Interview with Rod Stephens, Jr

Introduction

Rod Stephens started his career, after a short stint at Cornell University, as an apprentice at the Henry B. Nevins boatyard in City Island, New York in 1928. After overseeing the building of Stormy Weather he left Nevins in 1934 to join his brother at Sparkman and Stephens. He is remembered for many successes, from skippering two Transatlantic races and two Fastnets to victory, for sailing numerous other superb racing boats, to designing and overseeing the DUKWs during WWII and being the designer of rigs and deck layouts for S&S. But above all, he was a stickler for detail; his knowledge was without equal, and he was equally comfortable being a naval architect, writing in the yachting press or just answering questions.

Rod assisted with the rebuilding of Stormy Weather in the late 70s and early 80s. While his enthusiasm for wooden boatbuilding was based on traditional craftsmanship, he cautiously adopted technical progess. When we restored Stormy, the Gougeon brothers had made much progress with epoxy resins, and we embraced "modern" laminating processes. Bill Cannell, owner of the American Boat House, in Camden, Maine, built the new main mast for Stormy at Rod's suggestion; he also followed our progress with laminating white oak for 98 new frames. Some years later, maybe the late 80s or early 90s, he sat down with Rod and asked questions. The tape is long-gone, but Bill had it transcribed. The result is the following fountain of knowledge . . .

The interview

How do you feel about a laminated backbone as opposed to a made-up backbone?

I think lamination, if you have the right adhesives, and they’re used properly, makes good sense, because it’s not only easier to for smaller pieces that’ll do the job than it is to get the one, depending on the size of the boat, but for large boat which has perhaps a fairly wide keel, the basic log that you need to do that is hard to find and harder and harder as time goes by, and for that reason, I think it’s fortunate that adhesives have gradually been improved and can be used, and therefore you might get up with more available material and gives you a better chance of getting the right material by virtue of using smaller pieces.

What do think are the right materials for laminating, and what are the kinds of glue that you think are best?

I think that depends a little on the purpose of the boat. A heavy boat like Kay made really for offshore sailing. I think for a comparative boat where you’re trying to save every ounce you can, then there’s reason to consider other material: for example, a good grade of mahogany, rather than oak or one of the sophisticated hardwoods, depending perhaps on what part of the world you are working in. But there are very many good woods which are extremely heavy, and I think they’re okay except where you re trying hard to save weight on the structure.

You mentioned oak. Would you recommend using oak for a laminate in parts of the boat that are going to be underwater?

It has been used with some success, so I would say yes, but it’s important that it be white oak and be very dry, and that the lamination is effective, so that it will hold. For example, temperatures …building in the winter. I know when Columbia, the 12-meter, was being built, and we had laminated oak frames in her, and the lamination of course seemed to be a big advantage, because when you have a large frame, and it’s vented, some parts are under considerable tension, and other parts are under considerable compression, and when it’s laminated, they can slide to take their own place, but in that particular case, there were a couple of times when the temperature was allowed to drop down (I think the yard was financially being pressed), and so we cut some pieced ends off the frame and found these weren’t effective; therefore, we had to have a great many through fastenings to go over the error, so that I say first, selection of material, and second, the selection and use of adhesive, and third, maintaining the conditions necessary for the particular adhesive, all are factors which if they’re done wrong, then lamination would not be advised.

Have you ever designed a boat that had the planking rabbetted right into the lead so that the lead was the structural keel?

We have not observed that, and when Francis Herreshoff designed a boat which we sailed against, similar in size to Stormy Weather, a very good boat, had that construction, but we have never done it.

Is that something you would recommend?

It’s to me always a little bit difficult in going from one material to another. If you’ve got a conventional wooden structure with a laminated backbone, you start right at the stemhead and go down through the keel and back up to the stern of the boat, and especially with lamination, it’s a pretty tight barrier all the way. But if you came down the forefoot and then scarph on to a bit of lead, and then go along with the lead and then scarph back into a sternpost, or whatever it might be. I am always a little concerned, because the come-and-go of the lead is not the same as the come-and-go of the wood, so I’d be just a little afraid that when the boat dried out, or when it swelled up, either way there would be some motion that would perhaps be a little tight.

Would you prefer to see a deadwood that was made up mechanically and bedded or one that was made up by laminating? (Making it up by cutting out larger pieces and through bolting, as opposed to gluing it up out of smaller layers)

I think that the use of smaller pieces enables you to pick out perhaps a better grade of wood, and again, assuming the lamination is done right , then I think that’s fine. But I really prefer to get away from very large pieces, because I think it’s harder to get a good grade of wood. It has to be basically too large a log, is a big tree that it’s coming from.

Do you think it’s better to put keelbolts in as through bolts, or threaded into lead?

I think I prefer a little bit as through bolts, simply because there is perhaps better protection from the possibility of incorrect drilling or tapping, threading, and all the rest of it, when the bolt goes right through, and then you counter bore from the bottom; therefore you can set up nut and washers, and you just know that you’ve got it, whereas when you go down into it, it depends on whether the drilling was right. For example, if you tighten the lag bolt, you turn that just a little too far, you sheer off the little bits of lead that come between the adjacent threads, so that basically, I like them to go right through, and I think it also facilitates this considerable keel damage – there’s a chance of being able to get the keel off without disrupting it as much, because in theory, you can go up from the bottom, and I much prefer the nuts on the bottom. Some builders would have a cast and bolts in the keel , and they have an L shape, or something; on the bottom of it, but there’s no way you can get it out, except by pulling the bolts out of the wood, and they can be pretty tight. If they’re drilled properly, they should be very tight in the wood, and not easy to get it apart.

Different yards set boats up different ways – some build them right side up, and some build the hull upside down. In your observation, which is more efficient?

I would think on smaller boats, it’s easier to do the planking etc. when it’s upside down. On larger boats, the turning is somewhat more of an effort, although very large boats have been turned over. But in general, small boats, and particularly where there’s a quantity being built, upside down makes sense. In my own experience, in association with Nevins, in the thirties, the New York 32’s where they built 20 of them, they were built upside down. Otherwise, the other individual boats of different sizes, were all right side up, except for the dinghies, which were always built upside down.

With some of the modern bedding flexible adhesive compounds like, 3M 5200 or Sikaflex, do you feel that it’s necessary to put stop waters in joints and scarphs and in the backbone, or do you think those bedding compounds are sufficient?

I don’t know – being conservative and rather old-fashioned, I still like the stop waters, but one thing I like about laminated construction is that the requirement of either one is not a factor, or much less of a factor, than conventional boats than when we first started, let’s say in the late twenties through the thirties, there was very little lamination, and therefore, at the various places, starting right at the stem where it went into the forefoot, perhaps where the forefoot went into the keel, there were joints made up generally with white lead, and they were very dependent on the stop water. And a lot of boats had leaks, either because the stop water was improperly located, or maybe it was improperly fitted. Anyhow, we constantly looked for the possibility of a leak in the stem or forefoot stopwater joints. Also, it’s very difficult to take two long pieces of material and then put some bolts through and even with white lead which at the time was used, and has no great strength, and it’s hard to develop really the full strength of the log at both forward and aft of the scarph, which was another reason why I’d like to see the development of lamination, because I think the scarph under the forefoot near the mast step, stem scarf, all of these were more vulnerable places and where you’re most apt to find leaks.

Where would you put stop water? Would you put it in the center on the back rabbet?

I feel it should be centered right where the culking would be, assuming that the first plank was also caulked, and that you don’t want the stop water outside of that, because water can get in between the planking and the stop water, and if you have it too far inside, open water could get in behind it, so that I think the right place is in the back rabbet, preferably so the end of the stop water would be right where you’re caulking, that the primary one sometimes there was a second one to help back it up, but I think right where the caulking occurs, so that it was tight in both directions.

Some people still swear by white lead. Do you think there’s any place where it’s superior to modern beddings?

I would infer that it was inferior to it. We had several occasions where boats were damaged and where they were taken apart, and it rather shocked me how easily it came apart. It disappointed me, because I really do like to think it was really sticking . . . 3M or something like that, I think it’s another story – it’s frequently very hard to get it apart. So, I would lean toward the 3M, rather than the white lead. Two interesting things, not only white lead, but in boats by both Herreshoff and Nevins, they have put a lot of faith in the heavy orange shellac between two layers of double planking, and right today I would think it wasn’t very good material, but it did work. Perhaps because it was put on right, in sufficient quantity in the right thickness at the right time. Maybe that really kept the water out, but you wouldn’t really think that shellac as being anything particularly desirable, but I point out that perhaps some of the very best built early wooden boats did have heavy orange shellac between the layers of planking.

Would you prefer to see a boat built with wood or metal floors, and are there places where you would use both?

The principal reason, assuming it’s a wooden boat, say fundamentally it’s desirable not to mix up materials. However, there is a certain place – the mast step is perhaps the first one, perhaps some belt frames in way of the mast, where a concentrated load, chainplate problem and so forth, there is a pretty good reason for considering metal. And the thing you can do with metal, assuming you have a certain depth between the inside of the keel of forefoot and the cabin sole above, you have – say it’s a 45-footer, you have 8 or 10 inches – by using metal, you can have a transverse piece that’s 8 or 10 inches deep, and you can have a longitudinal piece of 8 or 10 inches. Whenever you use wood, there’s no way – you have to notch one or the other, and you have to notch each of them halfway, so instead of having a strong joint all the way from the keel to the cabin sole, you can only use about half of that depth, whether you’re talking transverse or longitudinal. And strains are considerable both ways, particularly where the compression of the mast is very unkind to the structure.

In general, how many floors would you try to span with the mast step?

I think it would be probably five – it depends a little on the size of the boat – I think most boats have too few, and from time to time we’ve been involved in trying to reinforce a boat. For example, the International Class one-design designed and build by Aas in Norway, and they were beautifully designed, very desirable and satisfactory boats, but as they began to age, the mast step, they began to leak in way of the mast step, and in particular instance, it seems to me there was a mast step around a couple feet long and maybe spanning three frames, and we were asked we advised ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? we put in a deeper mast step . . . there was no cabin sole, it was just in the fore part of the boat, and we went two more frames and went ??? heavier, all wood, but there was plenty of depth, there was no restriction to the cabin floor or floor space, or foot room, or whatever. We lengthened that, and at the same time ???? the tension member from the chainplates to the mast step, because otherwise there’s a strong compression on the mast step and a strong pull up on the chain plates and with the shape of the boat in that case station 3 or 4 where that might be, it’s very hard to take that around a corner, but you have to remember, it’s very good. In the IOD’s we’ve recommended – we went from the chainplates down under the mast step, right as near the center as possible, and we’ve done that on larger boats also.

