sand them again after they are epoxied or glued** into place. If some are too stiff to bend into the right shape, I can always put them through the Timesaver again.

I don't know if the guys at Zephyr Boat Works had a contraption like this in the 1940s, but it's a good bet they would have used it if they did.  It also would be possible to do this work with a set of jointer and smoothing planes or a hand-held sander, but that's obviously a lot more time consuming. (The fastest way would be to buy pre-cut 1/16th-inch veneer.)

The cart in the photo holds enough finished strakes to plank one side of the
boat.

*There are many types of woods classified as mahogany, but not all are "genuine" mahogany. The label refers to the type that has been historically preferred by shipwrights for its beautiful grain, stability, light-weight for its strength, resistance to rot, and because mahogany trees can yield enormous boards (the trees grow as high as 150 feet tall and six feet in diameter). The specific species is Swietenia macrohylla and, in addition to the genuine label, also can be called Honduras, Peruvian, Bolivian, American and bigleaf mahogany. Genuine mahogany can vary greatly in quality and care needs to be taken when selecting it. Until recently, there were both political and quality issues associated with mahogany from Fiji. Most of these seem to have been cleared up with the launch of something called the Fiji Pure Mahogany initiative. Gibson Guitar was one of the first companies to switch to using mahogany from Fiji.

***I am still deciding whether to use epoxy or glue to laminate the new planks to the hull.  There are arguments for and against epoxy when it comes to joining wood. I'll be discussing these in a future post.

23.) Off with the Rails

I pried off the the first couple of plies of the rails using a hammer, chisel and saw (I didn't try to take them off in one big chunk).  After that, I began going after the remainder with the Lie-Nielsen scrub plane in the photo.  The scrub plane takes nice chunky shavings and removes material quickly.  It has a rounded blade that cuts deep into the wood.  Once I have gone a bit farther,  I'll switch to a finer plane or a power sander.

Why remove the rails?  Partly because they are cracked in a few places and show signs of dry rot in others. But the bigger problem is that they've changed shape over time in a way that has adversely affected the geometry of the boat.  In fact, after I finished attaching the hull to the cradle, I noticed the cradle itself was being pulled inward by a 1/4 of an inch or so and was tilting on its base.  The boat was literally rocking the cradle.  How amazing is that?

Once the rails were removed, the cradle settled back down flat.  This shows what a crucial part of the structure of the boat they are and where an Interclub derives most of its strength. (Interclubbers also refer to the rails as the "decks" because it's where you sit most of the time when you are sailing.) Some builders of fiberglass Interclubs underestimated the importance of the rails and made them too weak.  Consequently, many serious racers with fiberglass boats have commissioned boat shops to re-enforce or "box" them.

22.) A Bow to the Bow

One of the things I appreciate most about the way this boat was built years ago is the craftsmanship that went into the construction of the rails at the bow. The photo above gives a bird's eye view, looking straight down at it.

The detail of how to build this part of the boat was specified on the architectural plans. But it's different than the end result. So it might be that the woodworkers at Zephyr Boat Works came up with a better way to do it.

I want to document it here--and note how great it is--before I destroy it. Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to preserve this part of the boat.  There has just been too much damage and stress on this area over the past 65 or so years (some of that presumably from hitting other Interclubs on the race course).

Check out the construction, though.  As the rails come around the starboard and port sides, they need to be connected somewhere.  The method employed avoids having them all joined at one point, which would lead to a potential weak spot at a place in the boat that can't afford to be weak.  Instead, the rails are split and interconnected so that some parts of them wrap all of the way around the boat to the adjoining side.

You can see this better in the photo below, for which I removed the center fitting and sanded off the finish.  Note how only some of the strips meet in the center; the rest continue all of the way around.  Two types of wood were used in the construction of the rails: mahogany and spruce.

