Ginger rebuild Part IV, the front end

Ginger was wore out and in need of repairs. The planking had huge gaps between the seams and many of the steam bent ribs were cracked at the turn of the bilge. The entire FW stem of the boat was coming apart, she had huge checks in the forward timbers and the original bolts that held these timbers together had rusted thru. Many of the planks that were attached to this front timber were also pulling loose. The deck leaks had allowed water into the boat and rot had started in the planks and bulkheads. Over all, Ginger was like an 85 year old in need of some plastic surgery. So, the next step in the project was the removal of the forward stem and knee timbers.

Replacing the forward timbers was a tedious job which first required removing  the old calking from between the planks and then removing screws, lots and lots of screws. The entire forward part of the boat had to be un-screwed so that the planks would spring outwards to give me room for the removal of the stem assembly. To un-screw the planks though, you first have to find the screws! This is a challenge for they are hidden beneath years of paint and putty.

Some of the calking would almost fall out and some of it fought me every inch of the way.

 

Finding the screws and burning out the old putty.

Hundreds of screws to find.

Very time consuming to remove thewse screws.

  Then the garboard (the first plank next to the keel) and many of the bottom planks also had to be removed to gain access to the keel and the stem timbers. This job was one of the most dirty, tedious jobs of the rebuild. The slow careful removal of hundreds of screws that haven’t moved in 50+ years all the while having old bottom paint falling on your face or trying not to breath the vaporizing paint fumes from the heat gun (I’m sure that I lost some brain cells doing this part of the job). YUCK!

YUCK!

Planks are off and the stem is ready to come off.

 

Finally, I had to removed a few front ribs and then the old stem/knee assembly was free and could be carefully taken out of the boat. The original bolts that held this part to the keel were virtually rusted away so with the touch of a sawzall the two pieces came out of the boat.

The forward ribs had to come out.

Finally, the stem and the knee came out.

sitting on the floor waiting to be further disassembled.

Notice the large crack between the forward timber (right) and the knee?(left)

Ginger with no front end!

 

 Now, I have to make an exact replica and put it all back together again… Stay tuned!

Ginger Part III, the cockpit

 

Ginger Part III, cockpit

What a mess I'd gotten myself into but I now understood (pretty much) the extent of the damage so it was time to start rebuilding. First, the shaft log, (that’s the part of the boat that the propeller shaft goes thru) was split and would leak when Ginger went back into the water so I bored it out and inserted 2 dowels into the shaft log that will act as stop-waters. Stop-waters are wooden dowels that are inserted across joints and swell up enough to stop water from getting thru the joint area (they act as wooden plugs).

Drilling out the shaft log. (It is under the cockpit and had to be repaired first.)

Then it was time to repair the motor hatch area and install a new floor to the cockpit. I used exterior grade plywood with the ends sealed in epoxy for the floor and the bulkhead. I cut the floor to shape and carefully fitted the panels into place. Next, came the new bulkheads that I shaped and fitted into place. Even though it was very early in the rebuild process, Ginger started to look like a boat again.


The engine opening was strengthen and closed up a bit to give better foot room in the cockpit.

the new floor in place

First bulkhead cut out

Both bulkhead panels in place

Then it was on to the rotted cabin side. I cut out the rot and glued in new mahogany inserts into the old cabin side, repaired all of the screw holes then installed the cabin side back onto Ginger. (note, the new deck canvas is alread installed.) A new piece of wood in the cabin top edge made her cabin structure sound again.

Lots of screw holes to repair

Putting the side back on

 

Sides on and the top repair ready to go on.

Lots of screws!

 With this done, it was time to tackle the planking and major timber issues.

 

Ginger Part II, “What have I gotten into”?

Well, after looking at all of the trouble spots that I could find on the initial inspection of Ginger I started disassembly of the boat. The entire interior of the boat came out first which revealed layers of dry/oily crud covering the interior of the boat with patches of mold and rot here and there as well. Then the real hard stuff started with the removal of the main bulkheads, cabin sides and the cockpit. What a job. As the interior came apart I found more cracked ribs and major issues at the garboards and stem assembly. Everything had to be removed carefully in case I could reuse it or in case I needed it as a template when building a new part. I also pulled up all of the canvas deck covering and I found a note left behind by the previous boat repair man in 1972 that noted the date of the canvas replacement and a short statement that said “We lost our ass on this job”… I guess they bid the job too low and wanted to let the next guy know about it. Over all, It was a slow, labor intensive job.

Next we start in on the repairs.

 

Removal of the SB bulkhead

Interior removed and both of the bulkheads removed

Next, the cabin side (which has rot) is taken off

Looks funny without any side!

Then the old cockpit floor comes out and about 100 nails had to be pulled

Ta Da !!!

This was an interesting find, a previous boat builder left a date when the deck was last re-covered. I found it when I pulled up the old canvous deck cover.

Rebuilding Ginger Part I

 

Ginger is a Cat boat. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catboat ) This type of boat was a popular work boat on the east coast during the mid and late 1800’s and was known for it’s turn of speed and ease of handling.

