Between 1957 and 1970 Cheoy Lee produced approximatley 133 folkboats originaly sold as the the Offshore 25, better known as the Frisco Flyer.

There were three versions of this small blue-water boat. 91 in all wood and 42 in Fiberglass with wood. There were 55 Type I's and II's and 78 of the Type III's. The Type I (aka the Pacific Clipper) was an all wood boat, had a mast that was stepped through the deck, a traditional folkboat fractional rig and a smaller cabin. The Type II's had a larger teak trunk cabin and a masthead rig. The Type III's had a larger teak dog-house cabin, some "standing" headroom and a masthead rig stepped on deck. The earlier Type III's were solid teak built onto a fiberglass hull and the later Type III’s (1966-1970) were made entirely out of fiberglass with teak paneling.

This boat, Yard # 1507 is one of approximatley only 30 Type III's left. It was out of the water for the previous 16 years when I got it and then about another 5 more while I rebuilt it. It was an empty, cracked hull when given to me and needed a complete restoration/refit. It took about five years of long nights and weekends of working outside under a tarp, in the garage or in the boat during cold winter nights, wet rainy afternoons and everything in between. The occasionally eager assistant on the project was my four (now ten) year old daughter who can have this boat as soon as I convince her mother to get another one. This blog is the record of all the work that "we" have done to the boat as well as some other somewhat related events with friends and family. Eventually, this will be put together in a book which will stay with the boat.

She still has plenty more to go but for now, Jackaroe has been in the water for a couple years now and thats all that matters...

To see past projects, use the links below.



Questions and comments to Matthewearlgarthwait@gmail.com





Sunday, June 17, 2007

Knees...

The check list of things to do on this boat is more than a mile long and can be overwhelming when trying to consider all of it at once. Even though all the projects are small ones, taken together it seems they will never get done. Deciding what to work on and when to do it changes constantly. It actually kind of suits my ADHDish style work ethic, I start something one day and if I don't continue it the next and start something else instead, it doesn't really mater because it all needs to get done at some point. As long as I'm working on something then there is bound to be some forward progress in it.

That's why it was nice though to finish the knees and get that one little thing checked off the list. Its good to see something that was once buried under paint and left to weather, now restored to new. In the belly of the boat where everything looks like downtown Baghdad, they shine and give the rest of the boat something to aspire to.



The other recent project inside has been to strip the beams in order to varnish later. They were also buried under loads of paint but they were made this way. I wanted to varnish them. This is the first thing I'm doing that's strays from the way the boat was when it rolled out of the Cheoy Le shipyard in '65. I was tempted to just throw a coat of paint over all of them and be done with it but I think the varnished wood will look great against the white field of the ceiling. (blame art school)

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