I was recently aboard Nyala at City Island, and was absolutely amazed at what beautiful condition she is in.

That’s correct, it takes the stress away from all the various pieces involved. If you didn’t have the tie rod, if you didn’t have a reasonably long mast step, well then you’re putting a lot of stress on every single fastening, and as the wood gets older and the boat is particularly rough water, when there heavy tension on headstays, backstays, and on shroud tension, because of narrow spreader width. It’s very hard to hold that, and when it’s brand new, sure, but when the boat is old and let it be a little bit neglected, and the thing is just going to go. But with the tension members, like in Nyala, we did it in all the 12’s, it was very helpful. We did it on the 6-meters and 8-meters – they were lighter boats that were being sailed hard, and it certainly makes sense.

Would it be fair to describe those tension members the stirrup as a rod with a turnbuckle on each end, going from the chainplate to the mast step?

That’s exactly what it should be, but I almost prefer to have it just at one end, with a socket that’s threaded, so you adjust it to fit right when you install it, but not saying you want to take it up later. The last thing I like to have happen is have somebody come in later on and screw it up two or three turns. Just the same way as a conventional tie rod in way of the mast, which is desirable, principally because you sometimes have halyards left over blocks near the mast partner which have quite a strong upward component. Plus the fact that with the conventional tight wooden wedges are generally used although we have an idea that we think is better but with tight wooden wedges, when the mast goes down, the wedge is still pretty tight, so the reaction tends to make the deck raise up, and therefore it was just practice to help keep things together to have a tie rod. But again, we never wanted to have a turnbuckle in there, although it was an easy way of doing it, but preferred a threaded end so when the boat was built, you could turn the end until you could just put in an upper pin or whatever and we also always like to have a strut around the vertical tie rod on center or tie rods in the mast partner area, again so you just didn’t have to pull it back down, you maintained spacing that resisted tension and it also resisted compression.????.

I mention in connection with that the conventional wooden wedges, but because of observing this, and no matter how the boat was built, whether or not there was a long mast step, or metal or wood, or whatever, stirrups, still there was a tendency.…and another thing, if the rigging is invariably done slack, and so the mast tends to bend and therefore can fatigue . . . and we have observed several masts including wooden masts, and also a metal mast, where they did fatigue and crack and deteriorate, in the partners vicinity. Therefore, I was kind of the one to develop the method of bolting the mast very strong fore and aft, using live rubber, but under high pressure but nothing on the side. I did that on my own boat, New York 32, and in a fresh breeze, the mast went over about a quarter of a inch to leeward, but there was no rubber in the side basically it took the circumference, in four parts, each 25%. We have 25% forward and 25% aft, rubber, under high pressure, and nothing on the sides. Therefore, the fore and aft rubbers really held the mast. If you didn’t hold it tightly fore and aft, you got undesirable pumping, and the mast tended to go out of column fore and aft, so we wanted the rubber there, instead of the wooden wedges, so that it would not let it go over at all. If it does tend then to fatigue, because no matter what you do to it , the mast is going to go over, the masthead is going to be somewhat to leeward of the imaginary centerline. I think that rubber is very beneficial – it’s good for the mast, it’s good for the hull, and another fringe benefit, it keeps it very quiet. I had a discussion with a very competent Swedish wooden boatbuilder, Boajt Plym, wonderful builder, no longer living, and one of those very fine boats he built of our design, we sailed together in the Fastnet Race, we shared a stateroom, which was right next to the mast. Well, he rather poo pooed the rubber scheme, and he said his boats didn’t move, but after one night in the Channel, in pretty fresh headwind and pinga, pinga, pinga, (indicates movement ?), he said, “ I guess you’ve got something there.” It was a beautifully built boat, brand new, stiffer that almost any other boat, but nonetheless, it was moving, just a few thirty-seconds of an inch, but it sure did squeak. With rubber, there is absolutely no sound at all. Very difficult with the rubber, because, although I’ve tried to write it up and have a thing handed out to people, but first of all, they don’t get the right rubber, and second they don’t really use the beef to put it under pressure. To make it work, you have to have very heavy pressure fore and aft, physically, to do that with no rubber at all, you need plenty of space, about 10% of the mast’s maximum dimension, so, say an inch all the way around on a 45-footer. So, alright you want about 1 ¼ - inch both fore and aft to get the pressure you need on, with nothing in then it’s easy to push the mast forward and put in the rubber aft which would go right in easy then, usually because the big winches are apt to be aft today, and you then put a very heavy tackle around and you next compress this piece 1 ¼” thick down to about ¾” thick to have room to slide it in. You cannot force the rubber in. If you try to hammer down anything, it normally gets bigger as you put pressure on the top. So you have to squeeze the first piece very much, and it takes a lot of load, and people generally back off before they get enough load, so they end up with thinner rubber, and then the boat works, the rubber falls out, and they think that’s a heck of a poor idea. I have never seen one that’s put in right, there’s no way it can come out, because it is under high pressure. You squeeze an 1 ¼ - inch rubber down to 1 inch, and you can see it just looking at the mast partners, you can see the rubber squeezing out, and sometimes I look at one and they say, “This is really tight the way that you wanted it,” but I see a little space almost between the rubber and the adjacent mast partner and I know that it won’t stay there. I think it makes sense with one of these little details . . . but if you don’t, it doesn’t work.

On the floors, do you prefer so see keelbolts running through the floors, or separate keelbolts and separate floor bolts?

I think it’s probably pretty good to run through the floors. Again, it assumes that the wood is reasonably well seasoned. If you put it through grained floors that are going to drink a fair amount, where they’re going to lose some keelbolts, but it can certainly be either way. I don’t ? think if you separately bolt floors to the wood keel, and then bolt the lead keel through the wood keel, it is also okay. I personally like to let it hang on the transverse member, which is just one less thing to come apart.

Again as with the lead, for floors, do you see lags or hangar bolts or through bolts for fastening?

Again, I much prefer to see them, they should be ahead of, underneath the wood keel. When I was working at Nevins, they had, among others, a very competent blacksmith, and they had dies, which you could take a bolt of any diameter you wanted, the blacksmith would heat them and hammer it down, and he got what was called a fin head, (available new as a bolt +BC), and I’m sure it’s a known term but you can’t buy them. You couldn’t buy them in the twenties and thirties. I am sure Herreshoff and others did the same, and probably others do it today. I like that, because the so-called “fin head” had a little fillet on each side that prevented the bolt turning, and it was put through the keel form the bottom upward, and absolutely flush or slightly recessed. And then the floor timber, and you have nuts on top of the floors, there is no way that the whole bolt would turn. If you simply had a head without these little fins, and then you try and tighten it, the bolt might turn. If the bolt is put in right, it should be very tight. I remember the very wonderful foreman at Nevins, by the name of Rufus Murray. I was very fortunate to rub shoulders with him for four or five years. I remember very well, there was quite a large motorboat, and he was always moving around the shop, had an eye for everything. There were some big deep wooden floors and a keel, no bolts, and so this mechanic had drilled . . . through and had bolts, and when he was putting them in, he set them in, and had a maul, a hammer, and he hit it once and the thing went right down. So Murray waited to see what the fellow was going to do next, so he went ahead and put the nuts on and started to tighten them up . . . I never saw a guy get kicked so hard in the tail. This was before there was any particular union problem, and he said, “Get your money and get out of here.” All the man had to do was say, “Look, we drilled too big, and we’ve got to get a bolt that’s 1/16 – inch bigger.” They’re perfectly available. That boat would have leaked around that bolt, and there would have been big expense later on when the boat was totally finished after delivery. And that’s the kind of thing – to get a good boat, everybody working on it had to avoid making something stupid and this fellow, he drilled too big and instead of going up to the foreman, saying, “Look can we just get a couple oversized bolts which ? know the difference”, luckily Murray was watching at just the right moment.

Many yachts in the past, especially English yachts that I have seen, have steel or iron floors. Would there be a reason for not using bronze?

It’s purely very much a matter of economy and that has to be considered. Perhaps with real iron instead of steel and with hotdipped galvanizing, and with fastenings that are also hotdipped they are in pretty good shape. But, unfortunately, what you’re apt to get instead is a high carbon steel with electro plating and bolts again the same, electro plating and steel, instead of hotfit iron, and they just go to pieces so quickly, because so many old-time builders think, “You guys are just wasting your money with all this Everdur or bronze, stainless steel, or monel or whatever,” but they don’t realize how bad what you were getting that time when you are getting, as opposed to what you were getting 20, 30, 40 years earlier, the higher carbon steel I don’t know all the details but it was much more prone to rust and the electro plating was never as protective as hotdipped galvanizing and, therefore, we were very much against using it, although a lot of Herreshoff boats did have some steel, and for quite a long time was okay, but as they got old enough, and it was difficult when they had steel bands between the frames and planking, it was pretty hard to replace them.

If you’re using a metal floor, what shape would you want that to take?

There are several options, depending a little on the sectional shape of the boat. Some of them could use a good grade of cast bronze, but that would require more weight, they’d have to be pretty thick, because the strength wasn’t that much, otherwise they could be flat plates with flanges, or they could even be a castings with a transverse plate, and it can go against the face of the frame, or it can go against the bosom, inside the frame, or it even can have an angle going both ways. So there were different shapes, depending on who was building it. We made a practice to try to do a thing way the builder wanted it, provided it looked reasonably good. If the builder had a good foundry and was very happy to use a good grade of bronze castings, had a good pattern shop f??? they make a very neat cast floor that ?????????????? Another builder says, “How are we going to cast it whose going to make the patterns? Or that should be a flange??? perhaps a plate.” So I think it’s best to modify your design to the capabilities of the builder. You never get a good job, even though you may like something better, if the builder doesn’t believe in it, it’s difficult to get a good job. So, if what a builder wanted to do made reasonable sense, we would get a better boat in going his way. But if it was something we thought was dead wrong . . . some we just have to do it the other way, it is a matter of judgment.