The final photo is a shot of the starboard rail about 24 inches back from the bow. It shows the starting point for the thin strips of mahogany that wrap around the front of the bow.  The two larger strips that continue toward the bow are gradually tapered to the points you can see in the photos above.

Pretty groovy, huh?

21.) Success

The photo below shows how the bottom of the boat now conforms to the cradle (and therefore its original designed shape).  The reason it doesn't look perfectly snug is that I beveled the face of each frame piece so that only the very center of each one would touch the boat at the station line described in the plans. (Without the bevels the curved shape of the hull would cause the hull to touch the cradle at the wrong place and throw off the shape.)  The bottom photo is a top-down view showing how the frames pieces are beveled, each one depending on its position in the cradle and the curvature of the hull at that spot.  I know this is repetitive, but it's important to be clear that the hull needs to touch the cradle at the exact center of each plywood frame piece.

20.) Wood Wrestling

Forcing the hull back into it's original shape was more of an epic battle than I anticipated. It took a lot force and I had to endure a lot of scary creaking and cracking sounds. A couple of times I thought I was going to break the whole thing.  The photo below shows how I finally got the stubborn craft to yield. First, I used lots of Bessey cabinet clamps to push the hull down into the cradle. Then, I used screws with large fender washers to secure it.  I put the screws in (sometimes just a turn at a time) from the middle of the boat up and out.  I had to frequently fiddle with the clamping pressure as I went along.

I believe most of the resistance was coming from the mahogany and spruce rails that frame the boat (the dark brown wood the red Bessey clamps are attached to). I am going to remove and replace these rails as part of the project and I'll explain why later.  But I didn't want to cut them off before the hull was fastened to the cradle because I was terrified the whole vessel would just open like a flower and leave me with a big piece of fancy curved plywood.

Before I put any screws in I spent a lot of time making sure the boat was perfectly positioned in the cradle.  This included measuring the fore and aft positioning as well as running a string down the center line of the hull to make sure the boat was centered and straight.

And yep, I drilled all those screw holes right through the bottom of the boat. When I was done, there were more than twice as many as shown in the photo.

The picture above also better shows the sanding I did on the interior.  You can see I sanded through the mahogany planks a little more than halfway up both sides.  I did this to remove evidence of damage, dry rot and other problems.  I will be adding new mahogany planking inside the boat.  I haven't been able to identify the wood used to construct the inner planks of the boat.  The Sparkman and Stephens plans specifically call for all five of the layers to be constructed of 1/16th-inch mahogany, but that is definitely not mahogany.  It could be soft maple, red birch or even pine.  I am going to ask an expert to look at it who can identify wood species better than I.  (Update: we have a positive ID: It's birch.)

The only woods mentioned in the plans are mahogany, spruce and white oak. Was the boat so popular initially that the builder ran out of mahogany planking? Did they pull a fast one?  Or was there another reason?  The boats were built shortly after World War II and there might still have been materials shortages.

19.) 90 Pound Weakling

Before attaching the hull to the cradle, I thought it would be a good idea to weigh it. The photo of the digital scale to the right reads 97 pounds, but that includes four pounds of equipment I used to lift the boat.

One reason it is so light is that it has been drying out in the indoor shop for more than a year.  The moisture content of the wood is extremely low.

I am going to want to bring the finished boat right in on the class minimum weight of 230 pounds. That weight includes the mast, boom, centerboard, rudder, and all the fittings and racing equipment (though not the sail and a few other odds and ends).

At some point, I am going to have to know what all those items weigh so I can subtract that from 230 to calculate the optimum weight of the finished hull.

The challenge is to make the boat as strong and stiff as possible, but not to go an ounce over 230 pounds.  The more rigid a boat is the more efficiently it transfers energy from the sail (or movement of the crew) into forward motion.

