Gaps in cabin house boards

There are some large gaps inside the cabin house boards where it looks like they have separated (the boat has been out of the water for 16 years). There are gaps in other boards that have been filled with long thin strips of wood, still in place and in great shape. There are other places where the separation is smaller that look like some kind of glue was used.

I'm looking for suggestions (from anyone) on how to best fill these gaps knowing that they will swell somewhat. I have plenty of teak dust to color the adhesive if that's the route to take.







A clear separation between the boards inside but no noticable gaps between the same two boards outside.

*Most suggestions so far are to just spline in thin pieces of wood. Maybe this weekend.


**Looking closer at the boards of the forward/smaller part of the dog house...the boards have a gap on both sides (inside and out) they're not separated and there is no day light between them. They meet in the middle and seem to be built that way because even if they did swell somewhat they couldn't get much closer together. On the outside it looked as if there was no gap because the spline was well matched and covered with old varnish. Here's what an art school education gets you.....

Icebox

I had planned on was making one of the cockpit lockers into an ice box. Well, there was one locker that was frozen shut and wouldn't open until last weekend when the weather warmed.

I got a nice surprise...an ice box.

Chainplates started...

Finally made some progress with the chainplates. I was worried that I was going to have to replace them because they looked corroded (at least on the backing plates) and I couldn't tell if they were original to the boat or if they were replaced.


The bolts have wasted away and stained the paint with rust. I couldn't really tell if the chainplate was also corroded.

I tried to find out if they were original or not by emailing other owners to ask what theirs looked like. The other boats had chainplates bolted to small knees. I know that they are this way on the 26's and 27's as well. The ones on this boat lay against the inside of the hull and encapsulated in a beefy hollow fiberglass rib a couple inches deep and wide. They're bolted to this rib with a weep hole at the bottom to allow moisture to run out if/when water works its way into the channel. There is one bolt attaching the top of it to the wood supporting the deck. The bolt here is wasted away but the exposed part of the plate looks OK. It looks even better top sides where it comes through the deck.


Beneath the top bolt are three bolts attaching the plate to the inside of the fiberglass channel. Again the bolts are useless but it already looks better with out the backing plate and rust.



Most of the bolts broke apart when trying to remove them. The easiest way to deal with them was to just grind them flush and then drill them out. I was worried about what was going on behind the glass. I had been reading about crevice corrosion in chainplates recently (and the questionable quality of Asian metals in 60's boats) and needed to get a better look at them to be sure they were going to be safe. One thing I did know was that they seemed big for this size boat. I guess because the boat was designed to be an offshore boat, the chainplates were overbuilt like everything else

The best way to know what was going on was to just open them right up and take a look. I started by taking off the backing plates, then grinding the bolts down and boring out the "bolt remnants".


Then put on the storm trooper suit and cut off the front of the channel encasing the chainplate.

Once this was done it was simple to just pull the chainplate through the deck. After seeing it, it was clear that they were original to the boat. Like all the hardware on the boat, it had "1507" chiseled into it, along with some Chinese characters. Wiping off any stains and dust and the plate itself looked great. No fissures, or crevice corrosion. No cracks or deterioration. They look good for being 42 years old.


So I'm thinking of just drilling out the bolts in the other five plates, retapping the threads, setting new bronze screws in place and putting the cleaned up backing plates back on.


OR, cut them all out, taking a good close look at all of them and finding a better way to mount them to the hull. Makes sense to get a close look at all of them and to do it now while the boat is empty.

OR better yet, cut them all out and throw them away. In the remaining glass channels, bed some hardwood in glass then get a 12 foot bar of silc bronze, cut it into 2 ft lengths and bolt them to the outside of the hull. Strong, less leaks and really easy to keep and eye on.
Got the pricing for the bronze today...

OR bolt the bronze outside the hull?

We'll see.

Elsa

Unfortunately, these are the only pictures I can find of this great looking boat. I'll look for more.
Mabye someone can send me some?...

Cicada

A couple of us are headed down to Mystic to raise hell, see the Woodenboat show and for one of us to do a little research on Cicada. The research bug must be catching.

Here are some pictures I had around...

Cicada getting ready for her realease back into the wild after too long on the hard...

Launch day 2006...

Current and future owners

Cicada and friends, last summer in Booth Bay...

Last year (or the year before??), while looking for information on our little wooden dory, I also looked around for some history about Cicada (formerly named Golliwog). I found a couple of mentions of her and and some great pictures of a sister ship named Alledra.

