There we were, minding our own business, when an email came in from our new friend telling us she had a 12 foot Bahamas dinghy that we might be interested in looking at. So, road trip!
Skipper's all time favorite photo of herself, checking out little crusty boats. My favorite too.
Spoiler Alert: She's 10 feet, not 12. But we'll get to that...
She was built in the Bahamas 1937-1941 timeframe, where Abaco style dinghies were the mainstay. She fits all the descriptions from the period. Was she an Albury or a Winer Malone creation? We do know that she has been messing about in Hampton, VA since then. We'll get her ready for the next adventure, she's willing.
01 Nov 23:
HENNING has some interesting patent swivel oarlocks. First ones we've seen in person. Well, half or the mechanism anyway. The oars and top part of the oarlocks are missing in action. We also learned the proper salty pronunciation for row-lock is "rollock." We like it.
The stern also has an rollock fitting, or maybe it's called a scullock.
04 Nov 23:
What an amazing an wonderful day. We took a road trip across the James River Bridge to gather the little Bahamas dinghy from her current steward. Skipper and Helen did the double secret handshake while I was playing with lines and a dolly.
We used Sunfish mainsheets to rig a hoist, released the supports and lowered HENNING down to the dolly upside down. Once on the dolly it was easy to turn the dinghy over for her exit stage right. A little bush needed to be trimmed for dolly clearance.
Ready to rumble, over the river and through the woods and over another river and through more woods...
For some reason I had 12 feet in my brain even though Helen had told us 10. You think it would have dawned on me at this point, to question why a 12 foot boat didn't fill up a 12 foot trailer...but it didn't...Skipper had figured it out though and was waiting to see how long it would take her Marine to come to the realization. She had to wait a day.
Safely at her new homeport, Southside.
HENNING brought a lot of parts with her, 3 masts, a boom, a boat hook, paddle and a push pole.
HENNING got a bath to release some dirt and loose topcoat. A 2000 psi bath. We found one chink in the fiberglass coat, and suspect more.
The aft floorboards came along but the forward floorboards may be hiding with the oars somewhere.
HENNING has two mast thwarts, the aft thwart appears to have been added at a later time, since it overlaps the seat a bit and the materials/construction method differ from other parts of the boat.
Forward mast step.
She's got some sweet lines.
TETRIS Alert: The Sunfish ANNA moved out to the Sunfish Shack, HENNING checked in to the Carriage House.
EXCUSE ME swapping sea stories with HENNING. HENNING might have a few more to tell...
05 Nov 23:
Skipper wanted to try a little section to see if the fiberglass was going to come off easily.
The transom cooperated, the fiberglass basically fell off.
Caulked transom seam.
Four hours later.
We used a combination of prybar, oscillating multitool, putty knife, tiger paw and an awl to encourage the fiberglass to move along.
The fiberglass along with excellent storage acted as a great covering to preserve the boat. So have the multiple layers of paint.
And I finally figured out that HENNING is not 12 feet :)
06 Nov 23:
We don't know what species of wood this is on the Bahamas Dinghy, but it is a beautiful natural grown crook used to make the breasthook, which holds the sides to the bow stem.
For those not familiar with wooden boatbuilding, the Old School way to make this part was to find the crook of a tree, where branches come off or look for a piece down by the root flare, and to cut the part from those sections of tree. The natural grain pattern follows the curve of how the tree grew, and being from the strongest parts of the tree it also makes a very strong part of the boat.
The breast hook and the two quarter knees on the transom work with the gunwale to stiffen up the frames and planking, and this hook will be around for a long time.
06 Nov 23:
A few years ago we thought it would be fun to experiment with different types of sail plans. So far we've been through the lateen, gunter yawl, sloop, balanced lug and standing lug. Now the Bahamas Dinghy shows up with a shoulder of mutton sail, which in essence is a 4 sided sail with a very short throat, the small strip at the top that has a headboard vs a gaff. The headboard has different attachment points for the halyard that allow skippers to select leech tension. We're assuming loose leech for "loose" or low winds, and tight leech for higher winds. If anyone has sailed this rig, please feel free to off comments.
The sail is also known for using heavy cloth, marked 10 oz on Chapelle's drawing, possibly to reduce flogging and help keep sail shape down low, where there is a deep foot. So deep that a tricing line is added to raise the foot of the sail when the skipper needs to check for obstacles. The tricing line can also act as a hasty reef. A few other notes, the halyard also acts as a forestay and the sail is loose footed.
07 Nov 23:
We found two patent swivel oarlocks on ebay, one fit and one didn't. We'll keep looking for one more.
