Continuing the process on the thwarts and rubrail, I went through the normal routine: sand, clean, and varnish, this time coat #3.
Two of the three spars looked good after their maintenance coat, but the third section required another coat because of a couple holidays that I’d missed. I also applied a second maintenance coat to the oars, tiller, and daggerboard pieces, all of which had been a bit more beat up to start with and benefited from the additional coating.
The minor repair on the rudder was complete, and after a quick sand to smooth the glued seam, I applied a coat of varnish to the rudder as well.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 35°. Forecast for the day: sunny, around 70
After a light sanding and cleanup, I applied a second coat of varnish to all areas in the boat.
The spars for the sailing rig, along with the oars, rudder, and daggerboard, were in generally good condition and appeared little-used. The brightwork on these items was in sound condition and required only maintenance coats of varnish going forward.
After removing the tiller and lightly sanding the rudder, I found a crack in the wood near the top, so I made a small repair with epoxy and clamps.
I lightly sanded the spars, oars, and other pieces, then applied a coat of varnish to them all.
Total time billed on on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 34°. Forecast for the day: sunny, upper 60s
Now I sanded all the recently-stripped interior woodwork to smooth and further clean the surfaces, working through a couple grits with an electric sander and by hand as necessary. The original wood–mahogany for the thwarts and white oak for the rubrails–was in good condition overall, particularly the old mahogany, and cleaned up quite well, though retaining the inevitable–even desirable–patina of age. The white oak was stained around all the rubrail fasteners, but most of this rail (except the inboard edge) would later be covered by the new “canvas” rubrail.
After vacuuming, I solvent-washed the wood to clean it, leaving it to air dry for several minutes before continuing.
Once the solvent had evaporated, I masked around the various pieces of bronze hardware and along the edges of the wood as needed to protect the hardware and hull from the varnish work.
Finally, I applied a well-thinned sealer coat of varnish to all areas.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 25°. Forecast for the day: sunny, 50s
The Prince Edward Island (PEI) Oyster Dory, a basic flat-bottomed skiff usually around sixteen feet in length, is a no-nonsense design well-optimized to the local fishing conditions. With shallow, sandy, protected waters in and around the island, this simple design, usually equipped with raised bow platforms called tong boards, appealed to me, and over the years I’d come to the opinion that the best boat for any local area should mimic the local fishing boats. I thought it’d be fun to find an old one in need of repairs and refreshing and spend a little time bringing it back to life.
While the dories all share a basic design and function, there are many different individual boats and various design and construction differences, from home-built plywood and plank-on-frame to contemporary molded fiberglass versions. After spending the summer casually searching the local want ads and online, in September of 2017 I finally found an old well-used wooden dory that fit the bill for me. Built from plywood and solid planks on the bottom, the dory was partially fiberglass-sheathed and nearly seaworthy as is, but it required glasswork, refastening, and some general maintenance, paint, and upgrades. The price was right at $100 and I thought it would be a good entry and basic project for me. These photos, taken from the original advertisement, show the basic original condition of the boat.
I picked up the boat using a trailer from another boat I had, and brought it home, where I deposited the boat in my garage to await the work.
At first, I set the boat on some piles of offcut lumber so I could get it off the trailer, which I’d soon need for another boat.
Now that I had the boat home, I spent some time going over the boat and more accurately determining the condition. My only criteria during my initial inspection before purchase was to confirm that the vessel was more or less boat-shaped and sound enough to turn in to a most basic workboat (both criteria well-satisfied, and frankly the boat could have been used as is, at least for a little while). But now I could start assessing what she would actually need, and there were myriad issues.
There were several areas of dry rot in the transom and floor (both built from solid planks), and the plywood hull sides were loose and pulled substantially away from the interior frames in most areas. The bottom of the dory had been fiberglassed about 3″ up past the turn of the bilge (polyester resin and chopped-strand mat), and this sheathing was generally sound, though the tabbing had pulled away from the topsides in some areas, most notably the transom and port after two-thirds, as well as a section on the starboard side. The plank transom had been reinforced with some thin aluminum in a stop-gap attempt to strengthen the weakening structure. The two thwarts were rough and of a stop-gap nature as well, plus there were several oddly-placed wooden blocks screwed to the floor hither and thither.
A little later I built a basic roller platform out of some readily available scrap lumber so I could easily move the boat around the shop as needed.
After some basic preparations and setup, I stripped the old varnish coatings off the woodwork, using a carbide scraper and heat gun. As always, this process was simple and went quickly.
The thwarts, made from mahogany, were in good shape, though the existing finish was worn. The bent wood rubrails on both sides of the boat–this appeared to be white oak–showed much more in the way of wear and tear because of their location and the fact that most of the finish had long since worn away, allowing the wood to discolor with time. Most of this wood would be covered later with a flexible canvas-type padded rubrail fender, but I hoped that the weathered wood would clean up fairly well with sanding and, if needed, chemical brightening. Fortunately, the portion of the rails that would remain most visible–that on the inside of the gunwale–happened to be in the best condition, with most of its finish intact.
The fiberglass housing containing the flotation foam beneath the forward thwart had come loose on one side; repair was as simple as installing two screws to re-secure the molding to the underside of the seat as needed.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, around 40° (missed it). Forecast for the day: Sunny, near 80°
With a substantial project list ahead, and even though I didn’t plan to begin the job in earnest till later in the fall, I thought there might be time here and there over the next couple months where I could work on some of the initial jobs required, so I took the opportunity to move Jasmine into the second shop, where she could stay out of the weather and be accessible whenever I had down time from my main project next door.
