Skiff rehab'

[Mark Jensen]

Hey everyone.
First off, let me say that I read over this forum just about daily.
You fellas (& ladies) are a huge wealth of information and reading your posts on boats, hunting, dogs, etc. has made me a smarter man. Thank you.
This is a post about my boat rehab.
This is Eunlaidh (Gaelic for “to stealthily creep as a waterfowler”).

She’s a Glen-L design built by my father and me 14 seasons ago (Summer 1994).

Ply’ on plank construction, all mahogany members with a 6mm Okoume hull.
Here she is in the building phase many years ago.

I’ve experimented with a lot of camo ideas, and settled on a variation of Ed Askew’s attachment he’s used on his Karas.

The wooden slots allow me to move the doors around to fit the day's need and there are no holes drilled into the hull.

The doors also swing open easily (an add-on of mine).

It’s worked tremendously for the last 5 or so seasons.

 

[Mark Jensen]

A few summers ago I had to leave it outside while we moved the family, and although I thought I had thought of everything to keep her dry, when we returned after a few weeks she was FULL of rainwater.

*maybe next time I’ll leave her upside down on some saw horses*…Man, I was stupid.


She drained easy enough and I eventually stripped and repainted the inside hull (note: we did NOT epoxy barrier coat the inside when we built her, nor did I do it when I stripped her inside…big mistake).


Cut to November 2007…scouting for opening day I hit a submerged stump and although I’ve bounced right off things like this for years, this time I hear the gut wrenching “crack” followed by the sound of water coming in.

Damn! I firm up the tiller-friction to keep her running straight and I turn around and bail like my life depended on it (I think it did).

When I get the ½ mile to the ramp, I arrive with the transom nearly underwater. Golly, I was lucky.


After some draining and poking this is what I see:

And from the bottom.

I think the water damage from my summer slip-up really caused some rot in the hull. I patched her up with a less than elegant fix and continue hunting the season (very, very cautiously).



Now it’s September and I finally have done all the family house work I’m gonna get done this summer and my attention goes back to Eunlaidh. Time for the big fix…


I use a circular saw to carefully cut out the rotten okoume between the battens.

Sure enough, the planking looks bad in spots.

(Note nick in batten caused by overzealous circular saw action…be careful!)
I do a complete tear off with a 1” chisel, a painter’s 5’n1, and a hammer.

The battens, I think are fine, the ply is bad.

 

[Mark Jensen]

Also, as long as the hull is off, I’m going to address a design issue I’ve had to deal with from the get go.

In the stern, there are small 1” by 3” spaces between the battens and the transom that have always collected water while hunting.

When I return from a hunt I always shop-vac the inside dry but it’d be great to make this transition a smoother one.

I’m going to clean these up and fill them with small slices of new meranti and wood flour-epoxy. No more water back there where you have a hard time getting it out.
So I sanded the battens and chine to bare wood. That was A LOT of sanding. In the end, they looked good, no rot-damage.

I ordered some new meranti ply from Noah’s (went in on a large shipment with my sailing-inclined neighbor and saved on shipping).

I upgraded (overbuilt) the new bottom to 9mm (7ply) from the 6mm (3ply) I had on her before.

I also had to join 2 sheets to make the 12’ length. I opted for a fiberglass-wood flour butt joint instead of scarfing this time. It was a hard decision but after going over the details (the joint rests on 5 battens and is screwed down on these and the chine, also the bottom has very little curve) I’m confident in the joinery.
Anyway, bottom plank was cut to roughly the shape of the boat. Now it’s time to fasten her to the hull. I paint on pure epoxy and peanut butter the batten faces (West system and wood flour, Noah’s).

We lay on the plank and fasten her down with brass screws.
Since we over buttered the battens, some of the thickened epoxy squished out the sides and we took advantage of this by flipping the hull right side up and making small fillets the length of each batten-bottom plank juncture.

Thank you Derrick for the marathon boat help that day. I think we worked together on it for 7 hours.
I had a real quandary about also applying a narrow-width glass tape over these joints. But in the end decided that the fillet was really there to prevent water from getting under the battens and wasn’t structural like in a stitch and glue construct. Hope I made the right decision.

And here’s the transom and at its base you can see some not-so elegant looking work to build up those open spaces between the battens. Not pretty here, but it got better after some sanding, and I think it’s a great improvement.