With wooden floors, I assume you are talking sort of plank on edge.

That’s right. That was more or less conventional, depending again on sectional shape, but most of the boats had pretty heavy transverse pieces, which are bolted through the frames. Might have keelbolts, certainly were bolted through wood keel frequently were heavy and had big heavy lead keelbolts right through them.

Laminated or grown floors . . . ?

It would be helpful, again depending on sectional shape, if the boat is pretty flat and there weren’t many flat boats at the time I was working there, and, in fact, I’m not very enthusiastic about them right today. But, in that case, plank on edge would make them deep enough in the center, it would be very big indeed, and there you could laminate something, which would produce the stiffness of the frames and adjacent planking. But on the other hand, if it’s coming down like this, it would make a very sharp bend to laminate, so you’re better really cut it out or even stack it up laminating. But don’t try to bend it across, which again, depends in the sectional shape.

Would you prefer to see an engine bed that was a fabricated metal bed, or one made up from wood?

I think just a little bit of metal, only because of trying to minimize dimensional changes, because probably the biggest complaint about engine installation is misalignment, and if you have metal and, let’s say, oak beds, which are a little bit green and they dry out a little, that gives you misalignment . . . and give you vibration. It depends a little on the size of the engine and what depth is available. Sometimes the engine is crowded right down so you don’t have much depth, and that would be a pretty good excuse to use a metal piece. But if there’s plenty of depth, and you have good seasoned material, wood would be okay, but it must be seasoned, and then you presumably would have vibration . . . flexible mounts, they must be too soft, and hopefully, they can be quite easily adjusted.

What form of frames do you prefer, steamed or laminated?

I would say I can think of three types. One is sawn frames, and the typical Down East, Nova Scotia/Maine, whatever, fishing schooner type. They would saw them out, and they would make them of a number of pieces, and the joints would be staggered, so each frame essentially was doubled and made of a number of different pieces as sawn frame, and required a lot of wood to get the same degree of strength, and also, it was easier to get by with some poor wood, where if you’re going to bend it, you have to start with some pretty good material. So, the sawn frame generally is not very good, although the boat had a great straight section, some of them up forward would have, then there’s no reason not to saw it out but where there’s a lot of shape.. double curvature, no.

Then the next thing is single thickness steam bent, and that again depends somewhat on the size of the boat. In general, it’s made of a single piece but it’s steam bent does put a lot of tension in some parts of the frame, compression in others, and as the boat gets older, they do tend to be broken. So, the third alternative is to make them of a number of individually bent layers, laminated, and, therefore, there’s scarcely measurable compression or tension, and I think that gives you the best, again assuming the right material and the right adhesive, and not letting it get too cold the night you did the gluing, and stuff like that, like I mentioned on Columbia. So I think the number of layers, which then will follow any shape that you want, is a very good way to do it.

What would be your recommendation for the type of glue to use on a laminated frame or any kind of laminated member?

I tend today to think that some epoxy derivative must be good. I don’t feel fully up-to-date, because I haven’t been that close to construction with this material. So many of the boats today have either been metal or fiberglass, and the ones that have been wood have been done somebody who is very knowledgeable and there were quite expert on the various materials. But again, just off the top of my head., I lean toward epoxy, as we feel it’s pretty strong. It has to be mixed right and used right.

On a steamed frame, what would be your choice of wood . . . white oak would be an obvious choice. What about something like rock elm?

Most of the frames that we have used in the U.S.A. have been white oak, and steamed whether they’re one piece or several layers. The later ones layers, but most of it in single piece white oak. The 6-meters were, I think, white oak.

When you are steaming a frame, generally of a single thickness, do you think it’s necessary for all boats that you strap bend to take the tension out of them?

I think that a thing that I have observed when I was working at Nevins, and this is really from Rufus Murray from Herreshoff book, there they fitted the strap on whichever side was going to be under tension, and at the end of the strap, there was a heavy metal angle so the frame couldn’t grow any in length. It was put under a lot of compression, but it would absolutely eliminate tension. I observed that the larger boats where the frames were much harder to bend, but they went to the trouble of having this strap and was held all the way along as the frame was bent around, but it already fit against the end of the frame before they started to do that. Those frames, like the schooner Brilliant, which is a Mystic now and I’ve looked her over pretty closely ?????????. Every single frame, on whichever side was going to try to get longer, had temporarily a galvanized iron strap, maybe 1/8-inch thick or a little less, and then a heavy 90 degree angle fastened to the top of that over the frame fitting very tight against that, so as the bent it, there was no way that the frame was getting any longer on the long side of the curve. And by using those restrictions end-wise, I think they got a better result and are much less apt to develop broken frames, whereas on the smaller New York 32’s where the frames were small enough that they could bend them pretty easily, and they went very quickly, but the certainly had broken frames, some of them more than others, but quite a few. And I always thought that if they had taken the taken the time to prevent them from being stretched, that the breaking would be less.

So it’s not just a matter of bending them into place without cracking them, but also 10, 20, 30 years down the road?

Absolutely. Very few boats with reasonably well steamed frames - unless it’s really very poor wood, or poor steaming or something, no problem at all. But if it’s bent, anywhere from 5 years to more down the line, usually they begin to go in any area where there is stress. In my opinion, where there’s tension, for example, on the reverse curve on the older boats with wineglass sections, you’d find a lot of broken frames some years down the line, where there was a reverse bend there, because that always wasn’t backed up. We actually put metal straps on quite a few of those frames in building the boat, to just give it a little more tension and strength. And that minimized the tendency to break. But I think, I don’t know if it was in this issue - but there was a very good story (Ed McClanes ?? article) about handling steam bent frames, but there wasn’t anything about, I read it rather hurriedly, but I thought that something about restricting which ever side had the most tension on it. They put straps on and held at the top so they were not stretching the frame. I think that it is a very important practice.

Is there ever an instance where you would recommend pocketing frames in the keel?

Cutting them into the wood? No, my opinion about that is, I think it was requested by Lloyd’s, but we generally talked them out of it, because I think any little cutout that you have is just a place to trap in dirt and dampness, etc., and we rather count on the frame connection to the floor, and the floor connection to the keel, and I was not very enthusiastic about it, although sometimes we were required to do it where Lloyd’s just insisted that perhaps some 12-meters had to be done. But I always regretted cutting all those things out, and it’s very hard to be sure that whole thing was going to really fit in there perfectly tight. Presumably in those days with white lead, today epoxy would be better, but I still thought, “Why cut all those nasty little blocks let the keel go right through straight.” I am opposed to any little cutouts, which do tend to let moisture get in.

Would you prefer to see frames that are square in section, or rectangular in section?

I think that probably theoretically the best would be greater depth and less fore and aft, and the rectangular rather than square. But from a practical standpoint, there’s an advantage in square, because you can turn them either way to get the grain that maybe looks to be the best way when you’re pulling them out of the steam box, but really, ideally, they should be thicker in the moulding and less in the siding, and it’s nice even to taper them, because down where the ballast keel it it’s nice to have more depth to give you stiffness there, and up near the top, there’s less local stress. But again, that complicates it somewhat, but I think it would be theoretically the best structure.

You mentioned before doing a steam frame in several laminates, so I assume that you think it would be a good idea with a very hard bend to kerf the frame…. If you had a very hard bend at the turn or up by the transom, to split the frame on a bandsaw…

Yes, that’s right. That was a small step toward later laminating. Of course, again, you reduce the stretching. By letting the two slide and when you got all through, they wouldn’t be matching at the top, but it was really better for it. The other alternative with these angled pieces in the strap, they also ended up curving. We didn’t split them. There was a lot of force there, but we did tend to put the wood under compression to eliminate putting it under tension, and I think you could probably prove with a simple test that it’ll stand the compression okay, but under tension, after it has been wet and dried, etc . . . in time of stress, it’ll let go, whereas with compression it’s pretty logical it’s not opting to come apart.

Some of the Fife boats were built every other frame a good deal smaller than the other one. Is there any merit to that?

I don’t really think so. We frequently had big frames in way of the mast, and chainplates concentrated loading and so forth…. but basically, it would seem consistent to go right along with the same size and it does improve that situation where you’re going to have stringers, either at the top or in the bilge, by having them all the same, they were smooth on the inside. I think it’s probably better to make them all the same size, although perhaps beefed up at the critical areas.

You mentioned tapering the frames from the heel up to the head. Would you think that would be a good idea laminated frames as well?

I think it would be less necessary, but I think it makes some sense that to have a greater strength where the stress is highest really depends a little on the shape of the boat. Some years back, there was a reverse curve down the bilge and the ballast hung on that, and you wanted some stiffness there, but today they’re going right straight across too many of them. I think it still would be better to have them strong where the stress comes in the middle, and if not, somewhere at the deck-hull edge.

What about composite construction?

I think in general that it is better to stay with one thing, although I already violated that comment by saying we saw virtue of some steel, welded steel or bronze mast steps, and in some engine bed, and some bell frames by the mast, but that’s only because you’ve got a very high local stress that you’re trying to overcome, but just to go through with steel and wood, and steel and wood, all the way through the boat, I don’t like it. It’s done a lot in Europe, particularly in England, and we’ve got away from it very much.

Some people say that when you get your bending stock out for the frames, it’s got to be green, and other people say air dried bending stock is just as good, and some people say the grain should be flat grain, and other people say it should be vertical grain bending stock. How do you feel about this?

I would mention one time that having square frames has an advantage, because you could set it the way you want it. I would say for strength that it would be better to have the comb ?? grain, and for easy bending, it would probably be better to have the flat grain. I don’t have a strong opinion about that.

What about, in your observation, is it better, or does it make a difference to have dry or green?

I don’t know. I think probably it was dry, I don’t think that green is good. I am trying to think of the material that was used at Nevins when I was there, under the direction of Rufus Murray, there was very little green material used, though some came in green, but it was around there for quite a while before it was used. I can’t specifically answer about the frames. I think it was steam dried, I think that you can probably bend either kind.

On the subject of fastenings, do you think it’s better to rivet a frame, or fasten it with screws?

