A Dory for Gazela Primeiro and at the end tips on glass application

A while ago I received a nice email from Tony Souza regarding construction issues with a new dory he intended building for the old Portuguese barkentine Gazela Primeiro.

Hello Ross,
Thanks for your recent article "Stems and Trailers".  In that article you discuss natural timber vs plywood construction and show the merits of plywood glued lapstrake for boats that are dry stored.
Im trying to choose a construction technique to use for a reproduction dory that will be "dry sailed".  The dory is a Grand Banks dory of 17 feet overall, 13 feet on the floor. The new dory has to resemble closely the last of the three dozen Portuguese grand banks dories that sat on the deck of Gazela Primeiro, the 100+ year old Portuguese barkentine on which I am one of the all volunteer crew.  Last winter we patched and repaired the last dory, and this year Id like to build a dory to be used often for the teaching of boat handling, rowing, and dory sailing.  the boat handling includes launching and retrieving over the side using hand operated boatfalls. The new dory will spend most of its time stacked inside the old dory, the two as deck displays of what was used in long line fishing of the early 20th century.
As a matter of resemblance the new dory will have four frame sisters overlapped, removable thwarts, 5/8" cedar planking, solid gunwales, a mast step on the floor and two sets of oarlocks.
For ease of construction and in keeping with the dry storage idea I plan on using modern materials where I can.  The flat bottom will be Meranti plywood already on hand, no need to soak the floor seams closed before putting boat into the water.  The frames are already built from laminated ash. Tree crotch and buttress sections are too difficult to find.  I plan to epoxy the garboard plank to the bottom, glass tape and epoxy the inside seam.  After planking I plan to turn the boat over and glass the bottom and garboard with cloth.
After that long prologue we come to my uncertainty area, the clinker planking joints.  Its tempting to use lap-stitch aka ship lap joints, easily cut with a router and epoxy fastened.  On natural, i.e. not plywood, timber that may lead to splitting along the grain at the join.  Likewise dory lapped (rolling bevel) joints likewise glued might suffer splitting.  I should have said earlier that using modern glues and eliminating metal fastners is a goal.  The old dory is a pincushion of steel nails on the planking joints which has resulted in rusty streaks and rotten wood.  (Of course dories were not supposed to last more than a couple years in ocean service. Old dory is probably 40+ years old.) 
Would it be better to caulk the planking seams with Boat Life, a polysulfide, rather than epoxy fasten?  The frames are there to give cross grain strength.  With your expeience you might see that Im headed for problems not yet envisioned.
Any suggestions will be very welcome and gratefully accepted.
Gazela can be seen at www.gazela.org.
A picture of the old dory is attached. 

Here is part of the text of my reply: -

I agree totally with your concerns regarding "hard" gluing of either "lapstitch" or dory-lap joints when using natural timber rather than plywood - I believe that they would definitely crack at the point where the planking thickness returned to single-plank. Harry Bryan wrote about the matter when he did a couple of articles for WoodebBoat Magazine about the building of his Daisy design. She had either double-planked cedar (glued with epoxy) for the bottom, or a single sheet of plywood. The topsides were planked with lapstrake cedar planks in the normal manner (I think using copper clench nailing from memory). The important thing in our context is that he expected her to be dry-sailed, and after completing the planking in the normal way, he dragged a sharp, flat-blade screw driver along the underside of the lap on the outer side of the planking. This produced a sort of square-shaped groove of about 1/8" x 1/8" in the underside of the lap. He then filled the groove with a bead of polyurethane (I would use 3M 5200 or Sikaflex 292, using a polyurethane-specific primer)

Having said all that, I wonder whether you could just glue the entire lap with polyurethane (I dont know enough about polysulfide to say anything about its adhesive qualities where no fastenings are used). The polyurethane is strong enough, but I dont know whether a fully-glued lap would allow enough movement to overcome the cracking problem, even given the flexibility of the compound - but my guess is that it would be ok, especially if the glue-line was thick.

If I was doing it, Id go the copper-fastened route, with the polyurethane (or polysulphide) run into the groove under the lap.

I think that the garboard arrangement you propose would be fine. The glass on the outer face should supply cross-grain reinforcement, and the tape on the inside will extend some distance beyond the vulnerable line of intersection between the inside faces of the bottom and the garboard.

