'57 Melges C scow project

[Tim B]

Hello all. A friend rescued an old C scow from destruction a few years ago. He couldn't keep it in his garage any longer so it has found a home with me. Here are some pictures to introduce the boat.

[Tim B]

Try again.

http://cid-05b66506172ada15.skydrive...w/DSCF0036.JPG

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[Tim B]

Here are a few more showing.

http://cid-05b66506172ada15.skydrive...w/DSCF0046.JPG

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There is a lot of work needed, especially repairing frames. I'm hoping for steady advice from the brain trust here to get through.

Tim

[C. Ross]

Great project Tim! I sailed on one exactly like that in the early 70s as a teenager. I'm going to enjoy seeing more on this project.

What's wrong with the frames?

[Tim B]

The frames in the mid section of the boat are rotted almost to nothing in some cases. I'll post more survey pictures in the next few days. Here are two of the worst.

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The frames are below the floor board supports. Yes, that stuff that looks like a line of ashes is really the frame.

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This picture shows a frame pulled away from the backbone. If you look close it is possible to see the screw that held the frame to the backbone hanging there.

[tomlarkin]

[Tim B]

It has been about a month with less work done than I wished. I spent an afternoon exploring and taking pictures.
Here is a picture showing the hull number and the year stamped on the bilge board.



It is a beautiful boat. I really like the classic look of the oval cockpit.


It looks pretty clean until you look under the floor boards. Then reality hits. The frames are all but rotted to nothing.



The frames have pulled away from the backbone. The result is that the bottom is all out of shape. You can see this frame sagging out of the backbone.



There are some planks that have holes in them. It almost looks like the boat fell down onto one of the rollers on the trailer. I wonder if this was what happened to result in the boat getting left in the barn for 30some years.



Crawling around surveying the damage, I can't wait to start working. Last Saturday my brother in law helped me flip it over. Before we did, his kids had a blast playing around on a "ship wreck".

Tim

[johnw]

It will be a blast when you've finished it, too.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

Looks like a A-Scow left in the dryer too long. (I was amazed when I first saw the really large scows.) Yours should be easier to right when it turtles, you won't need a couple of powerboats.

[Tim B]

A scows are giants! Crewed on some E scows this summer and one race we were almost run down by 3 port tack A scows eager to be on favored tack.

[Tim B]

It has been nine months and I think it is time for an update. Slowly a plan has formed. It is a five-year plan. Year one is the take a part phase. Working on the boat over the winter did not work out. The boat sits outside, next to our garage. I had hoped to pull it into the garage for a few days at a time to work on it. A lot of snow in December and January meant that the boat was not moving.
The work of destruction started in April. Through out the take apart phase I’m documenting how this boat was put together. Partly because this level of boat repair is new ground for me and partly because detailed information on these boats is very hard to find.
One of the first steps taken was to make a pattern of all the planks. I used some rolls of trace paper from a craft store to trace the planks. Before tracing them I went over the seams with a black marker. Here are a few pictures.





The planks have a mirrored pattern. The Center line has two planks; stern to mid-ships and mid-ships to bow. Most of the planks rows have three: stern, mid-ships and bow. The P4, S4 rows had 4 planks in them. Once the planks were marked, then the tracing paper was rolled out and the planks traced onto it. It took 5 lines of tracing paper, one down the center and two on each side. In total it took three rolls. So now I have a drawer full of “boat skins” that I will use to trace out new planks. From the center 5 planks on each side were copied.

I'll post more later and try to post more often. Comments and suggestions always welcome.

Thanks for looking,

Tim

[Tim B]

For this post let’s talk about removing screws. Some type of putty covers the screws. It is very hard and white. I think it is something like Rock Hard Water Puty. This is what Melges Boat Works said about 15 years ago when I was working on the M scow. By using an awl, the putty can be pried out but this damages the plank around the screw hole. So for the planks that will be saved a 3/8” Fostner bit works well. The bungholes are ¼ inch diameter. Drilling out the bungs with a larger diameter makes it easy to get under the epoxy bung and pop it out.



There are three screws per frame. The middle screw is off center and it alternates sides from frame to frame. All the middle screws on a given frame are off center toward the same edge on all planks on that side (port or starboard). The screws going into the transom are longer (# 6, 1 ¼ inches long). The screws in to frames are shorter (# 6, ¾ inches long).



Thanks for looking,

Tim

[cmradu]

Hi, congrats on your courage and optimism. On my '73 Melges I used white cedar a little thicker than original, then fiberglass with WEST epoxy and a few layers of Emith epoxy heavy primer and Teflon paint. The new planks have been sealed with Smith CPES and fitted with 3M-5200, so there should be some longevity there (20 years?).

My only disappointment is the outcome of steaming new ribs and planks.. not very even. So, regarding the bumpiness of the hull (see below), does anybody know how hard a good fairing job would be at this point? Or how expensive? Or who would do it professionally? (Do modern boatyards dealing with fiberglass work know how to do this?)

