Renting a Whitehall

A couple of weeks ago we went to Connecticut on vacation. We included Mystic Seaport in the trip as well as the consignment shop that I bought my Whitehall through.

We went through Mystic Seaport on Columbus Day which was the last day of the season that they rent boats. We rented a Whitehall similar to mine. I noticed several differences.

First, my boat is much fancier than the ones for rent. Mine has nicer woodwork, better flooring, and many other details. The polyurethane finish makes it much nicer than weather, grey wood.

The mechanism for pulling up the swing keel is nicer on mine (although mine needs to have the steel cable replaced).

Rowing the Mystic Seaport boat was a little frustrating. First, the oars that they gave me were only six foot oars which is too short. Also, they use a single thwart with a looped rope that holds the oar in. This gives a oar a lot of play. Two thwart or an actual oarlock is much easier to use.

Regardless, I didn't have any trouble rowing us in a circle around the town.

I'm sure that the plans for my boat came from Mystic Seaport since the maker was associated with it. Their small-boat designer loved Whitehalls. I have his book on small boats and it devotes much more space to Whitehalls than any other type (to say nothing of having a picture of a Whitehall on the cover).

The plans would have been based on the few surviving ones and in 1980, I think that only a couple were known. One of those is on display.

Replacing the stern post

After digging out the rotted stern post on the Black Sheep and giving the exposed wood several days to dry out, I used an epoxy-based wood rot product to seal the plywood and the new post. I gave that a day and a half to cure then attached the post.

I used a lot of epoxy and screwed the sides to the post. It is solid. I used more epoxy to cover the screw heads and fill in some cracks.

Where there was a gap in the fiberglass I could see that the new piece wasn't as tight a fit as I had hoped. There was some gap between the post and the plywood at some parts. I squirted more epoxy into the gap to try to seal it off.

All of this went very quickly. The hard part turned out to be the mounts for the rudder.

I had bought a new set of screws for this. I figured that a 4" timber is actually closer to 3 1/2" so a 4" carriage bolt should be the right size. It turned out that the post is closer to a true 4" than I expected. Also, I pulled all of my screws out of the same bin but I did not measure them. It turned out that some other sizes had gotten mixed in. There were two 5" ones and a couple of shorter ones.

Because of the angle, I had a hard time getting a consistent angle for the holes. I had to widen some of them.

I had gotten galvanized screws but when I got replacements I went with stainless.

The tubes for holding the rudder looked symmetric but it turned out that one end is imperceptibly wider than the other. Naturally I had mounted both of them upside down and had to reverse them. Once I did that, the rudder hung properly.

I used another tube of epoxy to seal the screws and the fiberglass around the mounting plates.

I still had some of the Olympic Stain that I used on the interior. Most paint is unusable after two years but this just needed a good stirring. I replaced a broken floorboard and gave the floor a new coat of stain.

I also used some spar varnish on the tiller and the oarlocks.

I would like to give the exterior a fresh coat of paint but otherwise the boat repairs are complete.

Ready to finish

I used some epoxy-based wood sealer on the exposed plywood on the Black Sheep. For good measure, I used the rest of it on the new stern post.

The stuff I used is actually meant to stabilize rotten wood but it should be fine for my purposes. It comes in two parts with a warning that it will heat after they are combined. When used in temperatures above 70 degrees they recommend that it be chilled first. Otherwise it might melt the container within 20 minutes.

I didn't notice any real heating but I had it applied well before 20 minutes. It is very thin so that it will soak into the wood. It is almost the consistency of water. I used a paint brush with it to be sure that everything was evenly coated and that it got into all of the plywood.

The directions say to give it 24 hours to cure. The coat on the post was still sticky after 12 hours. The plywood seemed dry. To be sure, I will give it more 36 hours and wait until Saturday for the next step. This will be using thicker epoxy and screws to fix the post in place.

While I have the boat at home I will try to give it a new coat of paint. The flooring especially needs it. The interior of the boat itself is in good shape but the flooring had lost a lot of paint. The exterior has several scrapes and the waterline is permanently discolored.

Two years ago I was able to paint the boat quickly so none of this should be difficult.

Repairing the Black Sheep

A couple of weeks ago I was shifting the Black Sheep on its trailer and the top of the stern post snapped off in my hands. Since this is a 4x4, that was a bad sign. It was rotted. I found more rot surrounding the part that holds the rudder on.

I have been busy but I finally got some time to spend on fixing her. Since I have had to fix rot in the stern post twice before I decided that the whole thing needed to be replaced. I had been worrying about how to get the old one out. Power tools will not fit.

 It turned out that this was not a problem. The entire post was rotten, even the parts that had been solid when I fixed rot before. The only solid parts were small parts around screws and the pieces I replaced earlier. Even these were not hard to get out since the wood around them was rotten out. I was able to do it all with hand tools in two days.

I have a long 4x4 in my garage so I decided to use this for the new sternpost. I saved the top that roken off in my hands. I used this to get the correct angle on my power saw then I trimmed the edge. Here it is, ready to be fitted. The sides were perfect. I only needed to put an angle on the end.

I think that one reason the original post rotted was that it did not fit tightly against the bottom of the boat. This allowed water to soak up through the end and into the rest of the post. Having it covered in fiberglass didn't help. That just sealed in the water.

I already put in a drain so that it will not collect water over the Winter.

I spent a lot of time fitting the end of the post so it wouldn't be as exposed as the original. You can see here that it is a pretty good fit.

I am going to let the exposed wood dry for a few days then seal it. I will also seal the end of the new post. Once that it done, I will epoxy it into place and try to use epoxy to fix the holes in the fiberglass. Originally the sides were screwed onto the post and a fiberglass strip put over the ends. I will see if I can get the same effect with a little epoxy over the screw heads.

Rotten Luck

I was checking the Black Sheep today and found more rot. I was moving it on its trailer and the end of the sternpost broke off in my hand. This is a 4x4 so I should not be able to break it with my bare hands.

I've had other problems with this post but I had hoped that I had managed to dig out all of the rot and fill it in with wood and epoxy. I'm not sure if I missed some rot or if it is continuing to rot.

I probably need to cut the whole post out and replace it. This scares me since it is a major structural piece.

Drought and boats

The long dry spell is hard on wooden boats. Normally I can swell the seams of my Whitehall in the spring and it is fine as long as it is in the water every few weeks. This year the seams keep opening up. I feel like I'm starting from scratch for the third time this year.

The heat doesn't help. We've had more days above 90 and above 100 than any year since 1955 and little wind. That's too hot to row around.

2012 Season

This year I tried spraying the Whitehall with water from a garden sprayer in order to swell the planks. This worked pretty well. I launched it a week ago. There was a little seepage from an upper plank that I hadn't sprayed as much but it closed up pretty fast. I had to pump out a little water Friday night and it was fine after that.

I had a problem with the rudder. The acorn nut that keeps the tie rod from slipping all the way through the pins came off. I did a temporary repair with duct tape and used a modern end nut as a permanent replacement. This does not look as good as the brass nut it replaced but it has a built-in lock washer so that it will not come loose again.

The Black Sheep needs some work. More on that later.

Trying something new

After spending the Winter out of the water m Whitehall needs her seams swollen shut again. I have done this by pouring buckets of water into her or hitting her with a garden hose. Last year I found that leaving her out in the rain helped.

This year I am trying something different. I am using a pressurized sprayer to spray a mist over the interior. I am hoping that I don't need a lot of water dripping through and that just keeping the interior damp will swell the seams.