South Bay Scooter Deck Finishing

[jeffsod]

Not sure the photo link will work but its the only way I could think of to share a photo of my project boat.

I am currently working on commissioning a South Bay Scooter and just found this forum. I will be moving on to finishing the deck which is strips of several types of wood which I cannot exactly name as I am not the builder but have taken over the project. It appears to be several woods possibly teak and mahogheny and cedar. The deck was meant to be finished clear and that is how I intend on doing it. It won't see a lot of harsh sunlight as it will be used in the winter months only. I do intend on using a varnish with UV inhibitors for sure though. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what the best brand is but I was thinking of Interlux 95 Which I believe used to be called Clipper Clear.

Anybody have any experiences good or bad with this product?

Now this is a polyurethane as opposed to a varnish but I am not so sure what the difference between the two is. The reason I am thinking Polyurethane is the deck of a Scooter gets walked on all over. As pretty as they are you have to walk around or shift your weight to control the boat as it doesn't have a rudder and relies on weight shifts and Jib boom angle to steer the boat. If you haven't heard of these then by now you have figured out that these are really unique boats. Read More Here:

http://www.ulster.net/~mriceboat/scooter.html

Up until Yesterday I had never even heard of CPES. But I take it from what I have read here so far that CPES is a good starting point on which to apply whatever finish I decide on.

I will read thru the archieves about finishing the deck but part of my concern is the flexing and abuse the deck will take during use and whether a 'polyurethane' like the interlux will flex enough or whether I should stick with a varnish. Thoughts and input appreciated.

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/iceboating/vwp?.dir=/&.src=gr&.dnm=Scooter.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/iceboating/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%2 6.view=t

[mhoffman]

If you use the search function up in the corner and type in "varnish", you will get a lot of ideas- both on products and application. I think there are a couple of threads that concern "CPES" too.(just a couple...)
Matt

[holzbt]

Your link asks where the plans came from.
"Popular Machanics 23 Boats You Can Build", pgs. 133-142

[Todd Bradshaw]

The same material in a slightly (but not very much) expanded and re-arranged form was done as a two-part series in the October and November issues of Popular Mechanics from 1949. The link above is missing about a half page of text and a couple illustrations from the end of part 2, mostly having do do with mainsheet rigging, cutting the sail and rigging the boom at the tack, where it just ends in a sleeve on the sail's foot with no gooseneck. If you need them, let me know and I'll figure out a way to get you copies. They are however, specific to this particular scooter and don't apply to most of the others.

Harless also wrote a book on Scoot. It's called "Rudderless Rig" and was published by Carlton Press in New York in 1964. It's mostly fluff - some sailing technique info, but not much meat about the boat's construction and too much attempted "scooter humor" which kind of misses the mark. In this day and age, it's kind of a shock to read many the accounts of taking women on boats in these old books. Be warned that according to Harless, they will mostly just sit there and giggle until you hit top speed, at which point they will start shrieking! I'd love to see him go boating with my wife. One wrong statement and she would probably stuff her 240 cm. carbon paddle down his throat until it came out the other end.

The decks on Scoot were varnished and where needed, mahogany sawdust was added to the varnish to act as a non-skid. Sounds like a formula for a bad varnish job to me, but who knows. I could see sprinkling dust into wet varnish and overcoating it, but can't imagine mixing it in and trying to get a decent finish.

I have seen a couple of references to standing on an Ice Scooter's deck, but not while the boat is underway. The rocker in the runners makes them extremely weight sensitive and it would seem that moving the crew fore and aft a bit while seated on the side decks, just as you would in a Laser or Sunfish, is all it takes and is supposedly enough to really get the boat to spin quickly when desired. Various Scooter plans use everything from pine, to spruce, to cedar, to mahogany, to oak for hull and deck planking, usually about 5/8" thick, which leads me to believe that there may not be a tremendous amount of flexing strain on the decks in normal use.

You could probably use any good varnish that you like to work with and not have a problem. C.P.E.S. certainly wouldn't hurt, but probably isn't really necessary. Ice boats usually get a lot more damage due to poor storage than they do in use. In any case, if you leave the boat out on the ice, you'll want some sort of cover to keep it from filling up with snow or whatever else happens to be falling out of the sky. It will also protect the varnish from U.V.

I guess it used to be common practice to drop-off (literally) excess crew members during parts of races where their weight was not needed for ballast and then re-board them on-the-fly when needed. Sounds like some kind of crazy fun.

[jeffsod]

Thanks to all who responded especially Todd who it seems to know a lot about the scooters.

Todd, I have both of the original issues of Popular Mechanics that featured the complete plans. You are correct about the plans given being for that specific Harless Style boat. The hull I am working on is a Hermes style hull but will have a Harless Cane type rig. I particularly appreciated your review of Harless' book the Rudderless Rig as I have been trying to track down a copy to read/copy. As far as standing on the deck while in motion I am going on the basis of the several occasions I have witnessed them being sailed and I guess most of the walking on the deck occurs when they turn or tack. I know they do put some kind of traction in the varnish around the cockpit and the area just in front of the mast. The deck flex is just an assumption that if you are running or skipping over imperfect ice that some flexing is going to occur. The varnish that I have mostly used in the past is Epiphanes but I think as stated earlier I am leaning towards the interlux 95 or clipper clear on this boat for sake of durability. Again thanks for the info and I will try and post a photo at some point.

