Restoration of a Starling named Genie

[Darce]

I hope.

I purchased Genie about two years ago for $300. To sweeten the deal, he also threw in an Evinrude 4 hp outboard to push her around when the wind stopped. With a bum scrape, a few bits of rope, a new boom (the old one rotted and fell off during a race) and some mods I dreamt up she managed 2nd place in the Club's consistency series in my first season of sailing. Not bad considering my first tack took just over 12 minutes. (I got better)

Anyway, I knew she needed a lot of work, most of her ribs (frames or whatever they're called) are cracked through and the deck needs replacing. So I bought a GRP boat to fix up and sail while I rebuilt Genie. That boat should have only needed a coat of paint and maybe a little coachwork to get on the water. No such luck. Two years later and she's almost ready to go in the water..... Almost.

Well Genie got jealous. Seeing as how I'm almost ready to launch Scallywag (the GRP boat), Genie sank. All the way. Marine Services were quit good about it, they put an isolated danger mark on her. That sank too. Now I'm not sure if I should put Scallywag on that mooring - it seems catching.

Back to Genie. Two 3,000 lb liftbags on the keel just forward of the rudder and three 150 lb liftbags on the front got her high enough I could pump her dry. Took about four hours all up. I then remembered the battery I needed for the bilge pump was still on the garage floor and went home to get it. Had dinner while I was there, then a coffee, then a smoke and four hours after we had pumped her dry I returned to hook up the battery. Genie was halfway through returning to the bottom!

Nothing for it but to drag her out. With no jinker to suit her in the yard it was a case of grabbing anything to hand. So now she's out and you lot might get to see how I go fixing her up.

First thing will be to get her upright and blocked all proper. This will all be done on a shoestring budget and with minimum time wasted as work is going to get in the way.

We'll see how we go :)

But first... some piccies..
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieRestoreDay1.jpghttp://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieRestoreDay16.jpghttp://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieRestoreDay15.jpghttp://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieRestoreDay113.jpg

Ok, how do I make these into thumbnails??

[Darce]

Some info about Genie.

She's a Starling, a shelter cabin knockabout, designed by William and John Atkin and plans were published in 'Seacraft' magazine in 1954. Approx bill of materials was listed as £400. http://cdn.woodworkforums.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Genie was launched prior to 1961, it was in that year when she was slipped to fit a shorter ally mast.

LOA of 23', 18' on the waterline, with a beam of 7'9" and a draft of 4' she was drawn to be driven by 202 sq ft of sail in a fractional bermuda rig with a 24' mast.

She has 1200lbs of lead in the keel and jarrah planking for the hull. Deck, coachhouse and furniture were made from plywood. If the deck had been canvassed, it has long gone.

[PAR]

http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Sail/images/Starling-1.gif

http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Sail/images/Starling-3.gif

[Darce]

Yep. That's her :)

[PAR]

With those lines she should do everything well, except steer. I have notes about them being cantankerous and heavy steering, understandable considering the rake of her rudder post. Fortunately, she's got a lot of reserve so laying her on her hear isn't a common occurrence, which will help her weather helm issue.

[Darce]

She's actually quite pleasant to sail. Mind you, the strongest wind I've had her in was just over 30 knots and a meter swell so maybe she gets grumpy in heavy weather. As she only has pretty sad canvas sails I've not been game to take her out in anything stronger. In light winds up to about 15 knots there's not a sound from her waters, with scarcely a ripple behind her.

She is slow to turn but almost neutral in steering until the cockpit coaming goes under when she rounds up fairly briskly. Until then I can comfortably steer her from the gunnels with the tiller clasped between my toes (I never got around to fitting a tiller extension). The rake of the rudder causes the tiller handle to subscribe an arc as you wheel over, with full helm being restricted as the tiller handle comes to rest on the cockpit coaming. I'll probable lower the aft coaming when I rebuild.