That’s one of these things that we try to go along with the desire of the builder. For example, Herreshoff, Nevins, had all faith in screws. They had very carefully tapered drills that would carefully drill to the right depth, etc., and when properly drilled and when the screws were of the right material, it gave you a very strong boat. On the other hand, Benjt Plym, of Saltsjoben, Sweden one of the best builders, he much preferred to use rivets, and we would then not tell Benjt Plym to use screws, because Herreshoff and Nevins liked it better, but he made very good boats with rivets, and we’d never tell Rufus Murray that we would prefer to have it riveted, even though he and Nat Herreshoff and Henry Nevins all liked screws. So if it is done right it can be either way. I would say that one advantage of rivets is it’s easier to get the material that you want. In screws, we like to get a Everdur bronze with virtually no zinc content, because as age increases and certain electrolytic and chemical problems, when bronze, which has zinc in it, as zinc leaches out, it has no strength at all, which is why Nevins went very much to Everdur, and they certainly stood up very well. Rivets, you could get virgin copper and you’re pretty sure of what it is.

Does Monel have any merit to justify today’s high cost?

I don’t think so. It is extremely costly. It has very good corrosion capabilities, and I think the thing against it is the extreme cost, and one other thing, it is very magnetic, and that has nothing much to do with the fastenings but it does have to do with the compass.

What woods do you prefer for planking?

I think that the classical Honduras mahogany and Mexican mahogany finished very nicely, and also if one wished a bright boat, it’s attractive, whereas another material used a lot, but I think considerably inferior, is Philippine mahogany, which is more of a cedar-type wood, and is not suitable for varnish, but I think it comes and goes more than the Mexican or Honduras mahogany. And what’s available today, I don’t know, because I’m speaking of what was available quite a long time ago. The war has changed a number of things; sources where they used to come from are not available now.

I know that the Philippine mahogany I’ve seen today is pretty awful stuff, but I remember reading a list of inventory of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company at some point, and all the mahogany that they had in their inventory at that time was Philippine.

I am puzzled by that very much. What was the date?

I think it was in the thirties.

I would say in the thirties they had lost their real knowledge, for example, Rufus Murray who was the superintendent at Herreshoff’s under Nat Herreshoff, he came to Nevins in the late or middle twenties. When I was there in ’28, he was established as the superintendent at Nevins, and Herreshoff in that period was being run by Haffenreffer, who was not technically a boatbuilder, but he was financed by the brewery which had the funds necessary, but I don’t think they had the basic knowledge that they did have when Murray and Nat Herreshoff, Sidney Herreshoff, Tom Brightman and others were there. Tom was still there later on, but the basic skills were perhaps less. I very much doubt that they used a lot of Philippine mahogany. I think it was less costly, but it was not as good material and it was hard to keep the planks smooth and they dried out more and swelled up more that Mexican or Honduras. It was no good for brightwork, not at all, couldn’t build a hatch or a coaming or anything of Philippine mahogany, no way. It was more like cedar.

Some people have told me, but I find it had to believe, that real Philippine was more resistant than Honduras.

It could be, but what’s real Philippine mahogany? Philippine is a big place, quite a distance from north to south, damp areas, high areas, low area, so it is hard to say.

I did see some wood once at a lumberyard, and they told me it Philippine mahogany, and it was actually denser and harder than Honduras. It didn’t look like any of the other Philippine mahogany sold today.

Philippine, in my opinion, normally what I think is a little lighter in color, a more coarse grain, and doesn’t finish well at all.

What about some of the other woods for planking, like cedar?

Cedar has virtue, is good material, and it’s light, and frequently was used for inside planked and double planked boats with Mexican or Honduras mahogany outside, white cedar inside. It’s basically soft and easy to dent, but it’s very good wood, and the lightness is in its favor. I think it’s good material, but we were more apt to use the inner skin of double planked boats to save weight.

What about woods like Douglas fir, which I had never really considered very rot resistant, I’ve noticed that many fine yachts were built with douglas fir planking.

Yes, we didn’t use it , and therefore I can’t comment on its resistance to rot. I will say this, any wood will rot, and the best resistance to rot is first that the boat is drained, and second that it is ventilated. And I know one of the first jobs I did when I was working at Nevins was taking some planking out of the after part of a boat with beautiful teak planking that was just as rotten as an old piece of cork. It was a good grade material and it is resistant to rot, and is resistant to worms, and so forth and so forth, etc. etc. But anything can rot, so you have to think a little bit of whether it was a bad area that wasn’t ventilated. I know we had a little motorboat many years ago in the Adirondack Lakes, and it had a little collision. A bulkhead about 3 to 4 feet aft of the bow. After about 10 or 15 years, it was rotten as can be, and it was beautifully-built boat, built by Consolidated of wonderful materials, but no ventilation.

On the subject of ventilation, I think everybody would agree ventilation is one of the most important things to the long life or a boat – do you think that some of the preservatives like Penta and Cuprinol, in long run, do you think they do any good?

I suppose they did. I like to do everything that may help, and therefore I think it’s sensible to do it if it doesn’t interfere with painting. I built my own house and I used a whole lot of Wood Life and some 30 years after, a fellow came in who would be very happy to make a free inspection, because he was going to then get the job of building up everything that had rotted, and he was absolutely astonished. He said, “When did you move in this house?” I said, “1953.” He went in with high hopes, and after about half an hour, he just backed away, and he never found one - mainly where the ... it’s a wooden house conventional built of Cape Cod Style, but where the main timber sat on the foundation, those were soaked with penta ... , and the local supply company was teasing me saying, “You’re not building a boat, you know.” But I must say that was one of the very effective things for a few dollars. I think the house will be better a few years down the road. So, I think it’s probably okay.

Some of the great old yards painted the inside of the hulls, and others just left the hull bare and just oiled it on the inside. Is one better than the other?

Just purely intuition would make me think that the oil makes pretty good sense, and I know that Benjt Plym, this excellent Swedish builder, and they planked their boats tight, mostly single plank, but absolutely tight – he had his own drying facility, which was very slow, but he checked the wood, and it was a fetish with him. And that one plank went into any one of his boats that wasn’t exactly the moisture content he thought was right for that plank on that boat . . . but having done all this, he just every evening ... there was a man who was just told to start in the bow with a big pail of . . . I think basically it was linseed oil and probably some mixture, an just slopped it in, and then by the next morning, it had mostly soaked in. So they did that day after day, and those boats were pretty tight, although they have an advantage in Europe, because there is less change of climate – it’s cold and all, but it doesn’t dry out the way it does here. And he never expected any of his boats to ever leak at all. I told him of a couple of good ones that had been over here that had leaked when they were launched in the spring and he was a bit shocked but it was a fact.

For a traditionally-built wooden boat, what do you think the right moisture content is for the wood?

That’s hard for me to answer right now. We had a unit to check the depth, and when we were heavily involved in wooden boats, we had a pretty clear target that we were shooting at, and I would say that more times the wood is too wet than it is too dry, but it can be too dry if you dry it too quickly, if you dry it too much. I can’t put a figure on it, I’ve have to do a little checking, but it seems that wood is cooked too rapidly and too much is probably pretty nearly as bad as wood that’s not dried enough. It wants to be dried slowly and to a certain... I just can’t come up with a figure.

Maybe 10 –12% ?

Yes, I’d say 10 was the figure that comes to mind.

You mentioned before, one of the good reasons to laminate is the problem of getting large timbers. I guess one of the other problems today is getting air dried wood, as opposed to kiln dried wood. Do you think that’s a great problem in wooden boatbuilding?

I am sure it must be. Again I am going back to Plym, he had his own right in the shop. He had a room there where this stuff was all stacked up, and he would cut off little pieces and take them to his . . . he’d weigh them and then he’d put them in the oven in his own house, and really dry it out, and that told exactly how much moisture was still in it. He made quite a production of it, and I think that was contributive to the high quality of his construction, because he didn’t get some supplier to give wood that was down to 10%, because if that wood was brought down from 20 to 10% overnight with great heat, it's not really what you want, because he knew what the wood was when he put it in, they were all marked, so he checked them almost daily.

Double planking versus single planking. Which do you think makes the best sense for today?

I would say today that you want several layers, so that you can have the grain . . . perhaps at least three layers, depending on the size of the boat. It certainly is nice to get the grain in different directions, rather than . . . in normal double planking with everything going fore and aft, it can be planked up tight; single planking also can be, but there seems to be more trouble to really hold it. The planking is thicker, and the European single planked boats planked up tight do tend to suffer when they get over here where double planked boats, because the wood is thinner to begin with, and there’s some adhesive between, they don’t seem to dry out. You can go in a storage area where a good Herreshoff or Nevins double planked boat is. It doesn’t look very differently if it has some retention and some paint on it . . . whereas the single planked boat that is carefully maintained tends to dry out and seems to crack etc. So I lean towards double planked, and today with the good adhesives, I lean towards a least three or more layers.

If you were to build a boat that wasn’t glued layers, do you feel comfortable without back fastening using 5200 or Sikaflex?

I think that you have to get pressure to make even the 5200 work. Basically, with several layers, it seems to me the practice of using non-corrosive staples is a quick way to put pressure, and no matter what you’re using, whether it’s epoxy or some other material, that you want to get some pressure.

For single planking, what type of seam do you prefer? Caulked or butted or bruised?

I prefer to see the caulked seam, where one-third of it was contact, tight, and the caulked seam was shape, not just a wedge all the way, but went in, and perhaps one-third.. with caulking carefully done, and I don’t know how many people can do it carefully today. There used to be some Greeks (later we discussed this and I think they were ---- and I think it was John Ma--- family he meant????) around City Island that were specialists; they did it pretty darned well. And again, materials have changed, because, going back to my own personal experience, it ended up with some white lead stuff, which depended in how good the wood was, whether it did its job or not. But I think today, you have better material. We started to use some rubber materials, which to a certain extent made it have better advantage.

Do you think a seam should be caulked hard, or roll in the least amount of caulking?

I think that depends on the size of the boat. For example, if you’re building a barge with a 4 or 5 inch planking, you’re going to have a pretty heavy maul, and you’re really going to put it in under high pressure, and on a light boat, especially cedar-planked or something, you better be quite delicate. So I think that depends on the hardness of the wood, and the skill of the caulker. But you certainly don’t want to hit it too hard, because you damage the wood, and bruise the wood, and that’s not what you want to do – you want to put reasonable pressure.

On the sheer strake, do you recommend any special treatment for that?