When we asked about the oarlocks, Dr. Helen let us know that her Dad called them "rollocks." We like it, so rollocks it is....actually, right now it is just rollock...
08 Nov 23:
Some of the tools we use to dig out screws and clean out screw head slots.
Citristrip is doing an okay job of softening one layer of paint per application after it soaks for 4-5 hours....there's 4 layers of paint. Might take a while.
15 Nov 23:
I learned a term years ago, "wooded, which referred to a level of coating removal. Sometimes on a wooden boat we can sand or scrape a little bit of an old coating of varnish or paint, to fair the coating smooth enough for a fresh coat. We had hoped that would be the case with the little Bahamas Dinghy HENNING. It will not be the case.
There are at least 3 coats of paint on HENNING, 4 in most areas. Previous attempts at removing paint have left high and low spots in the coating, with wood showing in a few areas. Now there was a thought to just scrape off a few flakes and brush on a new coat of paint, but as the Bahamas wood started to peek out from under the paint, it was decided to wood the boat.
One coat of stripper per layer, followed with some scraping and sanding. A variety of scrapers, chisels, hooks and picks are being use to get stubborn lumps pf paint released. The wood is very hard, so 80-120 grit on a random orbital sander is being used to remove the last opaque layer of paint.
In this photo the bulk of the old coatings are removed on the port side back to the third frame. The upper mast thwart riser was removed to get better access, but the fasteners in the lower seat riser (the Mother In Law seat) would not budge, so we'll leave those alone.
The wood is beautiful and unlike any we've seen before. Grown crook frames, we are thinking they are from local corkwood trees. Not the cork I imagined when I first read the term, but light weight in the pounds per cubic foot sense compared to an oak or mahogany frame. Rot resistant like cypress. And a small shrubby tree with a lot of crooks, along the lines of coastal live oaks, prized for their boat part shaped crooks and base flares.
The plank grain looks like pine, but it is much harder, which checks the block for Bahamas pine, another species we were unfamiliar with. The copper rivets (nails) are put in from the outside of the plank, a tight fitting washer (burr) goes over the nail. The rivet is nipped a little proud of the burr and peened over to hold the plank to the frame. And there are a lot of them. I sanded lightly over a few rivets to remove paint, but that is not a good thing to do as if I sand the rivet down too far, there will not be enough rivet left to grip the burr. On future frames I'll be more patient with stripper and use picks or a small scraper on the paint.
Speaking of small scrapers, this Master one inch scraper has worked very well. I wish I remembered where I picked it up, because I bought it for Skipper and I'll need one too.
16 Nov 23:
As we work on removing old coatings from HENNING, we are taking off a few bits to ease access to tight areas. On some pieces like the forward thwart we are finding matching fasteners in good shape, and in others the fasteners are worn and mismatched. Some of the fasteners are coming out easily, like the ones below, and some won't budge at all.
We are wearing eye, skin, respiratory (N100 mask) and hearing protection as well as capturing dust with our Dust Deputy cyclonic separator and ShopVac with HEPA filter. We've found the cleanest approach involves encapsulating old coatings in stripper gel, then scraping small remnants of paint before we get to sanding the wood.
Forward thwart with the mast collar in the background.
17 Nov 23:
HENNING came with two masts, the original mast is split along a scarf line right around where the boom jaws would sit. There is also a bit of rot there, most likely from corrosion where an old fitting would have been, a downhaul cleat possibly. The wood appears to be fir, based on what we see, the weight and what was commonly used. The scarf shows no remnants of glue, it probably soaked into the wood and dried up decades ago. Whether there is a "There I Was" Sea Story to go along with the split, we don't know, but we'll make one up as the restoration progresses.
Skipper's fleet of Gorilla Carts were called into action to act as mobile workstations, which meant I needed to air up some tires, which meant one tire's dry-rotted valve stem gave up the ghost, which meant I had to find the spare, which meant that the spare hub didn't fit the axle for some odd reason, which meant a spare needed to be ordered, which meant order two in case they are a little different size, which meant scratching my head as to why Gorilla Carts don't sell their own tires on their website, which meant crossing fingers to hope the ordered parts would fit...Spoiler Alert...The spare fit.
We used TotalBoat THIXO PRO thickened epoxy adhesive to reglue the mast. PRO refers to the larger two tube system of THIXO, industry pros who use a LOT of adhesive can save some money and time by buying THIXO in this configuration and using the special High Thrust caulk gun to dispense the thickened resin and hardener. Single tubes are available that fit regular size caulk guns, but if you go that route be sure to buy a High Thrust 25:1 ratio or similar gun vs the basic level 7:1 cheapo gun.
