Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Deck and House Restoration

In 1991, I built a shop just the right size to house Sulaire and her mast. I originally planned to make her a fast live-a-board cruiser. After visiting the Toronto fleet and seeing what was happening there and in Europe I made the decision to restore her to as close to original as possible. I removed the engine, eliminated all the through hulls and stripped the hull to bare wood. Before replacing fastenings, I treated the hull with a mixture of linseed oil and terps adding pine tar to the mix for those planks below the water line. All of the screws in the sawn frames were then removed and replaced with new silicon bronze screws one size larger than the originals. True to Fife design, every third frame is sawn from one piece of wood, presumably grown frames from trees purposely shaped for this use.












Next I began to disassemble the deck. Removing a layer of plywood revealed Fife's original deck. After seeing this, I decided to completely replace the deck. Bent Jesperson, the builder of the 1984 World Champion 8 meter Octavia, advised me that the only way to build a strong, water tight deck and keep the weight of the deck as light as it's original pine was to cold mold in red cedar.














The original deck was removed. Because the cabin and cockpit had been changed over the years it was necessary to replace the deck beams from the foreword end of the cabin to just short of the rudder post. By this time, Fairlie restorations had sent a copy of the deck beam layout with detailed specifications. With this I was able to restore her cabin and cockpit to the original size. Heavy structural beams, originally spec'd in Larch, were replaced with Douglas fir (called Oregon Pine in the original specs). The lighter beams, originally spec'd in Spruce, were replaced with Spruce. Carlings were dovetailed into the beams and the beams were fitted to the original dovetail joints in the clamps.













Cold molding the deck began once the beams were in place and a new stern timber was put in. (The only rot I found was from the back stay bolt through this timber)













In the lowest layer, each strip of 1 3/4" wide cedar was sized and beveled to match Fife's deck. These were sprung in so that from below, she looks the way she did in 1929.













The king plank was laid in mahogany














Two additional layers of 1/4" x 3 1/2" cedar were then laid over the first in opposing 45 degree angles. These were all laid in epoxy and fastened with thousands of silicon bronze staples. This layer stops about 4" shy of the outer edge and was routed so the mahogany covering board could half lap over it.












A layer of glass cloth set in epoxy covers the cold molded cedar. I routed a small lip into the upper/inner edge of the mahogany covering board so the glass cloth covers the joint and ends in a clean line that would mostly be covered by the toe rail. The covering boards were left natural. I felt that problems would arise if I couldn't completely seal the surface and that the deck needed to be non skid. The varnished decks I've seen on 6 meters look scary to walk on.












A white deck with natural wood covering boards, cabin and cockpit coamings is extremely attractive while allowing the deck to be coated with non skid. The cabin, also cold molded, consists of 2 layers of cedar laid in different directions, sandwiched between two layers of mahogany. It is extremely stout.

I salvaged beams from her old house and re-used them to add the depth of aged wood to the character of her interior.


We are currently using a plexi-glass cover over the skylight cut-out and are actively seeking information, drawings and/or pictures of Fife 8 meter skylights - especially those with six circular lights. (See completed lights on Finish Details page.)

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