Those Troublesome Skegs Mistakes Were Made

So the skegs have been cut, spliced, drilled, countersunk, stained, and finished. Now we only have to mount them. Easy, right? Ahem.

I looked for a long time to find just the right sealant and adhesive for the skegs. They get bolted down of course, but you have to seal them really well, both to adhere them and to keep water from creeping into the bolt holes. You want something that is flexible, waterproof, low adhesion (since you dont want to tear the boat apart if you need to replace the skegs), and wont cost an arm and a leg.

They had something that would probably have worked at the local marine supply place.  But I was suspicious that they turned me upside down and shook out my pockets to see how much money I had when I walked in. Everything there was ridiculously expensive. They sold tubes of standard window caulk for $20, the same stuff you can get at the hardware store for less than $5. I went to the internets and found something that fit the bill for much much less.

As a former contractor, Ive used caulk a lot. You apply a modest bead of sealant and apply pressure, wherein it spreads out nicely along the surface. That was my theory here too.

I mounted both bottom skegs before I realized that the caulk was not cooperating.  The thick sealant didnt really spread and remained as a modest bead.  I put all the bolts in, I had everything together.

At first I thought, eh, its probably okay.  Then the more I thought about it, a boat with inadequately sealed holes in the bottom was not a great idea. I realized as much as I hated it, I was going to have to do it over.

Removing the skegs was easier said than done.  If this is low adhesive, Im glad I didnt use anything gnarlier, and Im glad I didnt tear up the boat any more than I did in my efforts.

I removed the skegs, scraped off the sealant, sanded it down, and refinished.

Then I applied the sealant the way I should have from the beginning, very generously.  

I drove the bolts part way through and set the skegs in place, struggling a bit to line up all the holes.

Then I went under the boat, added washers and nuts, and tightened the shit out of everything.  I struggled a lot with this as some of the bolts were a little too short and needed to be replaced.  And some of the bolts were a little too long and needed to be cut. This time the sealant went squish out the sides like it was supposed to.

The bottom skegs met up nicely with the forward skegs.

The result was a much more boaty looking boat.

The last thing I need to do is a little finishing work to the countersunk ends of the carriage bolts.

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Those Troublesome Skegs Bolt Holes and Finish

Here we drill all sorts of holes in our newly made skegs and finish them.

You know, it really helps to have the right tools. And you know what helps having the right tools? Money. I dont got none of that, so I have to make do with the tools I have. And sometimes that is a ridiculous process.

Here I am trying to level my handheld power drill in a slightly broken garage sale drill press with a bit that isnt quite long enough to go through the piece.

I have to drill bolt holes in the skegs. Then I have to drill through the newly fiberglassed and sealed hull to insert the bolts through structural members in the frame.

First I drilled a countersink to hide the head of the carriage bolts, then a hole through the skeg.

I placed the skegs in position on the hull, and then used a long bit to drill through the skeg into the hull and into the structural member of the boat.

Then I went under the boat and countersunk all the receiving ends of the bolt holes.

Actually, Im lying. But thats probably how I would do it now if I did it again. I doubted the accuracy of drilling down into the hull from above, so I marked the desired hole locations under the boat and drilled up. Then I marked the locations of the actual holes on the skegs. Then I took the skegs into the barn and used my sketchy drill press to drill the bolt holes in the skegs.

After all this stressful drilling, I finished the skegs with stain and a couple of coats of UV blocking polyurethane.

Next we install the skegs in the hull. Not once, but twice. Ahem.

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Those Troublesome Skegs Part the First

When we built punk rafts and floated several big rivers, we powered the rafts with canoe paddles and our own arms.  Though the big innertubes that floated the rafts provided so much flotation, they drew no more than a few inches of water, it was still like pushing a truck.  After a long day of avoiding Swirlies (eddies) and River Sharks (snags), we were exhausted.

Since the raft had no keel or centerboard, it had nothing to provide lateral stability.  So when we were going forward, we had to synchronize our rowing or else wed be zigging and zagging all over the water, which we did plenty of anyway.

As an aside, having no keel did have one advantage:  We could rotate on a dime. So for example, avoiding an object in the water dead ahead, the Caller might call, "Okay, give me one easy backward stroke," while paddling forward herself to pivot the raft toward the hazard.  Then shed call, "Okay, now give me three strong backward strokes," to put the raft out of the way of the snag. Facing the hazard forward thusly, we could always push off if we hadnt rowed fast or strong enough.

In short, it was a big pain.  And exhausting if we had to row any distance, for instance in still water.

The plans for the shantyboat have long skegs (sorta like double keels) that run the length of the bottom of the hull. This gives the boat lateral stability when it is powered and keeps it from skipping all over the water when the boat is turned.

While it really didnt seem like a big deal to make and install the skegs on the finished hull, it turned out to be a bit of a long process.  Heres why:

1. The skegs had to be made out of a rot resistant wood that turned out to be hard to find in the lengths I needed.
2. I ended up having to splice board together to make adequate lengths.
3. They had to be bolted through the beautiful hull Id just finished making watertight, and I was scared.
4. I screwed up several times and had to redo stuff.
5. I had inadequate tools for some of this work.

It sounds like Im making excuses, but it feels more like:  "Haha, look how dumb I am, yet I still got it done."

The plans called for any of a variety of woods, none of which the local lumber yard had in anything approaching the lengths I needed.  White Oak, Yellow Cedar, Port Orford Cedar, a few other ones that are found on the East Coast. Ideally, I was looking for 16 foot lengths. But these are increasingly rare hardwoods that simply dont come in those lengths.

I found a specialty hardwood vendor only a half hour away. They had the Port Orford Cedar and what they called Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Neither of these are actually cedar, but are cypress. For you botany nerds, Port Orford cedar is officially known as Lawson cedar or Chamaecyparis lawsoniana. Alaskan yellow cedar is Cupressus nootkatensis.

Of those, the longest they had was 14 foot lengths. A conversation with the hardwood dealer goes like this:

"Can you get either of these trees in sixteen foot lengths?"

"We get what we get."

"I mean do you ever get 16 foot lengths? Can you order that length?"

"We get what they bring us."

O-kay.  That didnt sound too hopeful.  I knew if I had to, I could splice a longer length together.  There was lots of frantic maths at the lumberyard trying to see what lengths gave me the most efficient use of wood.  While still expensive, the Port Orford cedar was half the price of yellow cedar, so that decided it.

This was expensive wood, so I wanted to make sure I got the best use out of it. I had to use the cedar for the bottom skegs, the fore skegs, the trim boards along the bottom side, and the edge boards all around the top edge. So I created a cut plan so that every bit of the wood was put to use.

Then I spent days cutting and ripping and making lots of sawdust, sure that every cut I made was going to render this expensive piece of wood unusable.

Next well talk about the splice that turned four shorter pieces of wood into two long 16 foot skegs.

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