Thread: Finishing a Yellowtail

No, we weren't in the Whaler - we went out in Steve's new 4.5 metre Bermuda tinny, which gets along OK with a 60 Mercury 4 stroke on it. We went out to Lion Island last week - and got nary a nibble - there, Juno and the railway bridge. Lovely day, just nothing biting.

Speaking of the trailer - I'm just about to do some work on it - making the support beds...

Did I mention I was going to do this?



Yep - I ripped the virgin mahogany deck off today. If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing right. Fancy building a mahogany deck and it never seeing the water eh? I'm glad I didn't build it.

I took it off because it had some crappy material under it - with some gaps, etc. It should have been built after the bulkhead went in - and it was also 270mm short. To be fair, the guy who built the hull was only going to use her as a power boat, and there was no need for mast partners. There was no easy way to built the partners and have it look good... so, off she came.

I'm tempted to go for wider mahogany strips - maybe 2" wide or thereabouts - with thin Silver Ash in between. Maybe? I'll stick a bit of a coaming up there too to keep the grumpy old missus a bit drier if I convince her to sign up as for'ard hand again (she used to crew on my Tornado, many a decade ago).

The builder had a couple of crappy spots in the fibreglass sheathing too - mainly where the hull joins the keelson, and having that deck off will make it easier for me to grind them back (oh yum, I'm looking forward to that) and do it properly.

Onward and upward, as they say.

if the builder is looking at this he must be crying right now (in fact i think i am as well) but as you say need must.

i have built my yellowtail as a powered boat only but still built in the block the mast sits in on the keelson just in case at a later stage i would use her for sail

Originally Posted by honkongphoie

if the builder is looking at this he must be crying right now (in fact i think i am as well) but as you say need must.

i have built my yellowtail as a powered boat only but still built in the block the mast sits in on the keelson just in case at a later stage i would use her for sail

Yeah - I've thought that.... and I resisted doing this one - but as soon as I did it, I knew it was the right thing to do - just as the new keel was.

When I bought it, the main thing I was worried about was how he'd gone with the strip planking - and at least the inside of that is viewable - and he did a good job.

I don't think I posted a shot of the piece of keel that I cut out to convert her to be able to sail. This is the piece I removed .... You are looking at a bit about 5" deep - fibreglass showing on the keelson side. I held it up against the sky to show the "joinery"

That's a good 1/4" gap in there.... didn't even fill it with glue.



I'm not over keen on his rudder.... but that's an any time fix.

These things needed to be done now.

btw - one of his glue lines on the deck had cracked - and it was like a neon warning sign when I saw that....

bloody ##### (excuse the language) i'm not surprised your re doing a lot of the work, that's appalling workmanship, the timber used doesn't look up to much either, What is it?

The keel was made out of Oregon (Douglas Fir). It looks pretty ratty because its been sitting on the ground outside for a few months.

I've been keeping it visible around the place to remind me to not trust anything. That said, I've been rebuilding a 50' 1937 cruiser since 2000 - new deck, new cabin, new interior, all systems, etc and I've found plenty of equally bad workmanship during that process - one wire in my genset changed colours 5 times in two metres - by changed colours, bits spliced in, etc.

... and on that note, time for a run in the cruiser....

I've decided to rip all that Mahogany off and replace it with some Caledonian Oak that I've got...

The PO left a damn gap between the hull strips and the Mahogany capping on the gunwales. Duhh. I don't like the silly rear deck either...

Wow, so long since I updated this...



Yeah, I know, its a panel beating hammer. I make so many damn trips down to the river to retrieve tools from the cruiser. Sometimes, I don't.

Here's a bit of Caledonian Oak - a reject piece from the capping strips on the cabin roof beams on my cruiser - I didn't like the uneven mottling on this bit. Not varnished (I just wet it). You can't see the gap between the hull and the gunwale in this photo. The support piece on the inside of the hull is a bit of tongue and groove pine. He just busted the groove bits off - didn't even plane it. Out of sight, out of mind eh?



I busted out the rear deck ... which gets rid of pretty much everything the PO did bar a bit of the gunwale and the hull. I've done the sheathing repairs too - I ground back some dry spots, etc. and re-did them, with the cloth on the bias, so that it sits down properly.

Here's what convinced me to take out the rear deck... this lovely bit of joinery.



I found a nice steel nail or thirty, which is surprising, because he took nearly all the screws out after the glue had "set".



Note the splits in the deck. Builders bog glue shouldn't go near a boat.

So, the deconstruction continued.... getting rid of such wonderful bits of timber as this... part of the inwale. No trouble fitting this, I'd guess, seeing it comes with hinges all the way along...



Here's the new inwale going in. Thanks to Bazza for the loan of a couple of dozen clamps. I've bought about $300 worth myself from Bunnings recently... let me rephrase that, I've bought about $2 worth of clamps for $300 from Bunnings lately. They are crap compared to Barry's clamps.



Here's the wide view. A couple of cross pieces clamped on so she doesn't pull out of shape.




Here's the router set up for taking the old deck back to the chosen line (a strip of Beech). A bit of candle wax under the timber to make it nice and slippery, a big steel base for the router that I made, a bit of waxed teak to extend the guide, with a couple of cupboard knobs to grip. I had to put about a 3mm concave into the bit of teak so it followed the curve of the gunwale.



I had to do from there forward without the extension bars because of the way the gunwale changed angle.

The finished routering...

I'd also fitted the breasthook. That's a piece of gnarly West Aussie hardwood that I took out of Grantala during the rebuild of the cabin. The colour is a bit funny, 'cause I painted it with some left over epoxy.

Next up, the deck beams...




I just happened to have some more Kauri laying around... I guess its a slight overkill on the front one, although the waste off the top was only about 40mm. The front beam is a bit thicker than the plans call for, but I'm happy with that, as the deck will be strip planked, not ply.

Here they are glued in and with the king plank in for its trial fit



Here's a shot that's almost inspired me to go out and clean up the setup table....



That's the mast step being glued up.

Here's the mast step in place. The queen in her rightfull place. It's a 2 cent coin by the way - no longer used here. I was going to use a 50 cents piece with Captain Cook on it, but it was too big.




The mast step is made out of Jarrah, I think. There was a plank down in my woodheap and another piece that came out of the cabin on Grantala during her rebuild. The mast step is 400mm long and a whisker under 100mm wide. Its 100mm high. A fair lump of timber.

The kingplank is in.. along with the bulkheads.... and that's the spotted gum Samson post hanging around there too.

I've rough fitted the coaming framing... there's a few spare lofting battens sitting there on top of the old 54 beetle...



I'll cut the final line on them tomorrow...



Given that I want to strip plank the deck, I'll drop a layer of 3mm marine ply on first. The original deck had cracked and I think a bit of ply is better than having to add extra beams.

wondered what was happening to this Yellowtail it's been a long time since your last post but you have done some cracking work on her in that time.

i must say i like the PO's nice little touch with the hidden steel nails You should have built one from scratch it would have been quicker

i put an 1926 Australian silver sixpence in my keelson, sealed it in with epoxy and left it unpainted so it can be seen under my centre seat, i thought it was a nice touch from me as it's a 1930's style design from Australia

G'day mate... any more photos of you out in yours, catching fish?

I really like the shape of that bulkhead you're making under the foredeck- the swing of those arcs is a great choice inside the hull shape at that point, and will be reflected in the coaming shape too. Very nice.