 In the 1950’s Ginger was commissioned to be built in Eire Pa. by the Schuyler family and was the family sail boat for many decades until she was in need of a major rebuild in 2008. The cost of a professional rebuild would far exceed the cost of the boat itself so, Bob Schuyler offered a deal to me. If I would rebuild Ginger I could keep her. As I have always found this boat to be a beautiful “pumpkin seed” of a boat, I quickly agreed to the labor/materials cost to rebuild her in trade for ownership of the boat. When I got her to my shop I found that Ginger had many, many serious issues. Rot in many areas, broken ribs, delaminating deck canvas, serious structural issues concerning both the stem and the stern of the boat. Huge gapes in the planks with many of the forward planks pulling out of the forward stem. In total, Ginger was in poor shape and in danger of sinking if the forward planks had come loose in a rough sea.

In this first series of pictures you can see the extent of how bad some of the issues were.

setting Ginger up in the shop



The forward timber bolts had broken and the front of the boat was coming apart.

the gaps in the planking was HUGE



 

 

I put a light under the boat to show how big the gaps were in the planking

 

 

The circles on the ribs are where they are cracked at the turn of the blige.

These are the planks at the aft of the boat, notice how they are pulling away from the transom.

When I peeled back the top I found rot in the cabin side

 

The timber at the back of the boat was pulled away from the boat itself

More rot in the main bulkhead

 In total, Ginger was very sick and in need of some TLC. In the comming months I will go over the details of the rebuild that I did to her. Stay tuned!

 

Work, work, and more work

Life on the lake is always more fun when one of the grand kids comes up to visit. On Father’s Day, my first grand son and my son came up in the morning and we went three generation fishing on the lake. Jackson caught a nice bass and it only took two tries before he would actually hold the fish! Catching was fun but holding it was not!



The IRS decided to take all of the money that we had saved to redo the house so it’s time to earn some more. I’ve taken on some contracting jobs to help us out. I’ll be replacing several decks for a friend and repairing water damage inside of a house. It’s a bit of a pain but it’s nice to have work to do and to see the results when your done.

The next job to do will be on little Ginger. Ginger is a 20 ft. Cat boat that I own and I’d like to get her back into the water this summer. 4 years ago, before we left to live on Snow Goose, Ginger was offered to me on the condition that I rebuilt her. So, for 6 months (before we left), I went from stem to stern and did a complete rebuild of Ginger then put her away into storage. She’s a wonderful little wooden Cat boat and I hope that she will be a delight to sail. Here’s a picture of her when the rebuild was almost done.

ready for bottom paint

 Over the next few weeks I’ll show you the sequence of what it took to rebuild Ginger. Hope that you like it!

Then the other day, my friend Ralph asked me if I’d like to go for a ride in his airplane!

I jumped at the opportunity and got this nice picture of our lake. The lake isn’t that big but the water’s clean, deep and warm (at least for the next month or so) and we are grateful that we were able to find this house. Until the next time, enjoy the summer!

Double click on any picture and it will get larger!

Back home again



A foggy morning looking down at the lake.

Back at the Lake House and the work never ends. If it isn’t regular car maintenance IE: oil changes, exhaust replacement, electrical issues, then it’s house troubles. I had planned to walk a small section of the Appalachian Trail on the way home but Anna called the day before I left saying that the well pump had given out and they had no water in the house and that the garage door had also broken in the up position. So, back to Michigan I drove only to find that if she had moved the shovel out from in front of the electric eye, the garage door it would have opened fine. The pump was another story. It took a new pressure switch to make things right in that department.

I came out of the garage and found this large snapping turtle laying eggs in the garden! It had wedged it’s head and one foot in-between the tines of the flower holder so, I moved the holder and left her to her work. In about 6 weeks we just might have little snapping turtles running around the yard.

I had to tunnel under the walkway.

As far as the house goes, I dug a 45 foot trench in front of the house and laid in a new drain pipe for the area between the garage and the house (it collects water there and the old drain pipe was less than useless). Then it was on to the barn. Even though I have a 30 x 40 barn it’s getting crowded in there. So I’ve built a 150 sq ft mezzanine to store stuff on for as we all know, we always have ‘stuff’ that needs to be stored.

This is the "good" side of the tanks, the bottom's are much worse.

I have an old (seems like everything I have is old) Ford truck that had both of its fuel tanks rust out. The last time I used it I found that I could only put 3 gals of gas into one of the tanks before it would start to leak! Not a good thing! So, After ordering 2 new tanks, I spent a day fighting rust as I replaced the tanks. YUCK! The only good thing to say about the job is that it’s done. Toss in a bunch of work for others (hey, when there’s a maintenance man around people tend to ask for help) and I’ve yet to have a day off since I got here. Hope to change that situation around soon. Hope that your summer is going better than mine. Drop me a line and tell me what’s happening with you this summer.

Dragons of North Carolina

Oriental (where the Snow Goose is for the summer) is known as a "dragon" wildlife area and so it's a protected area for the hatching of dragons. In many out of the way places you can still catch a glimpse of a dragon guarding it's egg.

 

These eggs are unique in that the shells are transparent and you can see the dragon within. Since it takes years for a dragon egg to hatch many of these sites have been marked to keep the public from moving the eggs and subsequently being eaten by the adults who are guarding their eggs.

 If your ever in Oriental be careful of walking around for if the mosquitoes don’t bite you the dragons just might!