On two boats I built (one of which ended up in the Jody Foster film, Nims Island - see the recent comment made on Duckworks http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/10/reports/may/index.htm ), I made the bottom from Western Red Cedar glued strip, continuing around the turn of bilge, after which I continued the planking as plywood glued lapstrake. I cut the bevel on the bottom planking to accept the first lapstrake plank before glassing the bottom. When glassing the bottom, I continued the glass right around and onto the bevelled face. This meant that when the first plywood plank was glued on, the glass was sandwiched between the WRC strip planking and the inner face of the plywood - the aim being to prevent splitting in the WRC.  This explanation is a bit clumsy, but I havent got time right now to do a sketch. In your case this will not be necessary, as you will have the glass on the outside of the cedar planking anyway.

??

Western Red Cedar bottom planking

???

Bottom covered with 400gsm (12oz) double-bias glass and the first two planks of plywood lapstrake attached - the first plank going over the glass, which itself had been laid over the bevelled edge of the cedar bottom planking.

???Here is Tonys latest up-date: -

Hiya Ross,
Here are three pix of the dory project to date.  This boat is a copy of the last original belonging to Portuguese fishing barkentine Gazela Primeiro.  You can see more pictures on www.Gazela.org and my facebook page. My version of the dory has a meranti plywood bottom and white cedar planking over laminated ash frames.  The gunwale and cap are white oak. The dory will essentially be dry sailed i.e. living on Gazelas deck most of the time and occasionally be used for crew training and exhibition at home and ports of call.
After corresponding with you some time ago I took your advice and epoxy joined only the garboard plank to the bottom.  The rest of the construction has followed traditional methods. The upper edge of the garboard and the remaining planks are dory lapped and copper riveted.  Planks to frames are joined with Si bronze screws.
I think we talked about covering the bottom and up to the upper edge of the garboard with synthetic cloth and epoxy. 
Now areas where I could use advice:
What cloth would be appropriate? I dont think the dory will ever see a beach, but it might. So a light cloth should do.
Is there an advantage to graphite additive to the epoxy?
Any tricks to applying the cloth?
Thanks for your help,
Tony Souza

And part of my reply: -

Dear Tony,

Thanks very much indeed for the up-date, and for the nice photos. The boat looks super to my eyes, and Id love to take her out in the rough stuff - preferrebly with some weight in the bottom to represent the ballasting effect of a load of Cod!

My appologies for the delayed reply - we have been recovering from the devastating flash-flood which wiped us out on January 10, and priorities tend to be re-arranged!

For the cloth, the simplest would be 200gsm (6oz) woven glass. This is light and easy to use, and gives a good level of protection, and more importantly, provides a sort of screed to ensure an even thickness of epoxy. Dynel is also a good option (4oz, I think, but you would need to check with the supplier). Dynel is bulkier than glass for the same weight, and it has superior abrasion resistance - I like it on decks - but it doesnt have the tensile stiffness of glass so it will have less structural effect on the garboard-to-bottom joint. For a hefty boat like yours which may get handled roughly, Id give serious thought to using 400gsm (12oz) double-bias glass cloth. It isnt woven, so it takes bends fairly well, and with the fibres aligned 45 degrees/45 degrees, every fibre crosses the longitudinal joints. It is cheaper than woven glass, but is heavier than the normal 6oz stuff.

I normally use the dry application method (for weights up to 12oz). I lay the cloth over the dry, sanded, and vacuumed surface, and them smooth it into position with a dustpan brush or a wide, dry paintbrush. Tape any troublesome edges down with temporary bits of masking tape. Then start by mixing small quantities of epoxy and pour them onto the glass (or Dynel) and spread them with a squeegee - I use rectangles of 1/16" model aircraft balsa as they can be bent along the grain if required, and the corners dont snag on the glass.  Dont press too hard, as you will end up aerating the epoxy and making it go creamy with minute air bubbles (just like what happens when whipping cream). Just use a gentle figure-eight sweeping motion to get it out onto the surface. Dont fuss about getting it to wet-out - that will happen automatically. Keep on mixing, pouring and spreading until the entire surface is covered. Small batches are good, as they dont heat up so rapidly in the container.

When the surface is covered, use disposable brushes and/or disposable foam rollers with about a 1/8" nap to distribute the resin evenly. I use dry brushes and rollers - they pick-up from the excessivcely wet areas and put down in the dry areas. When all is even, use the squeegees again (held at about 45 degrees to the surface) to scrape off excess resin so you end up with just the wet cloth, but no visible pooling of liquid resin.