When surfing, she has a slight tendancy to oversteer but is quite predictable and I've managed one ride of about a mile before running out of water. That was fun :U

[rob540]

Good luck Darce- great to see her out of the water, and I hope you can find the energy to give her some love while also getting on with the GRP boat.
Rob

[m2c1Iw]

Darce I think Rob is eying off your tabernacle.

Interesting she has one, do you have any history on her.

I have looked at the pics a few times now and can see the attraction. Good luck to you.

[Darce]

m2c1Iw (what's the story behind that?) the tabernacle/ally mast was possibly mounted in 1961 - according to notes scrawled on a magazine article found onboard. If I do restore her I'd be building a birdsmouth mast to replace it.

First trick is to get her home and surveyed. I'll be using a car trailer - should be interesting :p

To give you an idea of what I'm up against, have a look at this early photo and the repair from where a jinker was smashed through the starboard forequarter.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/CIMG1224.jpg

Not too pretty, but hopefully worth repairing.

[m2c1Iw]

m2c1Iw (what's the story behind that?) Not too pretty, but hopefully worth repairing.

Well I thought it was the most appropriate way to sum up my woodworking "measure twice cut once I wish"

First job is a steam box, cool always interesting to watch someone getting steamed up. :D

[Darce]

First job is getting her off the trailer with no overhead lift - no access for a crane or hiab. Any ideas?

The steam box got built ages ago :)

[m2c1Iw]

I'd be taking her to a friendly wooden boat builder with a big yard and build temporary shelter for her. Nothing like onsite specialist help when you need it not to mention the equipment.

[PAR]

A buddy with a back hoe or front end loader can be very useful. She doesn't weigh much so erect an upside down U shaped support (2x). Place then at the 1/4 way aft and 3/4 way aft locations and drop some come-a-longs from them. Carefully sling the boat to prevent crushing (place a board in the sling at deck level) and hoist 'er up.

Personally, I'd bite the bullet and have the travel lift pick her off that farm wagon and drop her on an over the road trailer.

The repair to the impact damage looks pretty half assed, but is typical for a cost cutting customer. The frame breaks are naturally occurring "tension" breaks not impact. As the planks cycle through wet/dry events, they stretch and relax the frames, which eventually with age breaks them, just as you see in the last image.

A common repair for this is to sister the frames. This often is an antiquated repair as it locks down the distortions in the planking, created by the gaps in the tension breaks. On the other hand, if the gaps are closed and planks refastened, sistered frames can be the cheapest way to go, though you do pick up a little weight.

I did a job once on a big commercial fishing boat, where we sistered all the frames, refastened, etc. then cut the old frames out and plugged the holes. The owner couldn't stand the idea of the slight lose of load carrying capacity (typical commercial fisherman), so each old frame was carefully removed and it's plank fastener holes doweled.

She's showing a little distortion(s) which may be a hog, but then again it could also be the tension breaks permitting the frames to relax, moving the sheer with it. The first thing to do is restore her shape as best as possible, so any new frames can be the proper shape. This is a tedious process, but doesn't require much effort. Basically you'll jack, wedge, twist and cuss (a lot) the old gal back to her former self. Once she's about where you need her (it would help to get the plans and make station molds) make some forms (plywood) and fasten them inside the hull. Once her shape is locked down into the proper (or close enough) place, you can start wholesale plank removal, refastening, frame restoration, etc.

The other option would be to jack up her keel to get the whole boat level, then remove the garboards, the turn of the bilge planks and the sheer strake. This will permit inserting new frames as they come out of the steam box (you could also laminate, which for a lot of people is easier) directly into the hull, where they are fastened right to the planks. This is the usual path for sistering.

It's a nice scale project, which shouldn't cost or take the remainder of your life to complete and a real beauty when finished.

[Darce]

Thanks Par, I think I'll be replacing frames rather than sistering. That section of butt blocks goes down about 7 or 8 planks! As I have the plans for her, I'll be taking the cussing route - sounds more like my style :) Quite a few of the ribs have deteriorated badly where they fit into the sole, so the garboards have to come off.