To get THIXO into the small crack at the end of the scarf, we squirt some THIXO into a small plastic syringe, sold by folks like TotalBoat or West System, and use the syringe to inject epoxy as far into the void as we can. Then we hope that light clamping pressure distributes the adhesive throughout the joint. Only light clamping is needed, just enough to see "squeezeout" along the joint line, to ensure the joint is filled. And when clamping raw or dry wood, avoid the urge to wipe off excess, as the wood will soak some of that epoxy back into the joint.
The split scarf was about two feet long, but we added a clamp every foot or so to hold the mast level along the forward face. We used all of our Jorgensen clamps, which are named for family and friends. Richard, Webb, Doug, Alan, Murray and Hazlewood are friends who are exceptional Mariners, as well as serial boatbuilders, serial circumnavigators and serial sea story tellers. Hazelwood was Capn Jack's friend, he helped Capn Jack build his first sailboat in the 1960s, a 16 foot Petrel. Skipper watched, fascinated by the thin shavings that curled off of Hazlewood's plane and the thin wisp of smoke from his cigarillo. Skipper was then pressed into service puttying all of the screw holes with her little fingers, peeling off a layer of skin or two in the process. Unfortunately the fingerprints grew back, spoiling her potential career as a bank robber.
3-4 coats of good, but old, paint on HENNING. There is evidence of a previous scraping attempt, so the paint surface is uneven in many areas, completely worn in others and in good shape on some of the wood. So the decision has been made to "wood" the boat, IOW get as much paint off as we can.
TotalBoat sent us some stripper to try, the gel will encapsulate the old paint as we remove it with scrapers.
This Helix mixer worked great and cleaned up easily.
We tried many scrapers, but these Allway and Titan scrapers have stood out as the best. The little right angle pick also comes in handy.
The first application removed the paint in the section where the scrapers are.
Scraper lessons available for a small fee. Materials included.
23 Dec 23:
Trying a heat gun to lift paint off the dinghy, and it's working pretty good. Don't forget the PPE!
Removed the aft seat for better access. Having a removable seat is something to consider when building a small boat.
The two really clean sections are where we used the heat gun, set to 1200F. 8-10 seconds per section was enough to get the paint loosened.
02 Jan 24:
Sanding, and more sanding. We worked on the aft thwart today, taking off remnants of paint with a DeWALT 20V Random Orbital Sander, 80 grit pad, hooked to the Dust Deputy/ShopVac. And there is paint inside the seam that needs to come out, so that we can glue the two sections back together. The crack is not a grainwaise fracture, it seems the two pieces may have been doweled together. We'll run a jigsaw through the crack to get them separated, sand and fasten back together with thickened epoxy.
31 Dec 23:
We made a name strip for HENING, the little Abaco Dinghy, to add to the Marine Traffic Control board. We used some scrap #1 select pine, the strip template and the cut out the shape with a DeWALT cordless jig saw. The finger hole was smoothed with a Kobalt flat/half round ceramic file, then we eased the edges of the strip with a DeWALT 20V Brushless compact trim router with 1/8 inch roundover bit. Final sanding with the 20V sander and 220 grit disc. For the name we used Sharpie, and when time permits we'll grab a small paint brush and put HENNINGS colors on the strip.
The Marine Traffic Control strip is used to track our fleet. The strip at the bottom is for the boat that has been on the hard the longest. HENNING pushed our Alcort Catfish SMEDLEY out of that spot as HENNING has been in storage since 1980. The boats below the blank strip have been waiting patiently while we get set up in our new place, which is mostly complete. We'll see more movement in a few weeks and have some exciting local trips planned to explore our new home waters, geared towards retracing the travels of the local Algonquin Warraskoyack's of the Powhatan Confederacy, and the bays, rivers and creeks that were vibrant with maritime trade of the Colonial period.
02 Jan 24:
Sanded a bit on one of HENNING's thwarts.
11 Apr 24:
We scraped and sanded 3 more frame sections and the inner port transom of HENING, the little Abaco dinghy. Next we'll roll the boat to starboard and work on that side. We're also working on a bronze order to replace some tired fittings. They screw eye on the quarter knee snapped loose in my hand when I went to remove the nut.
We're not sure what the bolt mid transom was for, possibly a lifting eye or maybe just a fastener for the knee inside.
Lots of fun working in all the nooks and crannies.