Normally that would be made out of a single thickness, and the main reason for that was that the covering board, the first plank of the deck, could be fastened down into it, and therefore it was usually a rabbetted piece of the overall thickness of the double planking. We’re assuming it’s a conventional double planked boat underneath. I think that there was a good reason for it. I think today where you build with many layers, I think here you’re again counting much more on the adhesive, so that the three, or five, or whatever layers you have, with epoxy or something similar, then that’s pretty okay to receive the fastenings. But going back aways, we always wanted a single plank, so you could get good screw fastenings for the first layer of the deck.

If it were single planked, would you ever have it thicker than the rest of the planking and let it into the frames?

No. I think Herreshoff did that some, but we didn’t do it. Most of the boats are very deep, and there’s not a big weakness. In a long, flat thing, like a barge, there’s a lot of trouble that way, but in a normal boat, and I am speaking more of a few years back, when there was some depth to them, there was not any great trouble there.

In a single planked boat, would you rather see glued scarphs or mechanical butts?

I think that I’d like to see a well made glued scarph, because longitudinally, there’s not much trouble. Butt blocks cause deterioration, and if you’re going to have a butt block, it’s got to be carefully drained, and a lot of butt blocks don’t have the right drainage, and some of them at the wrong angle left a little sometimes freshwater standing there, and that starts trouble with the butt block itself and adjacent frame, and the plank. So I’d just as soon see . . . it’s harder to do it, obviously, and you’ve got to hang it up with a full-length plank, but I think those butts are, unfortunately, there’s no way you can make the butt as strong, even with a regular butt block, but on a big boat, five fastenings.. it’s not going to be as strong as the wood was . . . if it went right through.

If you did use a butt block, I know that some people swear that butt blocks should fit tightly to the frames, and other people swear that it should be free of the frames.

Yes. I think it probably should be free of the frame, because if it fits tightly to the frame, and you’ve got to bevel the inside corner, which we did for a long time . . . still, those get plugged up, and I know my own boat, when I bought it in the fall of 1945, it was then 9 years old, and I went through the whole boat and looked at every single butt block, and several of them were, although they had a little corner knocked off, they fit tight to the frame, the inner corner against the planking was a little triangular thing, and quite a few of them weren’t clean. So I cleaned them, got them all drained, and replaced one or two. I then had it so that it was very easy to get to them all, so you could look at them, though once clean they would probably stay clean but a new boat it’s hard to know.(???) I think after that we kept the butt block short so nothing would stop it up.

What about diagonal strapping inside the planking?

We did that pretty steadily until just before the war, where, again, with better adhesives, we began to put in an inner layer of a good grade of marine-type plywood, which would kind of stop wracking. Again, I was never totally happy with the different material. You’ve got wood, and then you’ve got a strap coming down, and it was always hard to see whether the strapping was really tight, and also, if you notched the frame, it weakened the frame a little, and if you notched the planking, and you’re trying desperately to have all the thickness that you can, so we felt it was better in the areas of stress to put in a good grade of, an inside layer of, plywood where we had space filling adhesives. That’s what made the difference. If you had to make everything fit perfectly, it’s very hard to go all the way down the framebay and have it fit all the way along, but if you just made an approximate fit and put plenty of gunk on, so it filled up with epoxy and micro balloons then it’s pretty tight thing, it’s pretty hard for the boat to wrack.

You said plywood, do you mean just plywood in the way of the shrouds?

Yes, in an area where you might have put diagonal strapping. Yes, for 6 or 8 feet in the area of the mast.

When you did put diagonal strapping in, did that run right into the rabbet?

Yes, it went right into the rabbet and had a couple of fastenings into the wood keel, and had those fastened to the planking. I think we generally notched the frames. I think Herreshoff generally notched the planking.

What about strapping on the outside of the hull tying the keel and planking together?

I think on the deep shape of the Herreshoff boats it was probably pretty darned good. We never did it, but I think it’s a wonderful way to get tension down from the lead keel up into the hull. But the way the boats are shaped today, it’s not very practical. The bottom makes about a 90 degree angle with the appendage of the keel, whatever it is, you can’t get much of an external strap. For some of the deeper boats, I think it was a wonderful way to hold the keel, and especially in the vicinity of the mast step.

Did you ever use knight heads in any of the boats you designed?

This would be some kind of bit?

Vertical framing butted next to each other up in the bow.

No, not really. I know what you speak of now. No, we generally kept the frames all in the same plane, although a lot of them swing them around and keep them more or less normal to the planking. But in our own practice, we generally kept uniform frames all the way through.

Would you rather see in a traditionally built boat a transom that was planked over transom frames, or would you rather see a laminated transom?

I think laminating, because, especially if there was some radius . . . although there is always a little density for it to straighten out in the corner between the transom planking and the hull planking itself, there is always a rather nasty corner and you certainly couldn’t get much pressure on caulking there, and, therefore, I think the laminated one would have a good rabbet in it and the zone which this planking fastened to, it would probably be pretty good. I think normally we had a normally planed transom.

What kind of detail do you like to see in a transom planking joint?

It’s a difficult one, because you can’t get much pressure. You’re really trying to push everything apart, that’s why I like it laminated with a good back rabbet which would receive the hull planking. But something real strong, rather than taking the planking and then putting something in back of it, and trying to fasten the plank in, so you can’t get a very good fastening going near the end of any plank.

Do you think there’s a problem with wooden planking using some of these modern two-part polyurethane paints? Do you think that creates any kind of a vapor barrier problem?

I just have no basis for expressing an opinion. I just don’t know. I don’t feel up-to-date on these two-part paints. All I know is I have observed a lot of boats which have a very nice appearing finish on the outside: they may be fiberglass, they may be aluminum, they may be wood. I admire the fact that these people take some kind of metal piece, you can’t apparently hurt it, it’s pretty impressive. But what it does to wood or metal or fiberglass, I have no idea. But it does seem to be some quite good durable paints.

Do you consider a ceiling important structurally?

No, I think that what we generally did was have . . . first of all, the conventional thing would be some kind of a bilge clamp, depending on the size of the boat. There’s one up at the deck and there’s one halfway down, and then you’ve got a keel in the middle. That made some sense, nut we preferred to put three or four strakes of normal single planking, and we even caulked it to get it very tight, and fastened in each frame, so that the average 45 footer would have maybe 3 or 4 strakes of planking similar to what would be single outside planking, maybe ¾ -inch, 7/8, or 1-inch. Normal width, and right in the middle part there, to give you something for the bilge to lean on. Otherwise, the ceiling is primarily for appearance and the locker, so things don’t go down behind, and like that. But, otherwise, no physical function. And it must be open top and bottom, so that there can be the passage of air up and down.

Do you feel that you get better passage of air with a tight ceiling and an opening at the top and the bottom? Or with a ceiling that has a bit of a space between them?

I would say in theory it is better to have it open top and bottom, because it has some chimney effect, but I think either one is satisfactory. What you don’t want is to have it tight either at the top or the bottom.

If the ceiling isn’t structural, do you feel bulkheads should be bolted and fastened to the frames?

Bulkheads make a very helpful supplementary member – they make a great diaphragm, and we were pretty early in doing that The practice in the early thirties was in a fancy boatyard, they had very nice joiner shop and made beautiful bulkheads with panels and stiles, and all the rest of it, and they weren’t anything like the strong. And when a supposedly good grade of marine plywood, which had boiled for quite a long time without damaging it, we thought, fine, let’s get a ¾-inch bulkhead there, and it certainly will reduce the wracking of the boat. I think bulkheads are very important in wooden construction. It must be of the best material. You can buy all kinds of exterior plywood, and you might as well forget that, because it’s just a sales pitch of a local store. But if you get a good grade like Brymziel or something like that, I think it’s wonderful. But it should be painted it should have strong .. adhesion plus bolts, so that it really makes you a real belt in the area of the mast, and back strap and keel and stuff like that.

So a structural bulkhead, as you have described, eliminates the need for belt frames or hanging knees?

It reduces the need of it very much. In areas where there is no bulkhead, then it’s quite good to have some knee at the deck, some perhaps a deeper floor, or something, because you are limited, about 6 ½ feet, bulkheads can’t be much closer than that, except in some locker areas, but you will have plenty of places where there’s 6 ½ or 6’ 9 between and that may be in the middle if it’s a big boat, heavily stressed, you’d want to have a good knee at the deck, and something fairly deep in the bilge area.

What are your favorite woods for clamp and shelf?

We frequently used a light wood to save weight, some sectional area to make the joints stiff, but the last thing we did, and this came a little bit from Pylm is Sweden, was to put double or single marine plywood knees and put the deck beams in line with the frames, and then one on each side, because we didn’t think you needed a continuous strake, which you would need on a barge that was going to bend as it went over the sea, but on a boat that has a fairly deep keel and pretty good topside height and everything, you don’t need that longitudinal stiffness, but you want to stop wracking. So quite a few of our boats in the prewar, perhaps more postwar, had little double plywood knees on each frame, bigger ones where you needed them, instead of any longitudinal knees. The Kay is built that way, I am quite sure she is. But anyway, quite a few – I think Anitra and several boats were built that way, and I think it was quite okay.

And that’s the way some of the early Herreshoff boats were done like ??????

I am not sure of that. I think they would have had knees perhaps, but I thought they generally had a clamp, deck clamp.

On a boat with a conventional clamp and shelf, would you rather see the scarphs, it would be rare to find on a boat of any size, one length of wood.

It would be hard to get it in. I’d rather have it nicely beveled and effectively glued joint. Again, when you cut a big member off and try to . . . or if you notch it, the conventional type of scarph, the trouble there is they frequently have a vertical notch . . . and then it comes over an inch there, and you really have taken a couple of inches off it. That’s why I said also on planking, I think a good glued piece would be very nice there. It would be somewhat more work, but would eliminate a weak point.

What do you see as the best joint or attachment between the deck beams and the clamp and shelf?

If you have a conventional clamp and shelf, where we had vertical bolts through the deck beam, the simplest small boat would have a single member in the corner, and there would be a bolt down through that, and the frame would be bolted to it. But then on the bigger boats, we had first a clamp, which was thinner, but deeper, and then we had a shelf, a second member, but more or less flat; and again there, we had bolts between . . . and many of them on the horizontal member, we even cut in a little bit for the deck beams which again would minimize the wracking. But then we got into more marine plywood, where you take away any wrack in the deck anyway. But originally, we sometimes rabbetted in a little way for the beams, so that they were held both ways.

