Slocum`s Spray

[BATAAN]

Wow, I'm getting old when I post the same thing twice. Sorry.

 

[BATAAN]

More SPRAY/BERTIE building details. Before starting this build I spent 7 years working briefly as an apprentice rigger at Mystic Seaport re-rigging the MORGAN, CONRAD and L.A. DUNTON, then an apprenticeship under D.J. Arques in CA and then went into various yards as a shipwright and rigger repairing large wooden boats, tugs, barges, fishing boats from 120' Halibut schooners on down to varnished lapstrake dinghies, so I knew what was good and what was bad when I started BERTIE. One of those is keeping the frame heads and bulwark stanchions healthy, especially when one of your neighbors comes aboard so far he leaves bottom paint on the cabin top. Collisions are the bane of bulwarks and toerails in general, but especially bulwarks that are an extension of the heavy sawn frame, as in tugs and fish boats. When you roll into the pier or get collided with, this violently shoves the top of the bulwark/caprail inboard, levering around the diaphragm of the deck and planksheer/covering board and pushing OUT on the planking with the bottom of that futtock, thereby splitting the frame and pushing planks out so far the caulking falls out. This is bad for the owner. A couple and more times I was happily employed on a big repair that involved topside planks and frames because the bulwarks were too strong.
So BERTIE's bulwark stanchions are designed to break off flush and not cause leaks. They are 2"x2" VG very dry old growth ribbon-grain Doug fir (sawn from left-over deck plank stock) and about 30" long and inserted in the middle of the clear space between the 4x6 (at the head) frames, so the same spacing as the frames, 12". So the stanchions are much smaller and therefore weaker than the massive frames and edge-fastened sheerplank/covering board joint. The stanchions are sawn with a curve and taper and fit into tapered holes in the 2 1/2" PO cedar compass timber (grain follows the curve of the deck edge) covering board. After soaking in wood preservative they are a drive fit in the taper with a little 5200 and secured to the plank with a bolt under the clamp in the air strake above the ceiling. The bulwark "skin" (again more deck stock) is 1"x2" and edge-nailed or "strip built", no glue, leaving a 3/4" gap at the bottom. This makes all 4 sides of the stanchion and edge of the covering board accessible for painting, done bi-yearly. A 2x5 sawn Kwila (New Guinea hardwood) scarfed caprail is mortised over the top of the stanchions and the top strip.
One day, tied to a pier, I heard a scream outside, then a 7 ton sailboat hit me square amidships with his motor at full throttle (human muffin at the helm), smashing the caprail, breaking off 5 bulwark stanchions at the deck line and bending down the strip built planking. The busted caprail punctured his fiberglass hull below the waterline and he slid off after leaving the aforementioned bottom paint on my cabin top.
After a $3000 insurance payout, I repaired the damage in 3 days by removing the broken stanchions, standing the planking back up, replacing the stanchions and about 8' of caprail and you cannot tell it was ever damaged. The main thing is the stanchions broke at the heavy, edge-fastened covering board without so much as cracking the paint on a topside seam. A lesson learned and applied successfully I think. The stern is Chesapeake-built, meaning laid up out of heavy timber and being edge-fastened together with 3/4" galvanized round bar drifts. See the pictures. This was in the late '70s and she has held up very very nicely, with regular and fairly obsessive maintenance learned in the USCG.
They used to say "If it moves, salute It, if it doesn't then paint it white.", so BERTIE gets close attention to several things that contribute to long life.
The first of these is DON'T BRUISE THE WOOD. I mean, Duh.... By banging the anchor around on the foredeck or letting the dinghy smash the topsides you make micro-crushed areas where water goes through the broken paint and into the small area of smashed wood and starts the perfect set-up for rot fungi to make a happy home.
The second self-discipline is to paint the entire outside of the boat at least every 3 years, pull and service the bowsprit, rig and masts every 10. These are old rules for well-maintained schooners and such in commercial use by the original owner. As soon as they went to the second owner at 20 years of age (end of designed life of structure) these rules were ignored and often the vessel was worked to death, which seemed to take a long time (50-70 years) in some cases.

 

[BATAAN]

Here's a modified SPRAY in PT undergoing a protracted re-build. She has eased lines, outside ballast with more exposed keel, a raised deck amidships and other modifications. The designer was said to be Pete Culler. Obviously designed with an eye to good powering by the aperture and rudder. Thought someone might be interested.

 

[Kale]

Modified Spray

Darn it! Why are all of the Spray copies in places where I'm not!

Much appreciate your continued willingness to find and post info like this. You've provided more information in these posts than I've found over the last several years of searching.

External ballast on a Spray? I recall Culler saying in his book that the model was totally unsuited to such a thing and that it would be harmful to her motion. To an amateur like me it seems like you'de be trying to marry a deep keel to a shallow draft underbody shape, the result being that you would lose the advantages of either.

The smaller fishing boats I've served on would sometimes be forced to heave to in the worst of the Bering Sea storms. It seemed to me that the boats ability to slide laterally through the water (surfing broadside on) is what kept us upright. Boats like these have a broad, flatish bottom with a narrow keel running the length of the hull, not at all unlike the Spray.