18.) Stripped Club

The photo below to the left is a picture of #48 the way it looks now.  I have removed all the paint and fiberglass on the exterior, sanded the interior (removing one ply of mahogany planking), and carefully cut out the bulkhead, centerboard trunk, and ribs with a Fein Supercut. (The mast partners, mast step, and floorboards had been taken out of the boat before it was given to me.)  I have juxtaposed my Interclub with a photo of hull #46 on the right, which has been nicely restored to something very close to the original design (the original mast partners have been replaced and reinforced). This way you can see just how much is missing. I don't, however, plan to copy the original design.  The biggest problem with it is what some Interclub sailors refer to as "the picnic table"--the wide piece of mahogany above the centerboard trunk.  It's totally swell if you like bruised shins or want to roll a doobie between races.  The new fiberglass boats don't have it.  I also plan to craft a smoothly curved seat that will sit above the bulkhead, mimicking the design of fiberglass boats but made of wood.

17.) IC IP

I hope to come up with some interesting new innovations for this Interclub, but smart sailors have been thinking about how to make these boats go fast since the first one was launched in 1945. So before trying anything new, I need to make sure I am up to speed on the intellectual property that's already been developed and applied. How to do that? Study other boats, talk to their owners, and take pictures....lots and lots and lots of pictures.

16.) Does This Project Make Any Sense?

There's a quick answer to the question I posed in the title of this entry: no, no, and no.

No 1: It doesn't make economic sense. This project will cost significantly more than the price of a new Interclub (about $8,500).  Used boats in good condition and ready to race can be acquired for far less (around $2,000). So the ROI on this adventure is nothing short of appalling.

No 2: It doesn't make sailboat racing sense.  If I took all the time I spent working on this boat and instead used it as practice time on the water, I'd improve my place in the racing standings far more rapidly.

No 3: It doesn't make educational sense.  I would learn more for less money in a shorter period of time if I enrolled in a boat building school.

Then again, who says this has to make sense?  The simple truth is that I get a kick out of this project--and that's more than enough reward for me at this point in my life.

I am thankful to be able to do this. I'm reasonably secure financially, have a great collection of tools I've assembled over the years (see my page "Tools I Really Like"), and possess enough knowledge and free time. I like working with my hands and enjoy going to my shop every day, where I am surrounded by other skilled woodworkers turning out everything from high-end custom furniture to boutique wood products to this crazy statue that was recently featured on the Colbert Report http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/zekn1k/satanic-monument-for-the-oklahoma-state-house.   I learn a lot from these folks and enjoy the company of people who value self-expression through genuine craftsmanship. (I also count my lucky stars and multiverses that I don't have to show up in an office somewhere, sit through meetings in conference rooms, or have a boss who asks me to do things I think are stupid).

I embrace hard work, but after 40 years, I've had enough of the business world. Yes, business is necessary and offers many advantages, including pay checks. But the biggest problem with it (I think) is the way the transactional essence of business distorts relationships. True, people at the office often act and feel friendly towards one another. They can even be supportive, nurturing and caring. But at some point, it's important to understand that genuine love and friendship doesn't and can't exist in this environment. You are fooling yourself if you think I'm wrong.

(Of course, fooling yourself might not be a terrible idea if you, like most people, actually do have to go off to work every day.  Under such circumstances, it may be better to think I am wrong and believe you actually are satisfying your deepest needs in the workplace.)

I also get a thrill out of the challenge I've set for myself. It's one that's uniquely mine and belongs to no one else: How can I transform a seriously beaten up boat with an interesting heritage into one of, if not the best, of its kind in existence? To answer that, I'll need to know a lot about wood, construction, boat design, engineering, and many other things. The craft of boat building is literally tens of thousands of years old, and throughout it, mankind has accumulated an enormous storehouse of knowledge about what works and what doesn't. Modern science has advanced this craft even further in the past ten or twenty years. So there's really no limit to the way I can challenge myself throughout this project. That, I like.

I don't delude myself by thinking there's any point to this beyond taking on a challenge and trying to meet it.  There isn't.