13 Apr 24:
The first photo is of our shop's light switch. The switch has a motion sensor on/off option, which can be fine tuned to function any time of day or only when it is dark. There is a sensitivity switch and also a vacancy timer which will turn off the lights as soon as we stop moving around, or after 1, 5 or 30 minutes.
I thought a motion detector light switch would be handy for when I had my hands full entering the shop, and to turn lights off for a while if we leave the shop and get pressed into service on some other project. The switch has been a very welcome addition.
Fine day today despite the high winds. We found a semi sheltered spot on the driveway and removed some more paint from our Abaco Dinghy HENNING. The finishing dolly has been handy in many ways, toting around different project boats and also serving as a mobile workbench base. And the shop vac/dust separator/furniture dolly rig is easy to roll around to wherever the project wanders. Speaking of rolling, we have always found it handy to have at least some decking around a shop(s) that is flat and the same level as the shop floor, so that we can do exactly what the photo above shows, which is to roll boats or saws outside when we are making sawdust, or just to be outside on a nice day and not be working on uneven dirt or mud. Leaving the shop also creates space for more folks to play with the boat, today Skipper ran a scraper and sander while I heat gunned.
Two of the tools we are using for paint removal, heat gun for the first pass then sanding. The blue Kobalt heat gun is set to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and highest fan speed, we hold it about 4-6 inches from the surface and count to 12, watching for a section of paint to lift or bubble. When we see the paint begin to lift, we remove the heat and use a scraper to scrape the paint, taking care not to gouge the wood. We let the scraped paint cool for a bit then vacuum it into the Dust Deputy cyclonic separator, powered by a ShopVac 4 gallon vacuum with HEPA filter. We have several size scrapers to get into different areas, and a pick awl.
The yellow and black DeWALT oscillating multi tool with triangle sander head can get into a lot of corners and underneath boat bits like the risers shown in the photo. Risers are pieces that are used to hold up seats, thwarts or floorboards. The triangle sander head can be positioned to the left or right 90 degrees to get into right angle areas, hand for sanding the back sides of frames in spots where the hull has a tight curve.
Golden Hour lighting, back inside the Boat Works to rest up for the next adventure.
27 Apr 24:
We shifted our paint removal focus up to the bow for a few sections. Heat gun, scraper, then a light sanding.
29 Apr 24:
More paint removal on our Abaco Dinghy HENNING today. But first we spotted some turtles during our walk at Lake Mariner/Noland Trail, part of the Mariners' Museum complex.
Last week it was cool and windy, so we were happy to have a heat gun and a protected, sunny spot on the driveway for messing about with boats. Today the temp was in the mid 80s (F) with plenty of sun, so we found a shady spot on the Quarterdeck.
You may remember back in 2022, on a hot Summer day when Skipper abandoned me on the driveway for a shady spot behind the sheds. I followed her and sanded on the Pram EXCUSE ME while she laid out her plan for "The Quarterdeck."
Paint removed from two more sections today, so we are getting close to finishing the bulk of the removal on the interior. We'll make another finishing pass to clean up spots we missed and do some finish sanding on the thwarts, with 120 grit sandpaper. We are not looking for a shiny smooth, fine furniture finish for the interior, that has no place on a small boat, for one thing it is slippery. For another, that is too much glare. We prefer a satin sheen and a little bit of texture (grip) on the interior.
30 Apr 24:
We continued removing old paint today and removed a few cleats so that we could sand easier. We took photos with hopes of getting the cleats back into the same spots when we put the boat back together.
But first we pondered this transom seam. It seems that one of the plank nails has worked to make the seam wider, so we might ct part of that nail out before we pull the transom pieces back together. We'll see how it looks after we soak the hull.
It has warmed up enough that we are switching to shade seeking mode, so the dolly rolled out onto the Quarterdeck for today's fun.
Several cleats are homemade, we imagine they were made for use with the sail rig and for convenience when the boat is in tender mode.
This cleat's fasteners caused issues...
...and while we could have just made a new cleat, we thought it would be fun to save the old cleat with some adhesive.
Stowed the Dinghy and the Nutshell Pram for the evening, they swapped spots in the Boat Works shed.
01 May 24:
We have finished removing coatings from the inside of the Bahamas Abaco style Dinghy. While some folks would like to see a bright finish, we are going to go with a painted finish that is representative of most classic Bahamas dinghies.
Here's the dinghy after pressure washing, we're starting to introduce some moisture back into the planking.
Our friend Howie sent us this Alcort tumbler, we put it to use toasting the interior coating removal milestone with some rum. Bumbu happens to be from Barbados, so maybe we need some Bacardi added to the inventory to get the Bahamas vibe going.
