Category: 1947 Chris Craft Whiteside U22

For guidance on installing a True 5200 bottom, please click here… for details roster of materials and their sources, click here.

If only the sun were shining! Rock Bottom 1947 has been saved and today was to be her winter debut, that is, before we received six inches of snow last night. So, as we say in Vermont, “We are making do,” and shooting her debut indoors.

She’s endured being majorly disassembled. Her entire bottom and chines were released, failed and oak-soaked frames were replaced. Then the frames received four coats of REAL Smith’s Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer and three coats of Smith’s Penetrating Sealer. Three coats of Sandusky Paint Company Chris-Craft Mahogany Bilge Paint followed.

We fabricated her inner skin using 4 mil Meranti Aquatek Marine Plywood that was dosed with four coats of CPES on both sides and all edges and then installed bedded in copious amounts of mahogany 3M 5200 using #6 Frearson driver, silicon bronze flathead wood screws. (The inner faces received three coats of SANPACO bilge paint ahead of installation.)

Her 3/8” Meranti planks, combined with her Meranti plywood inner skin, especially having been heavily frosted with 3M 5200, delivers a near bomb-proof bottom.

The rest of our work was the standard sequence – strip, fair, stain, seal, paint or varnish, varnish some more, and some more, all followed by final assembly. As always:

• Robert Henkel, Peter Henkel INC recovered, rebuilt and thereby saved Rock Bottom’s original engine and driveline
• Shauna Whiting, Kocian Instruments, transformed her tired gauges into cosmetically stunning, perfectly functioning instruments they once were
• Mickey Dupuis and his crew at D&S Custom Metal Restoration transformed dull and scratched into incredibly show-ready hardware
• Chris Hanson, Marine Canvas of Shelburne, restored her upholstery to as new condition.

We did the rest and cannot wait to drop her into Lake Champlain next spring so we can challenge her with her sea trial before returning her to the only home in Maine she has ever known.

Please have a safe and sane July 4 weekend!

Yes, she is the U22 who encountered the gnarly rocks, and, yes, she has survived to run her home waters for many a decade to come.

She’s also the centerpiece of the film, On Golden Pond.

Her engine is back from Robert Henkel, Peter Henkel Inc., Marine City, MI, where he executed a complete rebuild. That work included the short and long blocks, transmission and everything bolted onto the engine.

She received a True 5200 Bottom, repaired keel, new landings for the strut and rudder mountings. Her topsides, decks, covering boards and transom were stripped to bare wood.

Her bottom is now painted in the correct blue, with a double boot stripe and Interlux Semi-gloss White Premium Yacht Enamel (six coats to date).

After sanding all bright-finished surfaces fair, Anthony applied Daly’s A & B Wood Bleach – 3:1 B:A ratio – throughout the day yesterday. The result, perhaps the first albino U22 you have seen!

Once the wood tests ten percent moisture or less, maybe this afternoon, but more likely next Monday, we will stain it using Lake Oswego Boat Company’s Post War Chris Craft Gel’d stain.

After we scuff-sand using medium Scotch Brite pads, we will apply Smith’s CPES – four coats – followed by scuffing once again.

Finally, we will begin applying Pettit Flagship High-Build varnish.

It won’t be long before the engine “drops” in and we are in assembly!

Rather than type out all the materials’ names and source links correctly each time, you can find a comprehensive roster in one place.

We re-opened, well sort of opened, this morning. The doors remain locked. Each of us is masked and gloved, and working in a separate room. At least the crew can complain together about sagging paint, cranky bolts that break and bead blasting in our outdoor shack at 37 F! Stay safe! After a final sanding of the Pettit Tie Coat Primer, and a first coat of topcoat applied on Saturday, I am applying the second base coat of semi-gloss white Interlux Premium Yacht Enamel on the topsides of our 1947 Cedar-planked U22.

I am rolling the paint on with an Arroworthy Mighty Mini 4” foam roller, and then tipping it immediately with a 3” foamy, the end of which I keep full of paint.

Why such a short roller, and why this one? We’ve tried 7” yellow foam roller covers, but the fit is terrible with surfaces like a wood boat’s topsides. The ends of the cover tend to leave tracks of extra paint, which makes uniform application very challenging.

I like this roller because its domed foam outer end is great for teasing paint into spray-rail-topside joints as well as those between the topsides and chines.

I work two planks at a time, roll the paint on from one end of the bull to the other, tipping as I go. We will apply four base coats with sanding using 200 grit after the second and fourth coats. Doing so exposes the declivities, which will remain slightly glossy against the post-sanding matte finish elsewhere, and fill-and-fair them with 3M Marine Premium Filler.

