Blow-by-blow - Dick Burnham

“Stealing Horses” waits to bolt from her stall, but first…

The construction of the sheet plywood Chebacco, “Stealing Horses,” continues in spurts and stops.  I’m learning boatbuilding as I trip merrily along.  Last summer we were only able to flip the hull.  This summer we’d hoped to wrap up the building and start the sailing, but that didn’t happen.  Nevertheless, for what it might be worth, here’s a report.

Since most articles today are on cruising (those lucky ones, huh?), and previous reports were focused on hull construction, I’d like to report a bit on the building of those things above the topsides and inside, just to inspire would-be builders that it is all doable, and pleasurably so.  While some have suggested that this work equals, in time, the work of hull building, let me say: Not so!  This second phase, what Robb White in MAIB called “furniture building”, is more time consuming.  There’s lots more pieces and figuring and head scratching for a novice like me.

Here, from the cockpit looking forward, can be seen the various stringers and carlins for the seats, the deck, and the cuddy roof with mast slot. 

The photos show “Stealing Horses” with the cuddy, deck, and cockpit seats about ready for covering.  The cuddy walls are solid ½” thick rosewood, saved from previous travels.  The cuddy roof carlins are the same wood, but the deck and other framing members are spruce which is encapsulated in epoxy.  Building the cuddy walls was a matter of repeated fittings so that the bottom hit right and there was extra height on top.  As others have suggested, I cut the elliptical windows while the trunk was flat on sawhorses.  With the trunks in place, the bottom carlins were then added, with ring nails and epoxy.  Then the top carlins of the walls were added after using bendy battens to get it right.  Next, the other roof-framing members were sized and put in, with recessed silicon bronze screws that were bunged.  Epoxy is always used to butter the joints. 

The rounded nosepiece of the cuddy was made up of several 1” thick wood pieces, fitted through trial and error, and put in with epoxy. It was shaped in place with a handsaw, a rasp, and sandpaper on a board.  (I’ve since bored a hole in its prow and inserted a coin from the South Pacific, setting it in epoxy that will be UV filtered with varnish.) 

The tops of the carlins and the cuddy wall were shaped to final form with a handheld power planer and a belt sander (36 and 50 grit!).  I did this portion “wrong” as, according to Phil Bolger, he’d premised his detailing based on a sequence that had the the deck down before the cuddy trunks.  Nevermind!  I had it done before I wrote to him! 

The cuddy roof went down easily with two layers of ¼” plywood.  The curve was fun to do and was easily accomplished with ring nails and epoxy.  I prepainted the cuddy ceiling but it was accidentally smeared with thickened epoxy and now I think that prepainting was a waste of time.  The sliding hatch runners went on as did the framing for the mast slot hatch—screws and epoxy.  The hatch was a head-scratcher, but I’ve worked it out, adding extra hand-holds and/or places for lines to be tied.

Xynole fabric in epoxy covered the deck and cuddy roof.  The process I’m using, taken from Reuel Parker’s book, “The New Cold-Molded Boatbuilding”, is this: roll regular epoxy on the plywood (it is, by the way, Meranti marine grade – I think grade BS6566 – from Noahsmarine in Toronto).  Then, the next day, tape the xynole down and squeegee into it one coat of epoxy (my epoxy guy, Larry at Raka Epoxy, suggested adding some fumed silica to this and the next step for some thickening—I did this).  The day after, roll on one more coat of epoxy.  The cloth is now hard and “rough” and was then sanded down just a bit for a finished ‘roughened’ surface good for footing but not too rough for those who will slip!  This will now receive 2 coats of semi-gloss paint (I use Kirby’s and have selected a color that won’t have too much glare). 

The curved returns of the coaming were built up and installed, and I’ve added a veneer of about 3/16” thick wood to the forward bulkhead of the cockpit as well as to the outside of the coaming.  A continuous band of natural wood runs from the cuddy prow all the way aft along the coaming to the transom. This will be varnished and hopefully look nice against the white topsides.

The rubrails have been put together from pieces, shaped, epoxied on the backs and I plan to paint them with repeated applications of Kirby’s “Salty Dog Deck Oil” – a pine tar based mixture for these pieces of wood that will be subjected to abrasion.

That’s where I am in September.  Before frost and winter arrive, the hopes are to paint the deck and roof, install the rubrails and the trim at the cuddy roof edge, varnish the wood, and start mast building.  Working up steam to have a go at the masts and gaff, I’ve built a sample section using the hollow ‘birdsmouth’ design idea that was featured in WoodBoat magazine (July/August 1999).  At the same time, however, I’ve put the sicklebar onto the tractor and am belatedly out in the field mowing, so who knows what will get done!