Removing the deck
Posted By Tom Daniels on April 12, 2010
We’re catching up on Coronet’s progress here… soon we’ll be up to date.
Back in July 2009, Coronet looked pretty much like she had the month before. Her interior had been long since cataloged and removed.
It was all but impossible to imagine how elegant she used to look below decks.
Although the ceiling planks (the long fore-and-aft planking that goes up the sides of the boat) were still in place, you could see the frame construction down in the lowest parts of the boat.
You can see that each frame is made up of multiple parts, called futtocks. Yes, futtocks. If you tell that to your teenage son, expect Beavis and Butthead snorting. Go easy on him, he can’t help it.
Up top, the boat was looking more and more skeletal as a crew worked to cut away the decking and leave only the deck beams.
Many of the original square iron nails used to fasten the deck were still intact.
Here, you’re looking at the mast partner, the reinforced area that supports the mast as it comes up through the deck.
It was hot, hard, dirty work.
And you definitely didn’t want to be standing beneath the boat as the crew tossed load after load of wood over the side.
The stem was still attached to the boat at this point,
but the level of disassembly going on made it clear that its days were numbered.
Down at the other end of the boat, sawyer Ken Beck was working with his portable saw mill to mill up oak for the keel, new stem, and futtocks.
Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you, Ken is a wizard with this machine.
The lofting floor has been constructed and used to do some initial patterning of some of the forward frames.
The combination of deconstruction and first parts made it feel like things were starting to roll on this project.
Those square nails (or spikes as we called them) were brand new galvanized and shiny back in 1957 when they were used to re-deck the entire boat in Gloucester. I was living on board then, and believe me, dirty was the word down below. And when a thundersquall came through, oh, man, thank God for polyethylene plastic sheeting over your bunk….
Tim Murray