Each faired spot will be primed with Pettit Tie Coat Primer and hand block sanded, and then two more coats will be rolled and tipped.

Next comes a final sanding with 220 or higher grit, after which any remaining declivities will be filled, faired, primed and spot painted.

After one more sanding pass, we will apply the final two coats, at which point her topsides will be truly stunning.

May Day 2020 is also Cedar Topsides Paint-Prep Milestone Day for our 1947 Chris-Craft U22. She has been:

• Faired, plugged with 3M Marine Premium Filler
• Sealed with Smith’s CPES – 5 coats
• Primed with Pettit Tie Coat Primer 6627 – 5 coats

Her topsides have been worked on before, probably multiple times over her 73 years, and in at least one of the times that the topsides have been repainted, someone tried to fill all the planks seams with a material that I simply could not remove without tearing wood fibers and creating ragged edges.

Perhaps then, or at some other time, she was also assaulted by a random orbit or orbital sander, because the topside planking was replete with undulating hills and valleys. While they were nowhere as severe as we’ve seen on other boats, and they really weren’t that evident until I began applying CPES, but there they were.

The remedy involved first sanding across the grain at an approximate 45 degree angle with 80 grit, followed by sanding with the grain. I then applied two more coats of CPES and sanded again once it cured.

Next I applied the final coat of CPES and the first coat of Tie Coat Primer, and, albeit significantly less apparent, some hills and valleys were still evident under a strong shop light.

I sanded, applied two more coats of Tie Coat Primer, sanded again, applied another coat and spot sanded a final time. Today I blew through the topside prep/priming milestone as I applied the fifth and final coats.

Later this afternoon I will apply the first of at least five coats of semi-gloss white Interlux Premium Yacht Enamel.

Applying five coats allows for sanding with 180 and then 220 grit following the second and fourth coats.

Stripping her bottom completely was absolutely the right choice. Were you to navigate back to an earlier video, you would here me expressing virtual glee around how clean and oil-free our 1947 Chris-Craft U22’s bilge is/was.

Wrong!

She’s over seventy. Her bottom had never been released until today. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

Even if her engine never leaked, and even if no one spilled oil when sucking it our of the filler pipe, just regular use translates into goo, grease, grime, oil and God knows what else finding its way into the bilge. Everything gets coated and more so over the decades.

As this clip testifies, her framework is a greasy mess. Never could it hold paint. Once we finish stripping everything, we will reach for our Simple Green Industrial Degreaser and use literally gallons of it virtually full-strength cleaning and scrubbing. Then all surfaces will be coated in Sandusky Chris-Craft Mahogany Bilge Paint.

Thanks to a butt joint at about amidships, we will only release the aft section of chine plank, which will expose the chine frame and ends of the two aft bottom frames.

Releasing/replacing the center transom frame means first releasing all three, not just the bottom, transom plank.

Anthony has now released the port-side bottom planking, thereby exposing similarly greasy, grimy frame members.

Onward…

Phew! Rolling a Chris U22 is never easy.

A suggestion, when flipping clockwise when standing at the bow, tie a rope to the port side – to the port bilge stringer or other strong frame member. Run the rope over the port gunwale, under the boat, back up starboard side, up over the rolling bar ending up right back on the port side.

That way when she rolls you can continue pulling on the rope from the port side. She kick over beyond vertical. (We attach the rope to a winch for larger boats like a Chris U22.)

Be sure you have sufficient clearance above the floor as the boat drops when it has rolled halfway around. (We cheat by placing sheets of blue board where she is the widest.)

Remember, this is the Chris that bottomed out. The longitudinal, deep gouge in the fourth starboard plank outboard of the keel tells us that she initially bottomed there and that the damage continued aft, as we have chronicled in earlier videos.

In fact, her occupants should count their lucky stars that the rocks did not drive through the wood bottom, which would have almost surely sunk the boat quite quickly soon thereafter.

Having her upside down allows us to assess the situation and plan a path forward that, if possible, exposes all of the damaged framing without releasing the entire bottom. Happily, such is possible as the aft garboard and next planks extend only eight and ten feet respectively forward from the transom. Releasing these four planks – two on either side of the keel – should give us the access we need. (Note the “should.” We will only know for sure once the planks have been released.)

Since the center transom frame member was badly damaged and must be repaired, if not replaced, we must also release the bottom transom plank.

All that said, we will reach for our picks and Rotabroachs – search Amazon for Blair-Equipment 11090N-Rotabroach – and begin exposing and releasing fasteners.