Again speaking as an amateur it seems that extended keels, while a necessary part of a streamlined modern sailing hull are more a detriment than a help to the hard-bilged, broad, weight carrying hulls of the typical coaster. If the extended keel is an attempt to increase windward performance wouldn't a moveable centerboard (skipjack style) do a better job? If the external ballast is an attempt to increase ultimate stability why tie it to a hull that is designed to for initial stability?

Kale

 

[Tad]

Here's a modified SPRAY in PT undergoing a protracted re-build. She has eased lines, outside ballast with more exposed keel, a raised deck amidships and other modifications. The designer was said to be Pete Culler.

That doesn't look anything like a Spray to me....the sections both forward and aft are wrong, transom shape and mid section are wrong, and the beam/length is nothing like Spray........If I had to guess I'd say she's Culler's Gallant schooner design, based on a Chesapeake pilot schooner and built in 1966...40' on deck, 33'7.5" LWL, 12'1" beam, 5'7" draft, displacement 28,000 pounds with around 9000 pounds of outside ballast.

 

[BATAAN]

That doesn't look anything like a Spray to me....the sections both forward and aft are wrong, transom shape and mid section are wrong, and the beam/length is nothing like Spray........If I had to guess I'd say she's Culler's Gallant schooner design, based on a Chesapeake pilot schooner and built in 1966...40' on deck, 33'7.5" LWL, 12'1" beam, 5'7" draft, displacement 28,000 pounds with around 9000 pounds of outside ballast.

You may be right. But the shipwrights working on her said she was a PC Spray. The raised midships deck, not-yet-in-place bulwarks etc throw the eye off.
Maybe PC designed one of his schooners I'm not familiar with based on his SPRAY, which I knew very well having done much re-building on her. I think this boat has a ketch rig. I'll investigate and get back to you.
As always, I am not certain of anything because as soon as I am, I'm wrong.

 

[BATAAN]

Darn it! Why are all of the Spray copies in places where I'm not!

Much appreciate your continued willingness to find and post info like this. You've provided more information in these posts than I've found over the last several years of searching.

External ballast on a Spray? I recall Culler saying in his book that the model was totally unsuited to such a thing and that it would be harmful to her motion. To an amateur like me it seems like you'de be trying to marry a deep keel to a shallow draft underbody shape, the result being that you would lose the advantages of either.

The smaller fishing boats I've served on would sometimes be forced to heave to in the worst of the Bering Sea storms. It seemed to me that the boats ability to slide laterally through the water (surfing broadside on) is what kept us upright. Boats like these have a broad, flatish bottom with a narrow keel running the length of the hull, not at all unlike the Spray.

Again speaking as an amateur it seems that extended keels, while a necessary part of a streamlined modern sailing hull are more a detriment than a help to the hard-bilged, broad, weight carrying hulls of the typical coaster. If the extended keel is an attempt to increase windward performance wouldn't a moveable centerboard (skipjack style) do a better job? If the external ballast is an attempt to increase ultimate stability why tie it to a hull that is designed to for initial stability?

Kale

Kale, if you have been in storms in the Bering Sea on fishing boats, you are not an amateur and your observations about sliding out of the way of breaking seas are totally on target from your personal experience.
PC designed a modified SPRAY for a client which had quite a bit of outside ballast and exposed keel but I can't find the lines. I don't know if this boat is that design but she sure quacks and walks like a SPRAY duck, except for the much prettier and curved transom.
BERTIE does that duck trick in bad conditions, when big chunks of steep cold water all want to come aboard and be friends, she kind of curtsies and slides away from problems.
She has more outside keel that SPRAY's original centerboarder profile, especially aft, giving more drag. I copied PC's 1929 boat he designed with Victor Slocum which had quite a bit more keel than the original, but no outside ballast. I looked at his 1976 letter to me recently and he said they added keel thinking to add windward ability, but admitted he had no idea if it made any difference.
I agree the model does not need outside ballast if loaded and sailed with caution, like any coaster. Outside iron is nice if you go aground on rocks and also would make the model slightly safer in theory.
"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice but in practice there always is." -Yogi Berra

 

[BATAAN]

That doesn't look anything like a Spray to me....the sections both forward and aft are wrong, transom shape and mid section are wrong, and the beam/length is nothing like Spray........If I had to guess I'd say she's Culler's Gallant schooner design, based on a Chesapeake pilot schooner and built in 1966...40' on deck, 33'7.5" LWL, 12'1" beam, 5'7" draft, displacement 28,000 pounds with around 9000 pounds of outside ballast.

Just looked at a pic of GALLANT in frame and she definitely has a sheered, non-straight rabbet line while the PT boat's rabbet is dead straight, so she's not GALLANT, but the proportions of course are very similar.

 

[Tad]

Just looked at a pic of GALLANT in frame and she definitely has a sheered, non-straight rabbet line while the PT boat's rabbet is dead straight, so she's not GALLANT, but the proportions of course are very similar.

