Teak deck for Pangaea 191' expidition yacht

August 18 2008

We are fabricating and installing new teak decks for several areas of the motor yacht Pangaea. Boatsmith is working for Bay Ship & Yacht at their Alameda California facility.

Here is the boat under its shrink wrap/scaffold tent. Pangaea is hauled out on a dolly on tracks that cross connect with a large scyncrolift.


We flew to Ca and made patterns and crated and shipped them back to Fl. Below is one of the piles of teak lumber used on this job.

The photo below shows us building panels. We use starboard spacers with aluminum flat bars and wooden wedges to clamp every thing up tight and straight.

Here's a larger scale view of 1/2 of one area of teak decking

Below shows sections where most of the spacers are removed after gluing on small strips of wood to hold the spacing and alignment of the individual planks. Then we fill the caulk seams with a one part silicone deck caulk from Maritime Wood Products in Stuart Fl.

Some panels made up to "finger" into the existing teak.

When the caulk cured the panels are sanded flat and smooth on a wide drum sander.
Below is about half the decking for the Pangaea

The next step is to mill out the margin stock and fit margins all around the perimeter and any mid deck protrusions. Then all of the material will be crated and shipped to Bay Ship and Yacht's Alameda Shipyard.

TEAK DECKS ON A LARGE CUSTOM EXPEDITION YACHT FOR BAY SHIP & YACHT IN CALIFORNIA

August 26, 2008

Here we are back at the motor yacht Pangaea currently in for refurbishing and enlargement at Bay Ship and Yacht in California. The boat is mostly painted and the staging is coming down in a few days.It's a long walk up to the sun deck, about six flights.

The shot below shows the sundeck. There used to be a hot tub in the center of this deck. This has been eliminated in favor of a large horse shoe shaped bar. We are removing enough of the existing teak planking to be able to fit in new deck planks so as to keep the same butt pattern and render the new decking indistinguishable from the original decking.

We also were requested to complete the repairs to the plywood sub deck and fairing required before installing the teak deck. In the photo below you can see the base frame for the new bar.

Here we are cutting back existing planking in a staggered pattern to conform to the existing deck. The pipes are part of the staging and are quite in the way as well as hordes of other craftsman trying to complete their work in the same area at the same time. Just a little bit more challenging than normal.

The bar base and bar stools. The sub deck is installed.

Nicely built Wharram Tiki 38 in San Francisco

Boatsmith has a contract to fabricate and install new teak decking on several areas of the 190' motor yacht Pangaea. This boat is currently at Bay Ship and Yacht yard in Alameda California undergoing a major refit. I was very happy to get this job as I've worked many years for this company in times past. We have lots of friends in the bay area and it is a chance to visit and reconnect with them. I flew out to California the weekend of the 4th of July to make patterns of the new teak decks. The patterns were then crated up and shipped back to Jupiter FL for fabrication. Once complete we will drive out to Alameda for the installation.

One very special bonus of this trip was that I was able to hook up with Beat Rettenmund who along with his partner Beatrice Restrepo and her mom Arisili (I hope I spelled that right) are building a wonderful example of James Wharram Designs Tiki 38. Over the years I've seen many Wharram catamarans and honestly most did not impress me favorably as to the quality of workmanship.

Beat and Beatrice's Tiki 38 is finished off to a very simple level but is very craftsman like in every detail. To me a yacht is a vessel where anywhere you look you see something that makes you say,wow look how nicely that was done. They have accomplished this in a most admirable manner. They stayed focused on their goals and have built a truly marvelous yacht that is almost ready to take them where ever they so desire.

I was invited to the build sight by Beat to checkout their boat and "talk madly about boats, the sea and mermaids". A not everyday invite. This was my first day with a new camera and due to my excitement over the boat and my electronic ineptitude many of my pictures were not very good but I will share the ones that turned out.

The "CULPRITS"

Beat, Beatrice, and Arisili

Cat eyes. Most of the windows have some sort of decorative shape to them

Below I am in the pod and looking into the stbd companionway.

Here you can see the watch berth and the storage below the seats. The pod seems to be a very nice space on the boat. The wheel steering is here, and good shelter for making passages to weather. Forward of the pod there is an open cockpit with outboard wells under the seats. Beat has purchased 15hp E-tech motors and plans on installing these in place of the gas power heads on two outboard motors. I am looking forward to seeing these when completed.

One detail I was very impressed with was the simple solution to a galley cooker. It is very easy to spend hundreds of dollars on a proper marine stove and still not have an ideal setup. This cooker costs $70 at Harbor Freight and works at least as well as most marine stoves. Okay, so maybe it will rust out in a year or two, but it can be replaced several times for the cost of even the most inexpensive equivalent marine stove. As George Beuhler said in Backyard Boatbuilding, you can go sailing cheaply now or be a melon farmer forever while building the perfect museum piece boat. It would appear to me that Beat and Beatrice are definitely not melon farmers.

Everywhere I looked on Aluna I saw clever little things that will make the boat much more pleasant to sail on. Below are pictures of the stbd companionway ladder. In the photo on the left, you can see that there is an additional step added below what the plans called for. Beat said he noticed that it was a very large first step and designed and built this lower step to alleviate this. I tried it out and it is a very nice improvement. I would certainly recommend this to other Tiki 38 builders.