After the epoxy has gone off enough to be certain that the cloth wont float up off the surface - this depends on temperature and rate of cure - but when it gets to a "green"state of cure, lay on several more coats of epoxy to fill the weave so that when you finally sand the surface (after removing any amine blush with water and cloths, sponges or Scotchbrite pads) you are only sanding epoxy and not going through to the glass.

Have a look on my website under the button labelled "First Mate Photos 3" for a brief pictorial demonstration - the thumbnails enlarge if you click on them.

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The Goat Island Skiff Project Begins

Michael Storers Goat Island Skiff is a GREAT boat. We decided to build one for ourselves and use the boat as a test for producing high-quality, perfectly fitting kits to sell to amateurs and other professionals with little time on their hands. The goal for these kits is that they produce a hull with perfect lines that have been adjusted by a professional so new boatbuilders can get a fair hull that goes together easily. Every boat needs refinement. With our patterns, a CNC file will be made, and CNC kits will be produced. With Storers thorough manual, a new boatbuilder can build a great boat for themselves and enjoy doing it because things fit and much of the tricky work has been done for them. Time will be saved and boatbuilders can get on the water sooner.

Clint modified the boat by adding a mizzen, making the boat more along the lines of a sail-and-oar boat and more easily singlehanded.

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The Planking Begins

After all the fairing required to make the entire hull flow nicely, there were a few more things to take care of prior to the beginning of planking. We had to deal with things that would be inaccessible after the planking was applied. Anything that could be anticipated and easily placed prior to planking removes the need to try and shape things to fit against the inside curve of the hull at a later time.


The appropriately sized diesel engine was chosen, and the appropriately sized engine mounts were built.


The mounts consist of two skid type mounts sitting above the bottom of the bilge.


The picture below shows how the centerboard case sits in relation to the bulkhead that forms the back of the galley sink cabinet.


The entire interior of the aft lazarette needed to be fiberglassed and epoxied, and the final sanding done to smooth it out, ready for paint. Once the planking is applied, this area will only have a small access hole, not something a person wants to have to manipulate fiberglass and sanders through.


Finally the planking could begin....Richard ordered some beautiful 1 x 6 clear vertical grain Western Red Cedar from Specialty Forest Products in Spokane, WA. It is light weight and rot resistant, and thus is desirable for use in wooden boats. The cost of this special lumber was offset by the fact that the waste factor disappeared by ordering it clear and not having to cut around knots, etc as would be the case in a lesser grade or knottier wood.

He ripped it to 1 1/16" width and planed to 3/4" thickness (the dimension from inside to outside of hull). The width of the strips was recommended at 3/4"-1 1/2". It is necessary to keep the strips narrow enough to be able to run each layer of planking the entire length of the boat and have it bend as needed to follow the lines of the hull. The joints are staggered with each layer and epoxy applied to the joint ends.


Epoxy was spread on each long strip and then applied to hull, starting at the sheer.


Massive numbers of clamps were used. Thanks to cheap clamps from Harbor Freight!


Richard decided to start at the sheer, and to work from bottom up exclusively. The theory behind this was that he would never have to be applying epoxy to the underside of any surfaces and working upside down. The hope was that the strips would flow nicely all the way up the hull since it was faired in all directions.


Smear, clamp....

Smear, clamp, repeat....

Still not much room to get around the hull, especially with all the clamps in place.

Notice also that the opening into the building room from the garage at the bow has been widened and heightened to help with access and ultimate boat removal. It will soon be drywalled and taped, and hopefully it will be the last bit of renovation needed for boat removal.

It still doesnt look like it will fit from this angle! But tapes dont lie, right?

After laying several rows, Richard waits for the epoxy to begin setting, then scrapes the gross excess to avoid a killer sanding job later.

A hand sized piece of laminate works great for this scraping.

Another fancy addition to the tools was the OMER nail gun that shoots plastic nails from Raptor. The beige plastic nails hold the strips in place while the epoxy dries. The use of any metal nails, other than bronze, would result in the nails rotting and weakening the hull, or needing to be removed. The price of a gun that only shoots plastic nails was cheaper than numerous boxes of expensive silicon bronze ring-shank nails and the shipping costs required to get them here. Not to mention the labor to sink all those nails.


The planking picked up speed as the learning curve was smoothed out.

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the morning after

Three puppies on Guam, a stop on the campaign trail, and Chuck Wendig recaps the Hugo awards (well worth reading!)...

Danny a non-event gone by and waiting for Erika to come visit. So much for boat projects getting done this week!

Listening to Bruce

So it goes...