On many of Francis Herreshoff’s boats, he designed the deck beam clamp shelf joint, so the end of the deck beam was fastened to the frame head. Is that something that you would do?

I don’t see anything wrong with it. But I think it’s very hard to get a very effective fastening when you’re so near the end of anything. The end of the frame and the deck beam, your fastening is awfully near the end. If you could have a fastening 3 or 4 inches away, it would do more. That’s why a fairly deep clamp and a fairly wide shelf, you really did pick up the deck beam, not just the end. Having picked it up 4 or 5 inches in is much more effective than anything you can do an inch from the end.

On some of the Fife boats, many of them have been long lived, the deck beams were cut full depth into the clamp, so that the top of the deck beam was flush with the top of the clamp, and then they didn’t protrude outboard further than the outboard of the clamp; but that would cause the deck to lie right on top of the deck beam and the clamp, which would seem to cut off ventilation.

I would say so, and I think this ventilation is very important.

Do you think the deck beams should be the same spacing as the frames?

For various reasons, particularly to have these little knees between each deck beam and each frame, that would make it want to be the same spacing – it depends a little on what kind of deck you are putting on. If you have a thick teak deck, you could obviously, the stress would need close spacing. If you have a very light deck, then the beams should be closer. But, basically, I’d say having them the same spacing in the frames is good, and that means your principal bulkheads can fasten to both the frame and the deck beams and it should be laid out carefully where you do have a structural bulkhead. Then it’s nice to have a . . . you have two choices, either have the deck beam . . . with the frame, or it can be sort of one side flush or even bridge them, so that the bulkhead goes in between. But that’s very hard to get it in, and I would say the best is to have a common face, so that the bulkhead can fasten to that frame and come on across to the adjacent deck beam.

How do you like to see the clamp-shelf joined to the breasthook and the quarter knees?

Well, I can’t give you a quick answer to that. It depends on how fine the boat is, but most of these boats are fairly fine – they’re not coming up like that, and the clamp itself is being fastened to the frames, and then there usually will generally a piece set in under the deck that’s kind of breasthook and knee that’s fastened to give some continuity. I can’t describe a certain kind of joint, but you’d certainly want to have the ends of the clamp shelf strong.

Some boats – I have noticed members, which I guess you would call hogging pieces, they’re like a second clamp. With a plywood bulkhead, or with the plywood you describe instead of strapping, do you think you’d need these hogging pieces?

No, I don’t think so. I think I’d rather hope that the basic structure of the boat, the planking system, the frames, perhaps heavier frames to take the sectional problems, but I think as far as hogging that way, it may come up again if we continue to build these flat pancakes of sandbaggers, but if they get back to decent-shaped boats, I think a hog is not a problem.

What do think is the best way to fasten chain plates to the hull?

This depends on where they are. For some years, when the boats were more conventional and less extreme beam, then we had, on the bigger boats, we had a plate, rectangular plate, which carried the individual chain plates; generally a center chain plate, and then a fore-and-aft chain plate for double . . . shrouds, and this plate had the chain plate lugs fastened to it, riveted to it usually, and the diagonal hull straps were riveted to the same basic plate. Now today, the boats are so wide, the chain plates are set quite far in, so it’s just an individual reinforcement, generally some kind of a knee that gives the chain plate strength. The fact that it’s quite far away from the basic planking, which is where your anchorage would be, you’d have to have quite a deep structure, so that the chain plate does transmit its load on to the planking.

Do you prefer to see a sawn deck beam or a laminated deck bean?

I think the crown is so small, it can be either way. I think it’s more attractive when it’s laminated, but there’s not enough . . . well, it depends on the crown; if there’s very much crown, it should certainly be laminated, and if there’s not much crown, sawn.

Is there any particular joint you’d like to see for the connection between the beam and the carlin?

The beam and the longitudinal member that’s under the side of the house? That’s a very difficult point, because you have a house side, assuming that we’re talking about wooden construction. But I think that there should be a husky piece put in there which does several things. It takes the end the carlins, the short beams, and it takes the side of the cabin house, and basically, the joint should be such that, forgetting what’s filing the joint, adhesive, or caulking, whatever, that the water would tend to drain out. I think that’s quite important a detail to try to get, rather than having the house side go all the way down, so that any water that gets on that can go right on down. I think the house should sit on it. The rabbetted piece, which is also beveled so the water tends to drain out of it, and that same piece would take the first strake of the deck, depending again on what kind of deck it is, and, basically, if you look at it in section, there must be the right bevel, so that any dampness that’s trying to get out, rather than get in.

So you’d like to see a house sitting on a grub?

That’s right.

It would be sitting on top – it would be integral.

Yes, it would be integral with the margin piece, and hopefully hollowed out that way, so you’re not trying to caulk against the side of the house. It should be on this grub that you speak of with a slight bevel out, so water would tend to clear out, and then light caulking and through-fastenings to hold the house down.

Should the caulking be against the margin piece, not against them?

It should be . . . so you’ll be caulking against the underside of the house, and not against that side of the house.

So you wouldn’t like to see, oh, I’ve noticed sometimes English boats have, the house side run down by the deck or margin piece.

Not good, I don’t think. Again, it should sit on something, so that the water . . . and not a 90 degree bevel, because the house shouldn’t be, its dreadful, theses extreme angles that’s used for houses – very weak, and you just lose good space, because you can’t step on that, so it should be in my opinion, just a slight bevel; when you over-bevel, you’re losing strength very rapidly. But in any case, whatever the bevel, it should be slightly this way, not at right angles for water to stay in. Everything should drain out.

What kind of a deck do you like to see on a traditionally-built boat, or a wooden boat today?

Well, there’s nothing that gives you the footing that a teak deck gives you, but the cost is an extremely big factor, and the replacement is prohibitive and so on, but there’s no footing as good as teak. That’s why so many European boats have it. In this country where the boats are supposed to be competitive, they don’t want to bother with the weight of the teak but it’s the best that you can have really.

If you had a teak deck, would you want a laid teak deck, or would you want teak over a good grade of plywood?

I would think it’s much better to have a regular laid deck, but it’s also the maintenance that’s hard. The plywood gives you quick waterproof barrier, but look out at what’s going to happen 8 or 10 years down the line.

You worry about water getting in between the teak and the plywood?

That’s correct. Whereas, much as you don’t like it, I’d rather have the water drop right in my eye down below, knowing I’ve got to fix it, than I would have it perfectly tight, but suddenly you find the plywood is kind of bulging above your head and then you’re got quite a problem.

What about canvas decks?

I think today it wouldn’t be canvas, because there are synthetics that are more durable, but I think the big trouble there is to get the right degree of friction, and having had a boat for 25 years that had a canvas deck, it was only about one year in three that it was what I thought was absolutely perfect. And I spent a lot of time going over the painting when it needed it, but you have three possibilities: one is just right, and that’s once in three years: once is pretty rough, it’s good for non-skid, but it’s dirty as can be; and the other is very clean, but dangerously slippery. Teak is always the same, that’s the thing…

When you say there are probably other materials, I assume you’re thinking of fiberglass over plywood.

I would say that today the simplest would be a good grade of plywood, and on top of glass. I think the reason for the glass is you can patch it more effectively, I think, than canvas, and if part is bad, you can cut it out and put some more down, and I think gets better adhesion to what’s still around there.

You don’t worry about water getting in between the fiberglass?

I would say the fiberglass would be stuck very hard onto the plywood.

So when you say fiberglass, are you thinking of epoxy?

I am thinking of cloth, but synthetic cloth, and I think you can patch it better than you can strict canvas. Canvas, to patch it, you’ve got to glue on it, there’s got to be some overlap.

So you’re thinking of epoxy resin, rather than polyester resin?

Yes.

On some English boats, I have noticed that the deck beams have a greater moulded depth toward the center than toward the clamp and shelf. Is that a good idea?

Well, I would say theoretically yes, because if you’re going to load it in the middle, that’s the most problem, is you go down near the end there’s less bending.

What kind of a, if you have a laid deck, what’s the best deck plank butt joint?

What we did was had a half overlap, so it occurred on a beam, and one fastening did for both. But it wasn’t really satisfactory. I think I’d still hope that you might be able to make glued joints, just like we talked about on the planking. I haven’t had them done that way. These planks set horizontal, they went down and cut over, and then cut off, and the other one came out from under, and then one fastening covered that. And then the top half was caulked.

It was a half lap?

That’s right.

On the covering boards, what kind of a joint do you like to see?

Again I’d like to see a good joint made up just the way we talked about for the planking, but otherwise there’d be a butt block underneath it and it would have a caulked joint that mainly come in to get clear of the life rail stanchions and whatever, toerails, or something like that.

But the scarf you talked about in the covering board as on a horizontal plane, rather than a vertical plane?

That’s right. You don’t want to carry narrow deck all the way out to the side, because when you’re fastening on stanchions, or whatever, I think it’s better to have some width in that plank, and we normally screw it down into the upper edge of the plank sheer, and then you start in with your regular decking, whatever it’s going to be. Now, if your deck is going to be cloth covered, whether it’s canvas or fiberglass, then that probably should come right on over the covering board and should be turned down over the edge with probably a piece of wood glued in over it, so that as far as the topside is concerned, you don’t see the edge of the cloth. It could be a piece of wood that could be replaced if the deck had to be recovered.

If you had a regular laid deck, of what other materials would you like to see besides teak?

We used in the thirties quite a lot of Port Orford cedar, which is quite a durable wood, and I know Nevins used it on a deck, which they built in the very early thirties, and we used it on most of the boats. We were supposed to be a little bit competitive, cause we hated weight of the teak; it gives you a very nice finish, Dorade had a Orford deck, Baruna, Bolero, I don’t know about Bolero she may have had teak but Baruna had it. A number of bigger boats had it, but that was a much lighter wood than teak, and it was a substitute for white pine, which you couldn’t get at the time. Port Orford cedar was the material that was a substitute for the then more or less non-existent clear white pine, which was always thought to be the right deck for a fancy yacht. So with not being able to get good white pine, the Port Orford cedar was substituted. It was very nice, but it had a fault, and that is that, and these were decks that were all fastened down through, screw fastened with plugs but it invariably cracked longitudinally where the plugs . . . even though the plugs were fitting right, you’d have a lot of longitudinal cracks. It was not anything like as durable as a teak deck, but it was a lot lighter, and also a lot less costly but I haven’t heard about it lately at all.