The work list for this project centered around some significant deck core repairs and related issues, but also included a long list of rigging upgrades, lifelines, electrical work, and sundry tasks all designed to ensure the boat was well-rigged, safe, and ready for seakindly sailing in the future.
Total time billed on this job today: 1 hour
0600 Weather Observation: 30°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 60s
After some final cleanup, I took the short step of filling all the raw fastener holes in the deck with some inexpensive latex household caulking compound, just to minimize (and hopefully prevent entirely) any leakage through the holes that could occur beneath the boat’s cover once I moved her out for storage. The temporary sealant would be easy to remove during surface preparations at a later stage of the project.
Afterwards, to make room for another boat arriving soon I moved Scupper outdoors for storage till her real project time, and covered her simply with a tarp to keep out the weather.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 30°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 60s
A past customer brought me this 8′ Dyer Dhow sailing dinghy, perhaps the most ubiquitous, “dinghy-est” dinghy ever built. The small boat was in good condition, but showing her age, and he requested that I refinish the interior woodwork and spars, as well as install a soft traditional rubrail along the gunwale. Over the coming weeks, I planned to pick away at thee small job between other things, and immediately ordered the new rubrail and other materials I’d need for the job so I could get started.
Total time billed on this job today: .5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 32°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, around 70
To remove the bow pulpit, with its inaccessible fasteners, I chose to grind a flat area on the tops of the round-head slotted machine screw fasteners, which then allowed me to center punch and drill out the fastener head so I could push the shanks through. I’d managed to remove two of the six fasteners in the traditional way during an earlier session, so I had four total to remove this time.
Afterwards, it was straightforward to unbolt the two forwardmost pair of pulpit bases located further out the wooden bow platform.
For the moment, my goal was only to remove all the deck hardware, and now only two pieces remained: the forward sections of jib track, located just forward of the winch pods on the sidedecks. Earlier, I’d removed the aftermost several fasteners from each track, which were located in the cockpit lockers. The remaining 7 fasteners on each side had to be accessed from inside the cabin, where they were hidden behind the molded liner and tougher to access.
The port side went well enough, as I found I could relatively easily clamp onto the nuts from beneath with locking pliers.
I initially thought the starboard side might be easier, since access was through a locker in the head that initially seemed pretty accessible. Here, however, there was some additional trim in the way (I removed it), and then I found that all the fasteners were overlong and had been substantially bent to one side or the other, perhaps to hide the long shanks above the edge of the liner. The bend meant that even if I could get to the nuts, I couldn’t easily get the nuts off. I straightened the bent bolts as much as possible with a hammer, and, with substantial time and various techniques–mostly Vice Grips from below and impact gun from above–eventually removed the last section of track and its fasteners. In most cases, I managed to get the nuts loosened enough to pull up the fastener to the point that I could cut off the head from above, which then allowed me to push the bolts through.
I spent the remains of the day cleaning up the tools and detritus from the previous days’ work efforts, and planned to soon cover and move the boat outdoors for storage till her turn for the bulk of the project arrived later in the winter, and to make room for another project due to arrive soon.
Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 32°. Forecast for the day: Sunny, around 70
I continued work on hardware removal, this time with the farthest-aft reaches of the starboard quarter. On this side, access towards the transom was somewhat better: although there was a glassed-in fiberglass fuel tank in the space, there was not the tall, skinny bulkhead that impeded the port side of the boat, and I could more easily get aft to reach the various fasteners–including those towards the center of the wide poop deck, such as the mainsheet traveler and a sort of pole socket mounted nearby.
I spent quite some time in the locker removing all the nuts I could from beneath, which fortunately was most of them. I figured I might as well finish off the space, so I removed all the nuts from the two sections of genoa track (the forward section continued into the main cabin, and I’d finish that part later) and anything else I’d need to remove. Where necessary, I installed Vice Grips on the few nuts that I couldn’t get from beneath, and then, from on deck, I could remove those fasteners from above.
The double turning block on this side was even tougher to remove than its counterpart to port, as the stainless fasteners were truly rendered immobile by saltwater corrosion and reaction with the aluminum blocks. Using the electric impact gun and socket, I managed to slightly free two of the fasteners. A third broke off at the head, and the fourth, seen here, barely moved at all despite full power on the gun.
Later I was able to pry the block–fasteners and all–up off the deck successfully.
Afterwards, I returned to the port side and removed the genoa track nuts and the remaining mainsheet traveler fasteners that I hadn’t been able to access from the other side, allowing me to remove at last all the hardware from this area.
At the bow, a few things remained that I could remove now, including some small hardware on the aft end of the teak bow platform, and the wooden blocks over which the chocks and cleats had been installed.
The two after mounts for the bow pulpit were proving to be a challenge. Access from below was difficult in part because of a small opening into the chainlocker, but also because there was a tall and wide wooden backing block for the after platform bolts spanning the space from side to side, and this deep blocking blocked ready access–visual or otherwise–to the fasteners securing the pulpit bases. On the port side, I managed to loosen the nuts without much difficulty (other than working blind and in a contorted position), since the nuts weren’t tight to begin with. But to starboard (shown here), the angle was such that I couldn’t easily get any sort of tool on the nuts, and while the view looks clear in the photo, the realities of the access were significantly more challenging.
Since at least for the immediate moment I didn’t plan on removing the bow platform–I’d leave this pending final determination of the project scope–removing the backing block/beam wasn’t possible for now. As of this writing, further action on these fasteners was pending.
Other than the pulpit, and the two forward sections of genoa track–which fasteners I’d need to access from inside the cabin, outside the edge of the overhead liner–the hardware removal was mainly complete.
Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clouds and fog, 60°. Forecast for the day: Clouds and fog, 70s