These should be easy to remove or shape with a grider, but at this point I feel I want to wait a few years before taking things down.
Thank you very much beforehand for any ideas or advice,

-- Chris

[TimH]

Nice. Fast boats those scows. I was easily passed by a bunch of E's last weekend while sailing a Hobie 16.

[Captain Blight]

I was railmeat on an A-Scow about 10 years ago. Fantastic critters.

Question: Anyone selling plans for the scows? And since we know about A-scows and C-scows, does that mean there is also a B-Scow in between them in size?

[Daniel Noyes]

I was railmeat on an A-Scow about 10 years ago. Fantastic critters.

Question: Anyone selling plans for the scows? And since we know about A-scows and C-scows, does that mean there is also a B-Scow in between them in size?

B Scow?
yeah into the mid thirties I think, 32' long

[Tim B]

B scows have been long gone. Dan has the length correct.

Here is a quick summary of the IYLA classes: In the 1890's yatch clubs in Minnesota and Wisconsin where compaigning boats built to formula type ratings ("first rate" and "second rate"). It was an arms race with rich owners having new boats designed and built every year. The Seawanahawken (sp?) cup regatta was the one event that brought these mid-west clubs together until in 1899 they formed the IYLA. Shortly after they started forming classes by creating box rule scantling definitions for each class. These box rules were the forerunners of one design classes. The ILYA classes are/were:
Class A (38 ft, formed in 1900),
Class B (32 ft, also formed in 1900, class ended in 1919),
Class C scow (cat rigged 20 ft, class formed in 1905),
Class E scow (28 ft sloop rigged, formed in 1923,
Class D scow (20 ft sloop rigged, class formed 1946, ended in 1965),
Class M16 scow (16 ft sloop rigged, class formed in 1959),
Class M20 scow (20 ft tunnel hull with sloop rig, class formed in 1966, ended in 1997),
Class I20 scow (same hull as M20 but with bigger sloop rig, started ~ 1992),
Class MC scow (16 ft cat rigged, class formed in 1986),
Class M17 scow (17 ft, sloop rig, class formed 2007?).

Why the letter D was skipped:

In 1905 some controversies within the ILYA resuled in a number of clubs breaking off and forming the Norwestern Regatta Association. The NRA introduced another class boat. It was an 18 ft cat rigged scow, similar to the C. The ILYA C class at the time was loosely defined. The letter D was choosen by the NRA so that it would not be confused with class C.
The NRA - IYLA split ended in 1915. When the NRA folded back in to the IYLA, the NRA class D was disbanded but the boats remained very popular. In 1923 the IYLA introduced its next class boat, a 28 ft sloop rigged scow. IYLA didn't want to call it a D, since there were still alot of NRA D scows around. So they skipped a letter and called it E. Class E was formed in 1923. This left the IYLA classes as A, C, and E. The class B fleet had died off, last regatta was in 1919.
The second D scow came along later. By WWII, the C fleets had grown so large that regattas were becoming unmanageable. The IYLA was looking for a boat that would move some people out of the C fleet. Johnson Boat Works had developed a 20 ft sloop rigged scow for a customer in South Africa. JBW suggested it to the IYLA, who adopted it as the D scow in 1946. The D scow was in reality a C scow hull with dual rudders and sloop rigged sail plan. To try to entice C boats to cross over, the IYLA wrote the D scow scantlings to allow a single rudder. People could rig a C scow as a cat rigged C or by adding a second mast step a sloop rigged D. D scows never had the popularity of the C's. The class died out in 1965. All D scows were made of wood by JBW.
When Melges Boat Works started introducing new boatdesigns they used the letter M in the name (M16, M20, M17). Somehow MBW managed to get the IYLA to adopt the Melges designation as the class name. When a group of sailors re-vitilized the dying M20 class with an updated asymetrical spinaker (the first in the IYLA) they named the class I-20 for Inland 20.

Tim

[Tim B]

Making slow but steady progress taking planks off. The planks are caulked with a white, hard substance. I called Melges Boat Works to asked what it was when I was working on the M-scow. They were not sure but thought it was Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty.




Here is an example of it. The planks have a caulking bevel planed in them. The white caulking line is about 1/8 inch wide. What I never realized before was that the seams are caulked with a few strands of cotton first. Then the white, hard caulk is put over it.




I didn’t notice this when I worked on the 1971 MBW M16 scow. One of its planks is hanging on my workshop wall. So I checked into the joint and sure enough there was cotton at the bottom.

Here are few pictures of rotten frames and backbone. The backbone is solid just forward of and behind the cockpit. So it should be pretty easy to scarf in a new piece

[Soundman67]

I am having fun reading your posts. nice work on careful deconstruction. Keep posting the pictures as you start to rebuild now that you seem to have uncovered the majority of the problems.