Ya...well....the odd boatbuilder has been known to take certain liberties......

The rudder is more upright and the rabbet around the prop is different...etc....but I don't see another Culler design that's closer......doesn't mean there isn't one.....of course she could be something completely different...but she appears a long way from the Bertie pictures posted just above.

 

[BATAAN]

Yes, very different from BERTIE, but she's different from SPRAY. I will try to find the lines of the modified SPRAY that PC designed, it was one of his last I believe. I do remember it as being very like this boat. Maybe I can get a tape on her and find the dimensions to narrow it down.
The extremely competent shipwrights doing this rebuild have replaced most frames, planks, stem, fiddle head, transom and on and on. The original build was quick and cheap with poor fits and loose seams, thus the extensive repair.

 

[jnjwilson]

BATAAN Thanks for the photos of BERTIE. I like the spray- coaster type boats .Reading Slocums book and also Cullers book no one stated the amount of inside ballast, is the ballast in BERTIE also cement ? was it poured in or molded to fit the structure Thanks jnjwilson

 

[troy2000]

Bataan, very interesting treatise on bulkheads as sacrificial protection, designed to give instead of transferring the force of a collision into the hull. It makes sense to me, although I probably wouldn't have thought of it on my own.

 

[BATAAN]

BATAAN Thanks for the photos of BERTIE. I like the spray- coaster type boats .Reading Slocums book and also Cullers book no one stated the amount of inside ballast, is the ballast in BERTIE also cement ? was it poured in or molded to fit the structure Thanks jnjwilson

The amount is whatever fits in the space allotted.
I first slushed the (previously cleaned, new wood) frames, keel and planks with a primer of Portland cement and water mixed like yogurt. This was brushed copiously into all the frames and planks.
This technique is straight from Claude Worth (basic reading {google} for this stuff) and totally 1910 old-school wooden boat wisdom.
The primer dries before curing. When you put the ballast/concrete/iron scrap in place, at the "interface" of the wood/ballast the primer finishes curing by the concrete's moisture and makes sure the concrete interface sticks to the wood properly. The iron is the weight and the concrete is the isolation medium that keeps it from rusting.
Rock crusher balls are used as they are spheres and therefore the least surface area (rusting potential) for the given weight. It's all basic physics combined with folk wisdom and the experience of ages. I recently chiseled (Oh, so difficult) out a piece of BERTIE's ballast, about a cup's worth, and it was not rusty and had no other problems, when I was repairing the stem.
BERTIE got bucket after bucket of bagged concrete mixed with "rock crusher balls", which are small (1/2" to 3/4") cast iron spheres leveled out in her interframe spaces, which are 6" wide, as her frames are 6" and the space between ("frame and space") is the same. This mix was troweled out level, filling the interframe spaces, and making it all drain to the bilge pump.
26 years on, nothing seems to have moved, rotted or changed much.
At one time I was involved in a big (50') fishboat repair that ran out of money for a guy called "Bible Dan".... Anyway, we pulled the garboards and jackhammered out the old concrete ballast.
I noticed that the rotten fish hold frames stopped at the cement line. Above was really rotten, below and in the concrete ballast, the wood was hard and difficult to demo. So... concrete and iron ballast works, sometimes, for some boats. It worked for his 1930s 50' troller and it seems to have worked so far for BERTIE.
Here are some photos of another circumnavigating SPRAY copy, IGDRASIL, a 1933 build (Savannah, GA), currently under repair in Anacortes WA. This vessel salvaged the sails of BASILISK, a SPRAY copy built immediately after Culler's boat in the same Oxford, MA yard, but wrecked on Great Inagua Island.
Of IGRADISIL, Roger Strout, her circumnavavigating Captain/owner said: "I honestly believe that she was the safest and most comfortable vessel of her length that was ever built". In YACHTING magazine he said, "Those who do their yachting according to Hoyle may disagree with me on many points but I shall not argue with them. I can only say that in IGDRASIL I have voyaged in safety, eaten well, and slept in peace."
With my limited experience in BERTIE, I can only affirm his view of the type.

 

[jnjwilson]

So, you really don't know how much ballast was put in, or did you put enough ballast to balance the boat as you wanted it. I really appreciate the info. jnjwilson

 

[BATAAN]

I put what would fit for permanent ballast in the form of concrete/iron cast in place between frames. After that, a lot of leftover iron fastenings, hardware and other valuable heavy stuff was placed under the floorboards. Lately, that has all come out and what is left is about 300 lbs of trim ballast in the form of lead pigs currently amidships. When she goes back in the water more lead will get bought and stowed to trim her right.
Once again, the model relies on form stability for her seaworthiness. The ton or so or cast in place concrete and iron makes her heavy in the appropriate place and helps the bilge water go to the sump.
The additional ton or so of trim ballast is to counteract off-center water, food, motorcycles, kayaks, laughing girls, or whatever else you consider cargo on a cruise. SPRAY types like to be ballasted by the stern is my observation, so the trim lead is to make that happen and avoid a list.