What about Douglas fir?

We never did at all; I know it has been done, but we didn’t get involved with that. Either it was teak or Port Orford cedar, or canvas over, and the earlier boats had canvas over softwood underneath. Strip deck underneath and canvas on top. It escapes me what it was, but it was a relatively light softwood, and durable, good for rot etc. Today we would probably use marine plywood, which would be better this way, and we’d probably use glass cloth, instead of canvas cloth simply because I think you can probably patch it better. On canvas, there as a lot of argument whether it should or should not be secured to the wood underneath it. I’ve read pro and con on that. I have seen canvas decks where water got in between and it wasn’t a very nice thing to have.

If you did a canvas deck over wood, would you want to see the wood planking with a tongue-in-groove joint between planks?

I think probably, and it probably should be glued to be more or less analogous, to what it would be if it was a good grade of marine plywood. And then I think cloth, whether it would be canvas or glass, should be stuck right down to it. As far as leaving it free, I just don’t think that it should be.

If you have a plywood deck, that would pretty much eliminate the need for strapping?

Right, very much so. And that’s one good advantage for it, because on the earlier boats where they had a laid teak deck, teak on beams, nothing underneath but normal beams, and heavy teak, we certainly had a metal plate around the partners, and at least four straps from that to keep that – plywood does a very good job there, and I think it’s probably justified.

Would you rather see two layers of lighter plywood, or one layer?

The advantage of two layers of lighter plywood, it minimizes problems that occur where the butts are. We had quite a problem with some of the early aluminum boats, because the aluminum comes and goes quite a lot, and the plywood was butted and butted pretty carefully, but nevertheless, the force of the aluminum when the sun got it, you still had a point. Therefore, by having two lighter layers, there’d be a much better chance of holding it.

You were talking about the house connection to the deck. You mentioned a heavy carlin underneath it. Francis Herreshoff on some of the boats he designed, eliminated the carlin underneath the houses. I guess he had in mind that the house side was really the carlin.

That’s right. It’s a good stiff piece. It depends on how big the ports are, and so many people wanted to have ports that were pretty big, which was very unfortunate, and they should be small, but otherwise they lose the strength of the house side by using such a big cutout where the port is installed.

Should house sides always be through bolted?

Always through bolted. We had several cases where the failure to bolt them made them very vulnerable. That’s pretty serious when a wave knocks into the side of your house.

What about tie rods between the carlins and the clamp?

That is desirable if you have a caulked deck of any kind, and it’s totally unnecessary if you have a plywood deck. I think that clear logic.

The joints of the house corners, outside corners . . . ?

That’s a very difficult one, and it’s . . . because, if you put a post inside and then have the side of the house and the forward end of the house, it’s a nasty place, because you’ve got this 45 degree angle and there’s no way to make it, to caulk it very well, because any caulking or anything tends to push it apart. I think to be structurally good, you should eliminate a nice round there, because that round is very attractive and fine, but it certainly is hard to make that strong and watertight.

I have noticed some boats that were built by the Fifes and Walsted and Seth Persson, oftentimes they’d be dovetailed in the corners.

I think that’s probably okay, but there are relatively few builders that would do it well enough so that it wasn’t just making trouble. If it was done really well, it was probably a good way. But again, you’re not going to have much round, and I don’t think you should have much round, because I think a mere request for a nice radius of the corner makes it hard to make it structurally strong.

On the house top construction, would you say that the same things that we discussed for the deck apply there?

I think this exactly and it would be only on a very large boat, where you have a teak or . . . but normally it will be covered with, probably again, cloth, perhaps today, glass cloth, and the cloth should come over the corner and then there should be a moulding, which is desirable anyway, because it cuts down on the apparent height of it. But, here again, you can’t have a big radius. A big radius looks beautiful, but there’s no structural way to make it very very sound. Therefore, I think the cloth should come over, and then there should be a moulding, and it should be cut so that it drips clear. The other side of the moulding should be drip moulding, not just rounded in.

On the house top beam joint to the house side, how would you like to see that done?

I would think that there it should be doubler inside and the beam should be notched very carefully into that. The more skill of the builder, the better, but it would not only hold it in place, but give it strength both ways.

Notched just into the doubler, but not into the house side?

No, I’d leave the house sides integral, but there should be a doubler which would receive a nice joint from each carlin or beam. Incidentally, if you’re having a cloth deck, there most certainly, it should be turned up against the outside of the house, and the house should be rabbeted in about 3/16-inch, depending on the size of it, so the cloth comes up, and then a moulding is set in, and again, the reason to have it rabbetted in so the water coming down the side of the house stars out. That’s very important. I replaced the cloth, it was still canvas on my own boat, in 1952 or 53, and a very good carpenter went all around the house and went in a full 1/8-inch, and not only that, he made a very nice tool so that he didn’t go in at 90 degrees, he went in a little bit upward, and then he made not just a piece of quarter round, which looks real cheesy, but it was very nicely-shaped moulding, which fit right up in there, so that water coming down the side of the house had no way inside, it was immediately deflected out , and the moulding, instead of being a half round , was a nice beveled piece, which came down on the deck, so the cloth was going in and turning up, and it was slightly rabbetted in the side of the house and it was totally tight.

So the moulding itself would be rabbetted into the house?

That is correct, just a little bit.

Do you think it would be all right to leave that rabbet on by the moulding and into the grub? I am thinking it would be easier to actually fabricate it that way.

Can you say that again?

Would it be all right to leave that . . . continue that rabbet on by to the bottom of the house side?

Oh, I understand what you’re saying. Yes it certainly would or it could do that or it could wash out to nothing. But mainly, there must be a rabbet at the top. Otherwise, the water could go into there.

On deck joinerwork, such as hatches and that sort of think, would you rather see the corner joints there mitered or half lapped?

This is the same thing we were talking about before, according to the cabin trunk.

But sometimes, say you’ve got the top base of a hatch that might not be thick enough for a dovetail joint to get a good structural dovetail joint.

Well, again, it’s hard, if you’ve got a 45-degree miter, it’s hard to keep that tight. But I don’t think there is a really much choice.

So you’d rather see a miter than a half lap?

No, I think the half lap probably would be better. With the half lap, you do see some end wood, but that’s all right, you just have to accept that.

But when you talk about the hatch coaming themselves, which should be more substantial. You’d rather see them treated the same way, maybe with dovetails?

And then again, it depends on what kind of hatch you’re going to use. I would say today that you’d be pretty smart to use some one of the 5 or 6 pretty good standard hatches which are coming out today, that might be against the grain or how do you feel about that?

I guess I was thinking of the hatches on Kay.

Some years ago, we designed the early aluminum hatch. It wasn’t as neat as one you can get today, but it was more watertight than one where you get a piece of mahogany or teak and go to work and build it, but I think with what you have from Goyo and from Lewmar and from Atkins and Holye and from Bomar, it’s pretty good. I am forgetting several, but they’re pretty good. It’s quite competitive, and therefore, I think you can make a tighter hatch with more flexibility and so forth. As I say this may be wrong, where we’re emphasizing the details of wood, but I have seen several builders making wooden hatches and skylights, and they’re very pretty, but they’re surely not as durable or as watertight as we used to think, a lot to get the rabbets all around, the metal piece standing up, and a piece of rubber closing down on it, they still leak pretty bad. I have quite a lot of respect for the current aluminum hatches.

What kind of wooden spar construction do you think makes sense for today, or do you in fact think that wooden spars make sense?

I am a little bit inclined to think no. For a long time, we used wooden spars simply because it was more or less prohibitive to get the special die made for the mast for your particular boat, and it also took a long time to get it. Therefore, if it wasn’t a very special job, we were happy to have a good wooden spar. Today there are so many different sections that are available that I would say there is a pretty good reason to consider using a metal spar.

If you were going to have a wooden spar, what would be the best construction section?

That depends on the size of it, but essentially, it would be made of at least four pieces in section, if it’s bigger, it would be a whole lot more. There would be four in the after pieces, and a panel in each side.

So you’d be thinking of a box section that would have corner pieces on the inside?

Well, it might have just four pieces, but there’d be a heavy piece fore and aft, which well take care of the round, and there’d be a piece on each side, and when you get all through, the spar is going to be like that. There’d be a heavier piece each way and that’ll cut out over here, assuming we take care of the greater thickness fore and aft. How it’s arranged does depend on the size of the material that’s available. But only on a very small mast would you make it out of two pieces, where you hollow each one and just have one glued joint. You’d scraf it up longitudinally first, and then finally put it together, but mostly you’d have at least four, and the bigger masts would have a whole lot more pieces.

On those corner joints between the fore and aft pieces of the side pieces, would you rather see one set of pieces rabbetted to align them, or would you rather see a corner piece in there?

I wouldn’t have a preference. Whatever would appeal to the fellow who was actually doing the job. It must be held in position, and, of course, must fit neatly, so that the glue is strong.

What do you think would happen if you had a wooden box section mast, like a traditional wooden mast, and then lined the inside of the mast, the members with the carbon fibers or something like that?

I think if you’re trying to pick up extra strength, you’re spinning your wheels a little bit doing it on the inside, because it’s too much nearer the neutral axis, and I think if you’re going to have a wooden mast, then I think it’s far better to have a wooden mast. If you’re going to have a metal mast, it’s better to have metal. I know that they had a lot of trouble with one of the masts of Intrepid, when Brittie Chance did a lot of work for that boat, and he sure got in trouble with the mast, because they chemically milled it, so it was lighter, and then they put carbon fiber on the outside, so Hughes thought he was getting a stronger mast for the same original weight, but the carbon fiber came off about every day - it was terrible. And they were really in big trouble. Therefore, I come back to the fact that if it’s going to be an aluminum mast, it ought to be aluminum, and a wooden mast, it probably ought to be wood – don’t mix them up.

When we built the new mast for Stormy Weather to your plans, the fore and aft dimension was increased over the original drawing, and the athwartships dimension was decreased. Do you think that’s a trend to be followed in wooden masts today?

The reason that was done was because the boat had quite a high fore triangle, and yet sailed a good deal with only a single - they didn’t want to be involved or troubled with an inner forestay, and so that dimension was increased, because the way it was when I sailed on Stormy Weather, the original mast wasn’t too stable unless you had the forestay set up. And if you were beating somewhere where you didn’t want to have it up and off, up and off, the mast was limber.