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Trimming the Keel

While waiting for the arrival of the Mahogany for the 2 layers of 1/8" thick diagonal veneers, Richard decided to start trimming the excess planking along the keel, bow, transom, and sheer. Doing this was one of those "Do I do it now or later?" type decisions. As it happened, he had the time over a weekend, while waiting for materials and tools.


This job turned into a physically demanding marathon.


Im not sure if a hand plane, that has hit a few bronze screws was the easiest tool for the job, but I suspect a slight amount of Holiday purging was involved.


And once he was up on the keel, he thought twice about coming down for a different tool, or to sharpen the blade. The heater is off, even though the outside temps are in the teens, but the light keeps things warm and tight up there.


The hand plane did remove the risk of "over cutting". That is another way of saying "what an incredible amount of manual labor!"

This view is from the untrimmed stern. It turned out that trimming the cedar without the added hardness and potential for directional tearing of the mahogany was the best way to attack this step.

The transom is awaiting a good trim job. The Saws-All was used to remove large ends in readiness for planing.

The bow is looking good. Note all the scaffolding is gone to be replaced by a simple 6 ladder.

Oh, to have a real boat barn!.....that light placement seemed great at the time.

Here you can see the planks of cedar meeting the V.G. fir bow inner stem, all trimmed in readiness for mahogany veneers and ultimately the deadwood. The deadwood is a build up of wood that creates the lines of the keel, flowing into the lead ballast.

A view of her shape towards the bow.

She has a fairly plumb bow. The outer stem, which is a curved piece in the shape seen here, will be applied after the veneering. A bow-sprit will add several feet to her length overall.

It looks like a photo prospective issue, but the trimmed sheer does have a beautiful swooping line toward the bow. Trimming the sheer after planking, but before the application of the veneer was a good choice. Less material to remove. Trimming the 1/4" of veneer and epoxy should be a breeze, but may warrant a sharpened blade.

The sheer is trimmed toward the stern, with a less pronounced curve.

A small amount of tumblehome really adds to her classic shape. Tumble home is when the sheer (deck line) slightly rolls toward the centerline. This can be accented by the line of the bulwarks, the raised trim edge around the deck that becomes the visual swooping deck line from a distance.

We couldnt be happier with her classic shape.

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Sailing the Eve 16

Today I received the following comment from Dennis about my previous entry: -

I like what you are doing with the blog, Ross. Great Stuff! On another note, did you get to sail EVE? What did you think of the design? -- Dennis

Well, I didnt sail the boat personally, but both of the hulls I built were finished off by their respective owners, and both have been sailed. One of them went on to be used in the Jody Foster film, "Nims Island". As far as I know, the other one is still in the hands of the original owner.

The Eve 16 was a development that Mike Roberts carried out on his well-known Green Island 15 design. What he did was to run the Green Island 15 through his Maxsurf program and get the program to round-off the sharp edges of the straight-sided and flat bottomed Green Island 15. Mike wanted the boat to be built as a strip planked hull, and I believe that at least one was done that way by an owner-builder.

This is the first Eve 16 hull I built, showing the original sheer line, and in the process of being fitted out by the owner

Here she is heading out of the driveway on launching day

However, both of the customers I had for the Eve 16 were keen to try out my idea of having a strip planked bottom up to around the fairly hard turn of the bilge, and then change to glued lapstrake for the rest of the planking. Mike wasnt keen, but good-naturedly agreed to me doing it that way.

The results were excellent. The first boat was built as per the plan, using my planking method, but the second had a little extra hollow cut into the sheer at the request of the owner. If you look at the pictures, you can see that the sheer strake is a bit skinny in the middle, but the revised sheer line is more pleasant to the eye - the original looking a bit flat.

This is an upside-down photo I took to check the new sheer line that we were marking on the second hull to be built. You can see that there is not too much hull to be cut away, but the visual difference was amazing.

The new sheer line being displayed just before I towed the hull to the owner for the finish work. This is the boat in the sailing photos, and the one which ended up in "Nims Island"

The boat that I saw sailing went very well indeed, and seemed to sail just as well as the Green Island 15 which is not surprising given the origin of the hull, and the fact that the rigs and layout were identical.

The second boat under sail in Manly Yacht Harbour

And another view of the same boat

Now, Im worried that everybody will go off and buy plans from Mike, so here are some pictures of some of my boats - after all, it is my website and you all get the pictures for free!

A Phoenix III sailing powerfully on the west coast of U.S.A. It looks like she has a triangular mainsail, but it is just the angle of the sprit mainsail

Me sailing Periwinkle on launching day

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the A or FAIL conundrum

This is just so seriously fucked up, some interesting reading, and a historical synopsis you might find intriguing.

