Rebuild of a 1925 Lapstrake 16.5' Cedar Rowing Skiff

In the spring of 2006 Mr. & Mrs. Kenemy of Thornhill Ontario gave Robin of Cruising Canada their 1925 Cedar Skiff to repair and refinish. The skiff had been roughly stripped and was relatively complete but it had numerous cracked planks with broken and missing frames. From the begining was to repair the boat using epoxy technology and not to attempt disassembley to replace the bad planks.

Robin has operated a small repair facility in Prince Edward County that specialized in repairs to wood, ,fiberglass or electrical systems for the last 5 years with a variety of projects you can check out on their web site www.waupoosboatworks.ca. The service is based on boatbuilding stretching for over 35 years and 16 years of living aboard which is reflected in the primary Cruising Guide web site www.cruising.ca (established. 1996) where you can digitally explore Ontario's waterways and boating.

In the end over 300 hours were spent on the craft with probably half of the time spent hand sanding the hull with long blocks. Robin chose to make all repairs with backing blocks of the same size as the plank minimizing their appearance. Sisters or new frames were constructed with approximately 7 layers of oak bent and laminated in place. The repairs took roughly 1/3 of the overall time to complete.

The entire boat is Pre-Coated with East System Epoxy with thin coats first and a minimum of 3 coats, most getting 4 or 5 coats of epoxy. Repairs to any structural areas are standard wood epoxy procedures. Clear Top Coat is made by Endura Manufacturing. The cream is Interlux Brightside Polyurethane Hatteras Off-White 4208.

Many of the planks had multiple cracks in them and the wood is very dry making the approach the repair an interesting challenge when the planking is 3/8" thick. Cruising chose to laminate another layer over the distressed plank on the inside of the craft using a reverse clamping mechanism of their own that will clamp the area without distorting the natural lines.

As a preliminary step the entire boat was gone over from stem to stern marking each fault with a tape indicator of trouble. Then a plank by plank, frame by frame estimate of the damage was prepared and discussed. Then the entire inside of the boat was sanded to 150 grit. As the interior sanding progressed the repair list increased and was dealt with as encountered.

Planks:

This was too large a project to open up all at once so the repairs progressed systematically frame by frame. Each plank that had a crack was first epoxy glued then and backed with a 3/8" block of new cedar that was clamped in place and bedded in epoxy. In all there were 26 blocks glued in place using this technique without a single hard fastening used.

Seen on the right is a backing block in place with the original cracked plank beside it.

Frames:

There were 6 frames that were in question that required repair. All 6 damaged frame sisters were laminated in place with up to 7 layers of oak depending on the severity of the issue. Once installed they were finished and epoxy pre-coated.

Following structural repairs to the entire inside of the skiff it was sanded to 80 grit and given 3 epoxy pre-coats and sanded ready for painting.

Inside painting

Cruising follows the Interlux recommendations and pre-coats using two-part epoxy based on Interlux recommendations. Inside paint was 3 coats of be Interlux Brightside Hatteras Off-White 4208 with a sanding to 200 grit between coats.

This finished up the inside except for the seats and the boat was flipped over to begin work on the exterior of the hull.

Hull Exterior:

Work moved into high gear when Chris joined Robin, leaving two people working on the skiff logging 10 or 12 hours a day each. The entire hull had to be long block sanded lasting over 40 hours for the first pass. There are numerous ding, gouges, cracks and divot's in the hull that have to be dealt with. Someone has obviously tried to clean up the scarfs making remedial action necessary.

There are 3 bottom planks that made Robin nervous enough that even with the backing blocks a strip of 2" fiberglass tape was applied to the exterior. Traditional it is not, on the other hand you cannot see the fiberglass through the clear in the finished job. Robin says, "I would prefer the baby to be usable for years, remembering this is a repair not a restoration.

You can see the 2" fiberglass tape applied to a crack area early in the repair process. These repair areas were long block sanded a total of 5 or six times before the final Endura coating were applied.

After 80 hours of sanding and pre-coating a first overall coat of Endura was applied to the exterior as well as primer to the shear painted areas. A new aft seat was built from clear cedar and fitted as the floorboards progressed in a seperate work path.

Finally with over 300 man hours invested the skiff was successfully launched at Waupoos.

And it rows absolutely marvelously!

As a finishing touch a towing brace was fabricated and the lines installed.

You can find Cruising Canada's advertisement in this publication or check out the web site at www.cruising.ca or www.waupoosboatworks.ca.