[ 10-18-2002, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: jeffsod ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

Sounds like a plan to me. Don't you just love the rig on Scoot? Pretty modern for an old boat. That sucker certainly ought to fly.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid36/pb89e06b3af3250bbe7441b5ec05ccb2a/fd270cc1.jpg

Make sure you have the drawing showing how to pre-bend the mast for measurement of the in-use luff curve (near the end of Part II of the magazine articles) when you start thinking about having the sail made. If you don't have the drawing, let me know and I'll get you a copy. Otherwise the sailshape will get funky as soon as you start adding mainsheet tension.

My wife borrowed the copy of "Rudderless Rig" through one of those inter-library loan programs. I think it came from the University of Michigan. Surely some library out there must have a copy, so it might be worth trying. It won't make much difference as to how your boat comes out - the magazine articles have more information, but it's worth seeing if you can find a copy.

There is also a drawing of a smaller version of the boat called "Baby Scoot" that looks suspiciously like hard chine, plywood construction, though little is said about it and I have seen no further plans for the boat. Might be a good way to get into a scooter with a minimal investment in time and materials.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid36/p277c1f44609ba70f3e6a9beeeb681969/fd270827.jpg

I must admit that I have also considered re-rigging the Sunfish with a horn out front and screwing big runners on the bottom, though it's probably not a good idea....

[ 10-18-2002, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[holzbt]

There are a number of gaff rigged baby scoot's around also. If anyone can access the archives we had a pretty informative thread going about scooters a few years ago. Most of the scooters I've seen have had the decks varnished with oil based varnish. The non-skid would be sprinkled into the wet varnish with an old flour sifter that had a piece of nylon stocking attached to the bottom. This seemed to help control the grit and keep it more evenly distributed. I've heard of some who used ground up walnut shells but the ones I've sailed had regular non-skid compound. It looked fine in the varnish. You should also tape off areas of the deck where you don't want the non skid. Harliss usually used white pine and mahogany strips for his decks. I think the pine was about 1" to 1 1/8" thick and the mahogany about 3/8". He glued the two together as wide planks and then sawed them into strips about 1/2" thick. This gave him about 1 1/2" wide strips and avoided the problem of dealing with narrow strips. I've got some photo's of Captain Scoot partially disassembled but have no way to post them.

[jeffsod]

Todd I believe I have the sail information because I do remember reading that somewhere. I greatly appreciate the offer and if I cannot find it I will let you know since I will be having a sail cut soon just need to finish the mast. I have never heard of the baby scoot but do know they come in a variety of sizes. Definetly not a one design type class. I have heard of them being up to 30 feet end to end including horn. I have seen the shingle which uses a sheet of plywood with some kind of center beam that looks like those wooden hammock stands you see in catalogs I can't afford to buy out of. They only have one set of runners though. I got several pictures on ofoto maybe this link will work:

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=64520744303.40323333603&n=103713090

One is a closeup of the deck and one of the recently painted bottom.

Thanks for the archive tip. I did a search on scooter and came up blank so if anyone can locate a link please post.

[jeffsod]

Found a past thread from January in the plans forum thanks.

[gert]

wow, is that ever neat
Todd can you post the missing pages?

[ 10-19-2002, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: gert ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

Pages are too big to post, but here are a few old pics from my rather limited "Scooter Archive".

This is a drawing from the P.M. articles that will give you a better idea of what the Harless boat looked like. This seems to be the end result of years of Scooter evolution.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid36/pd5d6da86008af0949438fff671a7d01f/fd25c16d.jpg

This one is a neat old photo of a fleet. These low-aspect gaff rigs seem to be the most common in the old books.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid36/pff96c87e862ddc64926e4543784aecb0/fd25c175.jpg

There were also some Scooters designed with Marconi mains. I found one plan that had a 196 sq. ft. main and a 75 sq. ft. jib. That's a total of 271 sq. ft. on a 16' hull! And this picture points out why sturdy construction was important. From what I can tell, they've just popped back up after crossing a hole in the ice and the entire boat is airborne with a crew of three aboard.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid36/p3b8c0692b259f137c75a929b75195a81/fd25c17a.jpg

[jeffsod]

Boy, that last shot is great! Never saw that one before. I have a couple of old articles but no scanner to share them. If I can get the photos scanned I will post.

[davef]

Todd,

That is a remarkable photo. You notice how they never show that type of photo after the landing? Do you think these photos were taken on Mendota or Monona?

Dave

[Todd Bradshaw]

No, they're from someplace out east. So far, I haven't seen any evidence of old scooters being used around here. There were a lot of big stern-steerers though and you can see photos at:
http://www.iceboat.org/VintagePages/vintagephotos/early/vintage_photos.htm

[jeffsod]

Here is a link to a picture of a scooter traversing a water hole, note the DN that didn't make it in the second shot:

http://pages.cthome.net/esigns/icephoto.html

[jeffsod]

Project now done. Here are a couple of photos(assuming I got this posting thing correct):

http://www.pbase.com/image/11698376/medium

http://www.pbase.com/image/11698377/large

If not you can see it here:
http://www.pbase.com/image/11698377/large