Holes in my Maser

One difference as I have aged is I don't mind cutting holes in my boat. I wouldn't have even contemplated such an undertaking as a young'n.

Last fall I was trying to figure out why I had paint cracking on the aft deck of my Maser. The aft deck seemed very soft. Three mm. plywood is flexible but this seemed worse than usual. The only way I was going to find out was to cut two holes in the aft deck. It turned out that there was a mini-frame, about 50 mm. deep, of 3 mm. plywood, set aft about 300 mm. from the main aft bulkhead. It had cracked on both sides about 150 mm. in from gunwhales, probably when I had moved aft on that area on a heavy-air reach.

To make the frame whole again, I sistered the frame at both the cracks.

The following photos show the process of working backwards to get a watertight aft deck once the repairs had been made.

Backing pieces glued on. Plywood top piece cut to fit. I used a top piece of pine as a gluer for the plywood top piece on the aft side. This also gave some added I-beam strength above the mini-frame. (I cut the hole right next to the mini-frame repair and didn't have room for an aft backer strip.)

Close up of the open hole with backers in place.

Both plywood pieces in place, glued up. Top aft I-beam pine piece glued down.

Repairs glassed over with 9 oz biaxial cloth.

I was eventually able to get some primer down and that is how she looks at the present time. Good enough for a Tweezerman repair.

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• Click here for the original Maser post.
• Click here for no. 105 farewell.

Oh! Wood Butcher, Slopper of Glass, What is the Answer?

One of the ironies of life is that I, the one who does not let craftsmanship nor beauty get in the way of working on boats (the gorgeous Tweezer was an aberration, due mostly to the efforts of Bill Boyle and George Albaugh..... I wanted to paint that Moth, to hell with all that pretty Atlantic cedar) it is I who seem to be asked my opinion on how to fix boats. I think that people assume that since I've built boats, I must know what I'm doing...Hah!

Last Friday, I wandered down to SSA and ran into Ali Meller, who for a good twenty years or so was Mr. 505 of North America (now he races road bikes and does quite well I'm told). Ali was helping a son and dad rig a newly purchased used 505 and I recognized it immediately as a Lindsay (the spruce rolled seat tanks were the give away). Ali confirmed my guess (in life's quest, knowing the lineage of a 505 may not seem much, but I'll take that little nugget as evidence of a superior intellect) and Ali elaborated further into the history of this particular 505. This 505 was one of twelve of the original batch of Lindsay 505's, where Mark built the wood interiors into a English Parker glass hull, circa late 1970's. We had a good laugh as that would only be knowledge that old fart dinghy sailors would know.

When the son started listing the problems of this older 505 (hey, all old boats have problems), he seemed particularly worried about the ply delaminating on the underside of the deck between the shroud bulkhead and the forward bulkhead. I didn't see a problem... if you can't see it, no problem. but then Ali asked me how I would fix it. How I would fix it??? Hmmmm! Hmmmm! (Try to look confident here.)

"Oh, Just turn the boat upside down, drill some holes, take a syringe and squirt epoxy between the delaminated veneer and the good plywood, take some bricks to force the delaminated veneer in contact with the good ply. Should be good to go. You do have some syringes don't you?" Delivered with surety, I didn't want to explain further, so I begged my leave to continue on my tour of the dinghy park.

It was only getting into my car, that I realized I wouldn't have fixed it that way, I would have cut the delaminated ply away with a razor knife, thrown it away and glassed over it with 4oz. fiberglass. A true half-assed Tweezerman repair.

Here is a top down picture of a later model Lindsay 505. This one has mahogany veneer rolled seat tanks instead of spruce. The used Lindsay I was looking at on the SSA dinghy park also had the foredeck painted, probably because the aircraft plywood, after 30 some years, was getting grungy (it was, after all, delaminating underneath).



And here is a 505 punching off the leeward end of line during SSA's weekday TESOD series.........

Classic Moth kit offered in the U.S; Clint Chase Boatbuilders

Conception classique Moth voilier.

I just recently posted about the Francois Vivier French Classic Moth plywood kit . Just looking at the illustrations, it appears to be a stable, capable Classic Moth design; probably fitting into our Gen 1 division very nicely. It turns out that Clint Chase Boatbuilders in Maine can offer the plywood kit from the U.S. I don't have complete info on the pricing, but initial emails with Clint indicate the cost would be very reasonable. If one was to jump into building the kit, I and others within the class would gladly fill in the blanks on the rig, sails and blades for the Moth.

Clint's boat kit website can be seen here.

Spring Boat Work....Painting, Varnishing

The procrastinator that I am, sailing season has arrived with me, as usual, woefully unprepared. Severn Sailing Tuesday night series is just around the corner (next week) and I will be expected to uphold, this year as it was in the year gone by, the Classic Moth flag against the (somewhat faster) Laser hordes. I'll probably splash my Classic Moth Maser for the first TESOD, replete with a slapdash of primer covering where I moved the mast step over the winter. Meanwhile my other Classic Moth is upside down as I varnish the bottom (randomness of life is never more represented in varnishing, you never know what you'll get, at least the way I do it). I also have a kayak upside down on saw horses for a paint job. Did I say I hate painting boats!!!... I'm not very good at it, or to rephrase it, not anal enough for a mirror finish or even a gloss finish. My friends have a saying. This paint job is the 20 foot paint job .... looks good at 20 feet, just don't get any closer. Though some of them have figured out how to spray paint their boats ........ the bastards.