02 May 24:
We turned our attention to cleaning out the plank seams on the dinghy, many of them were full of old seam compound and very little cotton caulking. Many of the seams were approaching 1/8" so for those we felt comfortable running a half round blade down the seam on an oscillating multitool. Be sure to check for seam bevels before doing this on other boats, sometimes the plank seams were cut to form a shallow V that holds the cotton caulking in the seam.
A few other seam reefing tools.
This is the old brown brittle goop coming out of the seam.
Here's the type of cotton caulking we expected to find. We think that maybe when the decision was made in 1950 to fiberglass the boat that the seams got filled with seam compound vs traditional cotton.
04 May 24:
Our mission today was to remove the remnants of fiberglass cloth and polyester resin from the dinghy's exterior and get down to bare wood, aka "wooding the hull." Most everything came loose when we peeled large strips of fiberglass loose in November, but there were a few bits left. 80 grit sabdpaper on the De WALT random orbital sander did the trick, as this wood is very hard Carribean Pine.
Warm again today, so we chose the shaded Quarterdeck.
There are little metal copper or bronze pins along one side of the keel, I think they might be remnants of fasteners from when the fiberglass cloth was added in the 1950s. Or they are part of a 1930a worm deterrent system...
Heat index 98 F. We pulled HENNING out of the soak tank after 48 hours, per Smith's Marine Railway's suggestion. When they soak boats to take up water, Tim says if the boat hasn't taken up by 48 hours then it is going to need some caulking to help out.
Several seams closed up, and our biggest gap is now 1/16" or so.
We parked HENNING in the yard to get sprayed by the sprinklers until we can get to caulking the seams.
09 May 24:
Heat index in the 90F range and humid. Some days we can get one thing done. Today HENNING continued her wanderings around the boat yard, making her way from the Dynamic dolly onto the finishing dolly.
10 May 24:
Before the hull dries out we wanted to get some beneficial oils into the wood, so we started applying oil based primer to the interior of the hull. Our finish coat will come from George Kirby Jr Paint Company, so we are using their primer. One question we had is how dry did the wood need to be, and George told us that if the wood absorbed the primer then it was dry enough.
HENNING was very appreciative of the primer, soaking in 2+ quarts on the first pass. We expected to use quite a bit, given all of the frames, risers and thwarts that needed a coat.
Caulking cotton and wicking are used to fill seams between planks. When water finds the cotton, both the cotton and wood swell to create a watertight seam. A one pound roll of caulking cotton = 210 feet. We ordered from Defender but Jamestown Distributors is our usual source. We also ordered caulking wicking. We used Defender because we wanted to try the Teak Decking System seam sander and reefing knife, but found out that these tools are way too big for the tiny seams on our dinghy.
One tip with the cotton is to roll it into a ball and keep the ball in a clean container. This keeps the cotton from picking up sawdust, dirt, twigs etc... from the shop floor and other tools can ride around in the box as we work our way around the seams.
Different seam sizes = different materials. Wicking and cotton can be either peeled apart to get the right size for smaller seams or doubled up for larger seams. For this thin 3/8" planking we used about 1/3 of a strand for a 1/8" seam, and less for the tighter seams. When the seams got real tight we switched to wicking.
We have a traditional caulking hammer, irons and seam roller. For light boats and small planks a caulking hammer can provide very light taps to the metal irons. Any other type of mallet or hammer can be used, but it is best to strike the metal irons with wood or nylon, as a metal hammer would wear out the head of the caulking irons and it is noisy.
We are not sure what this tool was originally designed for, leather work possibly, but it makes a great tool to roll half a strand of cotton into a 1/16" seam.
We broke out the TotalBoat TotalFair to cover the rivets heads. Some folks do not fair over the heads, but they had been faired over in HENNING, so that tradition continues.
Once the cotton was in the seams, we put a protective coat of primer over the cotton from George Kirby Jr. Paint Company. If your wood is very dry and/or new, it may help to seal up the seams with a wood sealer or primer before caulking. Then either wait for those products to dry or plan on having a messy caulking experience.
This side is caulked and faired.
Still need to caulk this side but the rivet heads are faired.
Next up? Sand the TotalFair then get more primer on the wood. Following that we will put a flexible compound in the seam to protect the cotton and that will move a little as planks shrink and swell. And paint.
15 May 24:
HENNING will have classic sunwashed Bahamas colors, taking inspiration from the Bahamas flag. We're thinking the hull will be limewash white, and the seats and risers aquamarine. Then we'll need spots for black and gold, maybe a cove strip or other decorative flourish.
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