I then applied 2 coats of epoxy over the entire inner surface for a water barrier. My neighbor Derrick came up with the nifty idea of letting each coat cure on an angle so the excess epoxy would accumulate over the fillets. Curing on an angle, first on the Starboard, then on the Port.

 

[Mark Jensen]

When finished the interior looked awesome!

Here the dark red mahogany battens sit on top of the lighter colored meranti ply.

You can also see the joint between the fore and aft hull pieces. Along with 2 layers of 6oz. cloth on both sides of the plywood, there are also fasteners on each side of the joint going into each of the battens, plus fastening at the chine. I think it’s solid.

Once the interior cured well, we flipped her over again and trimmed the oversized planking flush with a router.
Sorry no pics here. Accidentally cleared the camera’s memory…bummer, man.
After a whole lot of sanding to make the sides and bottom flush I started to glass her.
Two, 38”-wide sheets of 6oz. cloth overlapping by about 6” in the middle. Followed Eric’s excellent glassing demo from his Scaup build.
Painted the wood first with epoxy, wetted out the cloth with a squeegee, let cure till tacky, applied 3 more top coats with a roller.
When it was semi-cured and there was no danger of lifting the cloth from the hull, I cut off the excess with a utility knife and pulled it away.
Here she is this morning:

Wow, I couldn’t see the cure-blush in the garage. With a flash it really shows up.

I wiped down the bottom plank with a towel getting ready to apply the keelsons but the sides were just touched by my hands. Glad I use soap!
Following Eric’s and Charlie Fould’s (& others) method of keelson attachment, I cut three 8’ mahogany members (1” x ¾”) with a 45’ leading edge.
They’ve been epoxied in place and I’m waiting for them to cure now.

I purchased three 8’ aluminum 1” x 1/8” strips from Lowes and will attach them to the keelsons with 3M5200 and stainless screws.
I also bent the leading edge of the strips to match the 45’ bevel.
More to come...and only 14 days till our opener...yikes!

 

[Andrew]

Awesome thread... best in a long time.

Thanks for it.

(Been to Keenland, what a place !)

 

[Kristan]

Nice job on the boat mark...I'll be in Paducah this year from the 19th through the 4th of January...If you get an itch head on down and we can hunt the Ohio River or Kentucky/Barkley Lake...

 

[Mark Jensen]

Thanks guys, glad to finally contribute here.

Andrew...Glad you had a good time at Keeneland, I take it for granted that it's so close. I only make it one or two times per meet. Big fun.

Kristin...don't be surprised if you get an email from me. I hunt the Ohio R. frequently around these parts but haven't put in that far West. I'd love to try it sometime. And it sounds like the divers really like the big lakes, that'd be great (although a single Bluebill limit is filled pretty quickly unfortunately). Thanks.

 

[Dave M]

Mark,


Awesome little boat great to be able to rehab an old boat like that , best part about it is that you and your dad built it and you gave it life for another 10 or more years . enjoy it !!!!




Dave M

 

[Kevin Weir]

Mark,
Thanks for the thread. That was a good idea on tilting the boat to cure each edge.
Have a great season.

 

[Ed Auman]

She’s a Glen-L design built by my father and me 14 seasons ago (Summer 1994).

Tha's pretty cool, building with the old man.
Hey what type of Glen L model is it?

I have been thinKing about the Glen L sneakbox anyone have any input on the bbsb by Glen L? But after seeing your skiff grassed up it looks like this might be the ticket...

Thanks for sharing, Ed

 

[Mark Jensen]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody.
Finished attaching the keelsons and aluminum strips yesterday.

They went on easy as pie. Thanks to all who have already done it and posted, it made the job really simple.
All I need to do now is sand down a few high spots where my glass overlaps and start priming.
Picking up some PPG DP-40 at the autobody store today.

MikeH...hey I didn't know you visited here! Nice hearing from you. Good luck on the opener and the season. But remember we don't speak of the coniferous creek in public. shhhhh...

EdA...This is the "Duckboat Too" from Glen-L. Silly name but a great little boat. The plans allow you to make her as a double-ender or with a stern.
She's been great, but if I knew more of the Devlin designs back when we were building, I think I might have gone in that direction instead.
I especially like the stern on a Devlin with its extended hull and motor cut out. Makes sense for flotation and disguise.
I don't know of anyone building the Glen-L sneakbox, it looks pretty neat. But I think if you want a real traditional BBSB I'd look to people like David Clark or some of the others on this site. Their boats are off the charts good.
12 days till the opener...