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





Saturday, May 8, 2010

Gouges in hull …

Last year, I had cleaned out any large cracks in the gelcoat by scraping down into the gelcoat but not through into the fiberglass beneath. After that they were filled and I had been fairing them out along with any of the deeper dings and nicks that I found along the way. There were two or three small spots that needed to be cleaned out making sure to leave a nice text book West System 12-1 taper.

After spending a long time getting the hull back close to fair and close to painting, one afternoon I started to second guess the work I had done thinking that while it was pretty good it wasn’t as good as it could be. I started to think about water intrusion and those cracks being deeper than I really liked. Some were only through the gel coat but a lot were really all the way through or close to all the way through.


I grabbed and old style can opener, the one I had used last year (again, sage info from West System) and started to scrape the cracks open again but trying to go all the way through this time. Way too hard. I walked back into the shop (formally known as the garage) and grabbed a Dremel type tool. I put a carbide or diamond tip on it and in less than an hour, I had 200, 10 inch long, ¼ deep gouges…on each side. That seemed to work much better but the boat looked worse than ever.

The weather was good and dry so I didn’t have to fill them right away and I could sneak away to a friend’s for dinner with the girls. Later that evening, when we got back but before reading Maya a bedtime story, I mixed up a big batch of West system and micro balloons and filled them all up.


They sat that way for a few days and last night before the rainstorm, I was able to start sanding the excess off and hopefully tonight I’ll get to the other side and then finish filling them in.



After all this, the boat will look them same as it did a week ago, looking close to fair and close to painting but this time I know that these small cracks will never open up and let in any water. That doesn’t mean others won’t show up but if they do, it should only be a couple. Its funny, if I had a finished sailboat and found my hull looking like this one day, I would probably have a heart attack, but nothing seems to faze me these days with boat projects…hopefully they never will after all of this.
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