Beat and Beatrice have about 6,000 hours invested in this project over five years.One way they have kept their hours reasonable is they have left the interior with a natural finish. They were careful with their epoxy and fiberglass reinforcement applications and didn't sand and fair the insides for paint. The result is utilitarian and clean. It also saved them many hundreds of hours, hours spent sanding, which is not most peoples favorite pastime.
The photos above and below are of the cabin interiors and you can see the workmanlike manner in which the filleting has been done.

Here is a little detail I wish we had used on our Tiki 30.Beat ran his wiring for his lights and fans thru the foam core of the deck. Very clean.

The two pictures below are of the outboard mounts.

Here's a shot of the forward deck.

This is a close up of the anchor rollers.
This photo shows the frame of the aft boarding ladder.It will get wooden treads lashed into the center area.

Sometime ago, Beat and Beatrice were able to go sailing with Glenn Tieman aboard
Manu Rere, a Tama Moana design from Hanneke Boon and James Wharram.This is a relatively new ethnic design and is powered by two crab claw sails. This is a very old sail plan design that has seen somewhat of a resurgence of interest in the last few years. While cruising on Manu Rere Beat became a new convert to the crab claw rig and is installing this sail rig on Aluna.

Part of the appeal of the crab claw rig is the simplicity,the low tech materials and the associated low cost . Below are the pine saplings that are becoming spars. I have not had the opportunity to sail one of these rigs and am hoping that I can finagle a ride.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and am looking forward to going back to California next month for our job and especially to revisit Aluna Beat and Beatrice. I hope that everyone enjoys this post.

Completing Reuel Parkers 14' periagua

We are finishing this little boat off today so we can play with in the keys this weekend. We are going to Islamorada to attend the Wharram rendezvous. Here we have turned the boat back upright and installed seats and are working on a small foredeck.

Reuel added this skeg to help the boat track better. The original design didn't have one to facilitate better maneuverability in the crowded harbors where it earned its keep.

We're painting the hull after we painted the inside. We have also installed oarlock sockets on the rails. I'll put some action shots up with a performance review come Monday.

Rapid progress on a Reuel Parker periagua

We had a good day today in the Boatsmith shop.We scarphed the plywood together and cut out the bow and stern transoms. It's a lot like the Sabot I built when I was thirteen, just stretched out a few feet. It sure goes faster with epoxy.

Here we have set the bottom and transoms and the frames on a table with blocks underneath to establish the rocker.

We then offered up some 1/4" plywood for the sides. Once they were scribed and cut out we glued them in place with super glue and little blocks of wood to hold the shape while we made epoxy fillets. A fair amount of attention was required at this point to adjust everything so that it all ended up fair and sweet.

Twas mighty warm in the Boatsmith shop today (98 degrees). The only advantage and sometime disadvantage is that epoxy goes off really fast. This means that you can't dawdle but it also means (as we prefer fast hardener) that you can really truck. Here we have epoxy filleted the inside of the hull.

In this shot we have taped the outside corners with 1708 6" tape and then quickly applyed a coat of microballoons tp fair the cloth in. This tape is on the heavy side but will make for a more durable hull and appling the micro ballons while the epoxy is still semicured saves us from having to sand pure fiberglass in between. All in all pretty good.

Jim Smith classic

Sometimes it seems that getting pictures of our work is real hard.This boat was built by Jim Smith Tournament Boats back in the early eighties as the Miss Broadbill.She is a 60' express model. Forward of the main cockpit is a mezzanine deck under which big motors live.Then you continue fwd and go down into the cabin.This makes for a relatively low profile with a surprising amount of interior for an express boat. Sorry about the lack of more pictures ,my battery said adios at this point. We installed teak decks on the bridge, the mezzanine and in the main cockpit of this great boat a liitle over a year ago as well as the covering boards and coamings. WE went up to Jacksonville FL this week to perform some maintenance and took this shot. Areal classic wooden boat well loved and well cared for. The teak in this picture was bleached just the day before and is now ready to be sanded smooth once again.

Building a Reuel Parker Periagua 14

I was up in Fort Pierce, FL last week to see his progress on the 45' sharpie schooner Ibis, and he showed me the small craft he is planning on using as a tender for her. It was a 14' periagua that he designed based on an old Swedish work boat. The originals had no skeg and would pivot readily. Reuel added the skeg to enhance the tracking ability of the boat.

You can see the pronounced rocker in this photo and in the photo below notice the skeg and narrow beam. Reuel says that he is very pleased with both the rowing performance and the weight carrying ability of this boat.

Another attractive feature of this tender is the all up weight is about 65 lbs.

The oarlock receivers have been changed from the plans because although they made effective outriggers they were very cumbersome and inconvenient with respect to handling and storage.

This boat also has slightly different seat/thwarts than on the plans.

All in all i was very favorably impressed with this boat and decided that it would make a great tender for the Wharram Tiki 30 that we're currently building. I will keep you posted as we build this delightful little boat.