The Nevins Boat Yard of New York where Cicada was built is now gone but they have donated their records to the Mystic Seaport Library. I found this in their online records;

GOLLIWOG; 31.5 ft. sloop Designer, Chester A. Nedwidek; Design #500; Builder, Henry B. Nevins, Inc.; Hull #362; 1930

Golliwog is also mentioned in a 1956 issue of The Rudder Magazine..
Jul:1956
72/7
S&S, hydrocycle, Papeete
Golliwog, Marlin

She is also mentioned here, but only to say that at the start of the Newport-Bermuda race of 64, a crew member of another boat (Allons) gave the crew and owner of Golliwog (Collin Ratsey of Ratsey sails) a hard time. Allons must have been beating or overtaking Golliwog and yelled at them to get some Hood Sails instead...
http://www.fbyc.net/Club/History/Articles/22allons





This is a sister ship of Golliwog's named Alledra. This is the website: http://www.alledra.com/

There are lots of great pictures there of her construction in the Nevins yard, sailing, racing, posters and copies of racing results. She looks just like Cicada.

These boats were based on the Finisterre boat made there at Nevins. Look at the boat that finished just behind her.

The other night, while a few of us were looking at some old slides of Cicada sailing around the world with her current owners (two generations of them), I was thinking, it would be nice if someone would gather all her info/history and it together in a book for the third generation aka, owners in training...

Maybe after this trip to Mystic.

New (old) pictures, sail plans, drawings and some differences between models...

While the wind blows and the snow piles up (again), I'm avoiding going out into the boat, so I thought that I'd add some new pictures of old stuff that was sent to me or that I found.

First, on Tuesday, Hong Kong sent the general arrangement drawings and sail plan for the Cheoy Lee Folkboat ....


General Arrangement
Cheoy Lee Shipyard
Ngau Chi Wan
Kowloon
Feb 27, 1960






Sail plan.
The drawing is of a wood version, type I (aka the "Pacific Clipper" version), so the interior layout is slightly different than mine. For example, the head is forward instead of on the starboard side, it's drawn to carry more freshwater tanks and the mast is through the hull instead of stepped on the deck. The cabin itself it obviously different too. Smaller, with no doghouse. They made a couple of versions of these boats (I, II, III) at time where the craftsman in the yard were still allowed a generous amount creative licence. Despite any minor cosmetic differences though, all of the Frisco Flyers were the same boat.

While emailing back and forth with Cheoy Lee, I asked how many Flyers were made and when, They stated that "We started building the Folk Boat (Frisco Flyer) in 1957. Around 91 were built in wood, a further 42 in GRP. We built 78 (appx) of the Flyer III's."

They also sent me these yesterday....


A better copy of a brochure I already had.


An early Flyer sailplan.
A fractional rig Type I/Pacific Clipper in 1955, two years before they went into production with the II and III's (Flyers).



Cut-away view.
This one was my favorite because you can see the interior of the type III (in "IIId") as it was when made in 1965. I'll try to post a better copy of it. The one I have is a PDF file which is higher res and allows for real detail.

This next thing isnt a drawing or picture, but I found it yesterday thought it was interesting.
Its a survey of a Flyer III just like Jack A Roe.....

www.mainemarinesurveyors.com/sample.pdf

The survey says that the boat is is a Flyer II but that must be a mistake, its a III. I know the boat and have talked to the owner a couple of times. This is one of the closest boats to Jack A Roe I've found. While the progress on his boat has slowed because of work, he says its about 80 % done. Here's a picture...



(So far, the closest I've found to my boat is another 65 flyer. Great looking boat! See it here: http://www.svbisous.com/?page_id=426)


These last two were sent to me by Charlie a week or two ago. He found a Flyer for sale on the Internet and the owner had posted these pictures. The ad is great and even better are the pictures of actual boat being used. My favorite is the one of the mom is getting a tan, dads is desperately looking for wind and the kids take turns jumping from the spreaders.


Type II.

Added on 7/10/07......

After talking to other Flyer owners out there it seems 1965 was the last year they made an all wood cabin house on the Type III's. Starting in 1966 they had Fiberglass houses with a teak overlay. Which explains why the other boats I've seen out there don't seem to have the same problem of separation in the cabin house boards that I do. Mine is made of solid teak boards and to replace them the whole cabin house would need to come off. To fix the boards in "newer" models you just replace the overlay.

Added on 7/22/07.....
Johnathan of Cheoy Lee states that the last order for a Flyer III was in 1970. That means that from 1957-1970 there were a total of 134 Flyers made. 91 wood and 42 glass and that there were at least 36 all wood IIIs made.