That’s why I suggested when it was being replaced, that we increase the fore and aft dimension. There was no trouble athwartships with the three spreaders, so I think it probably was a better mast in that shape than the way it was originally.

Do you think there are any ill effects of putting an alloy spar either in new traditionally constructed wooden boats or in older wooden boats?

I can’t really think what it would be. I think the only ill effect is when you have an enthusiastic sailmaker that wants to put a ridiculous amount of tension on the fore and aft rigging. That’s bad for any boat. Perhaps it may be a little more bad for a wooden boat than metal. It’s hard to get exactly the same stiffness.

Would you advise against rerigging a wooden boat, especially an older wooden boat, whose original rip was 3//4 or 7/8, with a masthead rig?

I would advise against it. I have a very good friend who had a 32 when I had Mustang, and he was anxious to have more headsail and bigger spinnakers, and we worked it out for him, but I think it was very hard on the boat. We raced and he was a very good sailor and it was six of one, half a dozen of another, and we didn’t feel it any disadvantage. I don’t think he beat us, although there were times when he’d gain. He did have a bigger spinnaker, he had bigger headsails, but the boat itself, it was awfully hard on it. I think it overloaded the mast step and overloaded the stern where the permanent backstay was, and I think in that case, and that’s a good example, because when you asked me, I think it was much better to keep the smaller fore triangle. There are tremendous advantages to that if people learn how to take advantage of it. The headsails are smaller, and they’re easier to handle, easier to set, easier to stow, and all of that. It would be too bad to overload that old hull, which wasn’t really strong enough for it, and yet using it the way I did, the hull was just fine – the boat never leaked at all. As far as I know, it’s still okay. I always warned the fellow who bought it not to put too much tension on the backstays; if you cut the headsails right, you can still be reasonably competitive. There are two ways of doing it – you have headsails cut for an absolutely straight stay, and put 10 or 15 thousand pounds on it, it’s okay, but what about the hull? So I think that’s quite important. And certainly the mainsail doesn’t hurt the boat really at all. It puts very little load on it, and puts nothing on backstays, and puts very little load on the headstay, and the shrouds and all, and, therefore, it’s nice to get some of your horsepower out of the mains, and too bad to do it the other way . . . go to a tiny mainsail and tremendous big number 1 genoa, which is cut to have an absolutely straight stay – it’s hard on the boat.

Besides turning a bright spar dark because of the sun problems, are there any problems with coating a wooden spar with epoxy?

No, I don’t think at all. I think that would depend on how the epoxy will stand up under the direct sun’s rays, whether there’s any trouble there. Otherwise, I don’t think it would hurt the spar as such.

I speculate there might be vapor barrier problems, just as you would in a house?

I can’t comment on that. I just don’t know.

What kind of rudder construction would you like to see?

I think the fundamental thing is that the stock itself must be strong enough. There’s been such a rash in the last 10 or 12 years of rudders just breaking off – that has to be strong enough. It becomes more acute when you have a spade rudder with nothing really helping it, it still can be bent all right, but the stock has to be big enough and one has to be careful of fine materials that are hard to handle and are not quite as strong as they are theoretically on paper. The rudder’s got to be strong. The classical thing, metal rudder stock of known material, either stainless steel or bronze, and then a wooden blade with . . . but you have to be very fussy about what take the torque. It’s not good enough to just have the bolts right through the stock, because if it gets enough fatigue, sooner or later, it’s going to come off, and we feel, in fact, there should be at least one strong strap on each side, which is secured to the stock. There are various ways, but preferably one way or another, it picks up the full torque, so you’re not putting . . . you still need some bolts to hold the rudder stock in place, but don’t take the torque on that. It has to be something that will take the torque so that otherwise those bolts will fatigue, and sooner or later, the stock will be okay, but the blade will be twisting on the stock.

What are the most important precautions to take to prevent electrolysis?

A simplified electrical system and use the right materials in the boat. The biggest electrolytic trouble is where the materials are mixed up. Primarily, electronic and electrical stuff, whether it’s a telephone or a radio, or something that – even the speedometer – anything like that can cause serious troubles. Boats that have the least electrolysis have the least electric and the least electronic material. My own boat, I had it 25 years, and it was 35 years old when I sold it, there wasn’t one touch of any electrolytic trouble. But why? The batteries were totally disconnected as soon as it got to be daylight, and frequently earlier than that if the crew was staying up too much. I had a master switch I’d just pull. And the batteries almost never went down; we almost never had to run to generate any electricity, and there was zero electrolysis. But the materials were right, and the electrical system simple. We had a speedometer, and a wind gauge, but they battery powered. Except for lights, and as soon as we were through with the lights, the battery was disconnected.

Would you bond or no?

I think probably yes, because I think it’s probably better to make an easy path for the difference in potential, rather than having it fight its way through fastenings, or whatever.

What about an isolation transformer?

I don’t have an opinion about that because I am basically cool on too much electrical stuff, and I’d rather leave that up to somebody that really knows. I am glad to talk about things I have a clear opinion and some experience with, like keeping the electrical system simple and cut out the battery when you can. On today’s boats, it’s probably impossible. With boats going to Bermuda now, they have their Sat/Nav on a few hours before they leave the dock, until they have at least crossed the finish line. I think that’s sort of unfortunate, but I guess we have to learn to live with it.

Do you feel you have electrolysis problems involving lead?

Lead is pretty kind, and the only trouble with an aluminum boat, there has to be insulation. But with a wooden boat, and with, hopefully, Everdur fastenings, which I guess are getting hard to get, not at all. Lead is pretty inert; so is the Everdur.

Do you think there’s a possibility of boats having electrolysis problems simply because they’re

lying in a crowded harbor or marina with lots of electrical activity in the water?

I presume it must be possible. I don’t like the thought, because it’s one thing to try and have your own boat so it’s okay, but if something’s coming in from the inside, that’s certainly difficult.

What do you consider the most important factors in designing a boat?

I think the most important thing is to keep it simple. And I think that’s the hardest thing to sell. Whenever a new client comes in here for the design of a boat, it’s the first thing I try and sell. And I have been totally unsuccessful 1000 percent. Nobody is the least bit interested in it. But it makes so much sense. I think of the miles and the hours and the months on my own boat, where the batteries never went down, never. In the last Bermuda race I sailed in, we had to run the motor two to three hours every day, and I must say I have sailed prior to that in my own boat in 10 - 15 Bermuda trips, and never run the engine ever, even once. And everything was full bore all the way. And this thing got about three hours into the day, the refrigerator was getting warm, the batteries going down . . . and run the motor. Simplicity!

When you are laying the boat up for the winter, what do you think that most important things are to keep in mind?

I think fundamentally, it’s very desirable to take everything off the boat. It may sound like extra work, but that’s the only way you can avoid accumulating things that you don’t know, and unable to find things you do need. I think that done properly when a boat comes into the yard, have a locker available, and everything should go off the boat.

Are there special things about the cradle or …?

Sure. The cradle certainly must support the boat in a kindly manner, so as not to . . . the keel must be sitting on something, and the rest of it just standing in and so forth.

Would you rather store a boat in a shed with a cement floor or dirt floor?

I really hadn’t thought about that. I think I’d probably rather have a cement floor, because it gets so dirty otherwise. There may be some problem. I think that really a wooden boat, the old classical kind of wooden boat, is probably better off in the water. I think today that’s not so important, because you’ve got this lamination, and you don’t have these big keelpieces that are going to check and dry out, so I think that emphasis has been removed. Going back some years, I would much rather have seen it stay in the water, because a keel does tend to check, or checks that are there tend to open out. Again, my own boat leaked very much for about an hour or two, and then somewhat for a day or two, and after that zero. And I really feel it’s too bad to have to have . . . when it first went into the water, you could see every seam, and there were some pretty good checks in the keel, and stuff like that.

You referred to ventilation?

I think it’s the most neglected feature from a design and building standpoint. It’s virtually impossible to get a builder to do what we feel should be done, and the owner always holds hands with the builder and thinks big cowls are going to be dreadful and so forth. I think it’s only about one boat in a hundred that has . . . there are two things. One, ventilation for preserving the hull. And, two ventilation for preserving the crew. Number two is totally disregarded; one bot in a hundred gives it a little thought, but not much.

Are there any special tricks that . . . speaking from a structural point of view, are there any special tricks you can think of to help create ventilation?

Yes, and changing the subject one is drainage. There shouldn’t be any place where water stands. Secondly, there should be no place that’s blocked off. There should be a circulation of air everywhere, and if the boat has the kind of ventilation that it should have to keep the crew happy, it’ll certainly keep the boat happy. The average boat, they totally disregard it. Even though the crew all complain, and they talk bout hatches and portholes, and stuff like that, which is nonsense. If you would really make the crew comfortable, the boat will benefit by it. And I think my own boat is a good example of that. It certainly had less problems than most any boat of the same age that has better ventilation.

Most people today seem to be cruising in boats of the 28 to 40 foot range. What are some of your favorite designs that you think would make sense today?

I think one is really known more or less as the Hinkley Pilot. I find it’s an attractive boat in appearance that goes pretty well under either sail or power. The people that have them like them. I think what should be avoided is the so-called state-of-the-art competitive boat today that has too little ballast and too much beam, and too little depth. I think every boat, to be enjoyed, has to have some deadrise, so it’s structurally safe, number1; and so you can live with it, and we’ll accept the fact that most boats are going to leak somewhat, sometime, and with no deadrise, what do you do about it? So, as I say, I think a boat of reasonable dimensions, no too wide and not too shallow, makes great sense. But you don’t see many of them in the so-called state-of-the-art boats today. They’re all flat bottomed, and not really very strong. If you sit them down hard on the keel, regardless of whether it’s made of metal or wood or fiberglass, there is no way you can do it. With the flat bottom, and the keel pushing up, there’s just one thing can happen. No matter how you build it, no matter what materials you use, they destroy themselves. Whereas, when you have some bilge, like those models there, you can sit them down pretty hard – it’s not nice to do but the keels aren’t going to come up in the cabin with you. I think that’s quite important. And a boat that can be pumped out when you’re sailing, and not going around . . . your vacuum cleaner or something.