I just finished "Knights Cross" by Cristine Kling which is a pretty good book this morning and, as usual, my Kindle asked me to rate it and I gave it four stars. I sorta/kinda feel a little guilty about that and it got me thinking...

For me, if you have a scale of one to five stars, one star is going to be an awful book and, by contrast, a five star book is going to have to be awesome work of art and life changing. So in my view of four stars for a genre adventure novel is actually very high praise.

So, why do I feel guilty?

I think part of it is that, for what seems like the majority, there seems to be no middle ground anymore. Something is either AWESOME or its CRAP and there is simply no real middle ground any longer.

You see it a lot in the way people talk about boats and gear. People need to have the BEST and it would seem that if it is not THE BEST it must be THE WORST which is very flawed thinking process and tends to give me a headache when I encounter it. I bet this has a lot to do with the reason I seem to eat aspirin like they were peanuts.

It gets worse though. A few weeks ago I bought something on eBay which I almost did not because in the description of the product and suchlike the seller pretty much demanded/threatened that there would be hell to pay if you did not leave positive feedback and give him five stars if you were to buy from him. Which, to my mind, calls into question all that glowing feedback since they could simply be in preemptive self-defense as leaving a less than awesome feedback just might be answered by a negative review of you the buyer in return.

Personally, I read reviews to get an idea of whether something is worthwhile or not but of late with no apparent benchmarks in place its nigh on impossible to make sense of things. Made even worse by the fact that, for instance, the Amazon five star rating system is not so much good or bad but good or better. "Stars" were always an attaboy back in my elementary school days when we were were rewarded with gold and silver stars (not that I recall ever getting a whole bunch of gold stars for my penmanship or good work habits). Maybe what they should do is add some negative ratings (one to five piles of crap?) to the mix to make for a more reality based scenario.

So, about "Knights Cross" in my personal scale Ill give it an eight as it had a good beat, kept me turning pages, and was easy to dance to...

Need I say more?

Listening to Brooke Waggoner

So it goes...

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Wildlife at the Boatshop

Im starting the years posts with a slightly off-subject entry. It is now six years since we moved away from our coastal workshop to live and work in Esk, Queensland, Australia. Although we only moved 100 kilometres (62 miles), the move was directly to the west - away from the coast. Many people thought we were mad, but we needed to locate ourselves in a quieter place, further away from the scores of casual visitors who had been in the shop at all hours. I like talking to people about boats, and I particularly enjoy explaining building procedures, and therein lay the problem. I was spending long hours in the shop, but not getting enough paying work done!

The old workshop in Wynnum. The office is under the sign at the far left, and workshop area extends to beyond the far right of the photo - it was a paradise!

Looking through the building from just outside the office. Notice the wooden floor and low ceiling - perfect for boatbuilding.

Well, moving into a rural area where horse-floats and cattle trucks outnumber the boats 500 to 1 may seem like a dumb thing to do, but we had our reasons (mostly financial). As it has turned out, we are very happy and enjoy the quiet surroundings. There is a 35 kilometre-long lake just down the road, and if we want to get to salt water it is only an hour-and-a-half by the highway.

The Esk workshop. Since this photo was taken there have been improvements, such as a concrete slab under the lean-to, but it is still basically 9metres x 10.5 metres (29ft x 34ft) of concrete under tin sheds, and a separate 6 metre x 6 metre storage shed. However, I work alone most of the time, assisted by my wonderful wife when things get tough, so I am pretty happy with what I have.

Inside one of the workshops

Being in the bush has its inconveniences, but the advantages outweigh the negatives many times over for a hermit like me. One of the significant benefits is that we get to observe native wildlife at close range, and come to take it all for granted.

Possum in a model aircraft

My wife with a totally wild Rainbow Lorikeet

Same fellow up close after eating apple

A King Parrot - once again, totally wild

A Koala ten paces from the workshop door

A buck Wallaby making friends with our cat through the front door glass!

For those of you who may be interested in Australian wildlife, here is a youtube video which I shot over the last couple of days. The quality is not high, as I didnt have a tripod, and there was too much backlight in some frames - but if you have never seen a Wallaby Joey in its mothers pouch, or seen a Koala climb a tree, take a look. All shots were taken within five yards of our door!

These photos may not show you how to build a boat, but I can assure you that the presence of these animals helps me to retain some perspective on what is important in life, and Im sure that my building and designing benefits as a result.....

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