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.