Don't know how I'll go steaming, not much air-dried timber available around here as everyone's in too much of a hurry to wait for timber to dry all natural-like, but I'm keen to give it a go. I have seen it discussed that laminated timber is stronger than steam, maybe that will be the way to go.

She does look quite distorted in the 2nd photo so I can see why you would mention the hog, hopefully it's my poor photography. I expect to see some, just (hopefully) not as much as that makes it appear. I'll get some more photos up over the weekend, especially the one where she rolls over and takes out the garden shed :doh:

[PAR]

No, she's distorted big guy. I can tell from all the seam movement and tension cracks, she's slumping around everywhere. She's an old gal and things are sagging, which is natural.

You can laminate in place, once you jack her back into shape as best as you can. Often it's necessary to remove every third plank or every other plank to help twisting her back into shape. This takes a lot of the longitudinal stiffness out of her and she is less likely to put up a fight. Remember the reshaping process should be done slowly, over several weeks if possible. This way you will not break anything (okay, well it will be minimized).

Wood will remember it's position, but only if you steam it, use heat or do it slow. Steamed frames naturally try to expand when contained in a hull. When the tension breaks occur, the internal stresses are released and they tend to sag at the bilge turn instead of press outward, from the burden of the hull's weight. This is why station molds are handy. You can see how far you need to go.

Get her on the hard and under cover some place safe, then you can access how much cussing you'll be really doing.

[Darce]

Well I got her off the jinker and back home today. First job was to lift the front end...
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_GenieliftMedium.jpg?t=1277548725 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieliftMedium.jpg?t=1277555160)
Then jack the rear and remove the jinker...
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_Genielift3Medium.jpg?t=1277548861 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/Genielift3Medium.jpg?t=1277555129)
Slide under the car trailer and cut some supports...
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_Genielift7Medium.jpg?t=1277548969 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/Genielift7Medium.jpg?t=1277555102)
Drove it back home...
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_Genielift9Medium.jpg?t=1277549268 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/Genielift9Medium.jpg?t=1277555067)
and squeezed her into the bottom yard
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_Genielift10Medium.jpg?t=1277549326 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/Genielift10Medium.jpg?t=1277555022)
More pix tomorrow when/if I can get her off the trailer
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_Genielift12Medium.jpg?t=1277550462 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/Genielift12Medium.jpg?t=1277554927)

[PAR]

Way to go . . .

[m2c1Iw]

:2tsup::2tsup:

BTW hope you are going to chuck that OB bracket and carry some oars.

[Darce]

:2tsup::2tsup:

BTW hope you are going to chuck that OB bracket and carry some oars.

It's a bewdy innit? Consider it gone. I'll be working on some other way of mounting an auxiliary.

Ok. Got the trailer out from under her. After much head scratching, I jacked the trailer up, with boat and chocked her about 8" higher. I only had an inch of keel protruding past the trailer but it was enough to get it chocked securely. Two acro-props either side of the rudder post steadied her.

For the front bit, I made up a beam from 8" x 3" jarrah resting on supports. The supports were again made from jarrah. Then it was simply removing the trailer chocks until it was on the ground and then rolling it out from under. After digging a trench and letting down the tires on the right-hand side as we'd miscalculated the fall of land.

It still remains to lower the keel to the ground, but I ran out of light and time, I'm away for two weeks so it'll have to wait until then.


http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_GenieSetdown1Medium.jpg?t=1277643379 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieSetdown2Medium.jpg?t=1277644637) http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_GenieSetdown2Medium.jpg?t=1277643379 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieSetdown2Medium.jpg?t=1277645105) http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/th_GenieSetdown7Medium.jpg?t=1277645037 (http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii297/darcydugganx/Genie%20restoration/GenieSetdown7Medium.jpg?t=1277645064)