New member, new project. 54' motorsailor

[rickinnocal]

Hello everyone. I have just acquired a new boat. She is the "Glory B", a 54' motorsailor to a design by Skip Calkins.

The boat has an unusual history. In 1960 the owner of a custom furniture company in San Jose, Robert Nelson, bought an ex-Navy 40 foot motor launch. He dissasembled it and used the frames and planking, along with new wood that he bought, to build the hull of the "Glory B". The hull is mahogany planks over oak frames, with a fiberglass skin over it all. The design was based on Calkins 50' sloop, extended to 54' and with the pointed stern changed to a transom stern to allow the addition of an aft cabin.

Nelson worked on this boat in a warehouse he had bought from 1964 until 1996, when he finally launched her. Although designed as a motorsailor, and fitted with chainplates and a mast step on the keel, she never had a mast stepped.

She has had only one other owner since him, a liveaboard who rarely took her out. The engine - a 1977 Ford Lehman 135 hp bought new and installed by the local Ford industrial dealer - has only 206 hours on it.

I could find no rot anywhere in the bilge or hull. There are a couple of areas of rot in the brightwork on deck, but nothing that seems to affect any structural members.

To get an overall view, here she is on the hard in 2005 when she was last hauled out...

http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz213/rickinnocal/Before%20work%20started/GloryBonhard.jpg

More pictures are in my photobucket album here... http://s829.photobucket.com/home/rickinnocal/allalbums

Take a look and let me know what you think. I expect to be returning here often to ask for advice as I fix her up.

Richard

[paladin]

Welcome aboard....nice looking craft.........stay outta the bilge if you value your sanity....

[ben2go]

That's a nice boat.A lot of potential there.Will you be installing masts for sailing or keeping her all motor?

[Phil Y]

Looks good:)

[rickinnocal]

Welcome aboard....nice looking craft.........stay outta the bilge if you value your sanity....


Thanks... the advice is a bit late though... me and my trusty awl have already spent several hours down there poking around. :(

All good so far, except that today I did find one soft area in the workshop area under the cockpit. There's a place where a pocket between two frames between the keel and the first stringer doesn't drain, and the stringer was soft for about 3" on one side. The keel and the frames were fine. The stringer is about 3" thick and about 5" high, and the softness seems to go in about 1/2" deep and about 1" high along the bottom for about the first 3" back from the forward frame.

Apart from that, so far so good.

Richard

[rickinnocal]

Will you be installing masts for sailing or keeping her all motor?

I haven't decided yet. I'd like to add a rig, but it's a pretty substantial expense for a boat this size.

Richard

[ddqarch]

To my eye that is a very pretty sheer and cabin line... glad you are fixing her up.

[rickinnocal]

Well, done some more work. Found out today that she had NO bilge pump. None. Nothing.

There was both a 12V and a 110V bilge pump switch on the engine panel - on/off/auto on the 12V, on/off on the 110V - but down in the bilge I found three 12V float switches in different places, each sitting next to a pair of wires taped up out of the way, and a piece of hose connected, through a non-return valve, to a 4-to-1 manifold and to the overboard. No pumps, though.

The 110V system was even stranger. There is a suction manifold at the aft end of the engine room, with four sections of 2" steel line going to different places in the bilges. Each has its own neatly labelled valve on the manifold, as does the fifth 2" line labelled "To pump". Below that valve, though, nothing. A fourth 2" line runs from the discharge manifold to the engine room bulkead underneath the suction manifold. Between the suction and discharge pipes, though, nothing.

That is not to say I didn't find the pump though - I did. On a shelf in the lazarette. Still in its box, with the 1971 invoice still inside.

Well, I guess I know she doesn't leak:D

I've put some more pictures up here... http://s829.photobucket.com/home/rickinnocal/allalbums

Richard

[rickinnocal]

Just a swift update.... The Glory B has been hauled, bottom job, and repainted.

Here she is on her way back into the water.....

http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz213/rickinnocal/Refloat%20day/P1040447.jpg
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz213/rickinnocal/Refloat%20day/P1040448.jpg

Richard

[johngsandusky]

Looks great.

[SchoonerRat]

I looked at your pic before reading your post.

I thought "Boy, that sure looks like a Calkin's 50, but the thread title says she's 54' "

Then I saw the transom!!!

Put a rig on her - if you can. She'll love you for it. And you'll love her all the more. The Calkin's 50 is a great sailing boat. I spent a good deal of time looking at a couple of them from astern, when racing in the '60s and '70s (That canoe stern sure is purty!).

Is she "One of a Kind?"

[chuckt]

Like her lines very much! "Stay out of the bilge" was a reference to the seperate forum called "the bilge."

[rickinnocal]

I thought "Boy, that sure looks like a Calkin's 50, but the thread title says she's 54' " ... Then I saw the transom!!!

Yep. The builder wanted some more room, so he had Skip open up the canoe stern to a transom, and add 4'.


Put a rig on her - if you can. She'll love you for it.

I intend to. Since my earlier post about not knowing if I would or not, I have actually found a slightly overlength spruce main mast just down the road. Good job it's a bit long, as there's a nasty crack at the masthead end. (If anyone wants a 45' wooden mast with a bend like an English warbow, the mizzen shown in the first pixture is available too.... )

http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz213/rickinnocal/Rigging/NewMast.jpg
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz213/rickinnocal/Rigging/Masthead.jpg

It's going to need some work, but I expected that - and it comes with both a boom and a hood roller furling for the foresail. The owner also believes he knows who still has the sails.


Is she "One of a Kind?"

Yes she is. I have most of the drawings onboard, and while some are blueprints, many are original pencil drawings. (Some are mxed - blueprints of a Calkins 50, with the modifications done in pencil on top. They are all on Calkins' shop papar, and signed by him.

Richard