Category: Chris Craft

As is so often the case with antique and classic wooden boat preservation, vessels tend to keep secrets. Our 1956 19′ Chris-Craft Capri Runabout gave no hint of what previous butchers had done to her and the horrific water trap they created in the process.

She let us in on this secret yesterday as Joe was finishing sanding her topsides fair. “We are almost to bleaching! I have only the last four or so feet to do on each side and I will be at the bow.” Right. Then his inline sanded started throwing up chunks, and suddenly, he had broken through a plank just aft of the bullnose bow.

Careful probing told the story. Our Capri’s bullnose is severely rotted along its starboard margin, as are the forward ends of the top three planks. One plank on port is rotted through as well. All of it is because the butchers were too lazy to address foredeck framing issues properly, by releasing planks rather than reaching for a circular saw and simply making an athwart cut through them all the way across the deck.

A sloppy athwart seam butt joint “repair” failed, of course. The seam opened at some point, allowing water to infiltrate and keep the planks and bow wet. Talk about a perfect storm for rot! As I explain in the clip, Joe will address the bullnose rot using a Dutchman repair. Then the offending planks will be replaced, which is both best for the boat and likely also best for her owner as it’s a least-cost path relative to trying to scab new planking onto the ends of the existing and rotted planks.

Now that I have released the damaged planks, I am tooth-picking, filling each and every screw hole in the frames and battens with three white ash toothpicks and Gorilla Glue. It is a tedious, gooey task, but is the only right way to go. (Toothpick source: https://cibowares.com/products/plain-round-toothpicks)

Replacing the #8 with #10 screws is absolutely the wrong way to go. The holding power of that aged wood is compromised, and, since the #10’s have larger heads than the #8’s, larger countersinks must be driven, which, in turn requires inserting larger bungs, if you can find them. Go the lazy way and you “earn” weak fastening and wood bungs that are noticeably larger than all the others on your boat. UGHHHHH!

Shoddy butchers is the nicest thing I can say about the crew who raped the foredeck on our 1956 Chris-Craft 19’ Capri.

It would have been trivially easy to simply release these four planks. But no. Let’s just saw athwart the foredeck, fashion incredibly silly scarfs and rabbited joints using mahogany that does not come close to the original.

And why not at least bleach the entire deck so there is some hope that the new, incredibly mismatched planking at the bow melded at least a little with the rest of the deck. I have no idea how long these rapists were at assaulting this Capri, but it took us eight hours to extract all the worn-out screws, cut through whatever glue they reached for, and release the four planks and the patches.

Oh, and why oh why would these guys pay 3M 5200 where Sikaflex belongs?

It would have been professional to return everything to its original position using consistent, NEW silicon bronze Frearson wood screws, but no. Why not just reach for the screw recycling bucket and use whatever is in the first handful pulled out therefrom?

Then there is the truly shoddy work done at the bow beneath these planks. A major frame member is not even secured at its port end.

Enough. When we are finished, this travesty will be impossible to see.

And … Today was bilge-cleaning day for Anthony. Armed with a Sandvik scraper, a gallon of Roll-Off, and a quart into a spray bottle, he weighed in; sadly, not for long, however.

Starting deep down next to the keel and keelson, he began scraping the interior surfaces of the inner planking – the approximately eight-inch-thick planking that was laid in at about a forty-five degree angle.

“OMG!” erupted from the bilge. Anthony’s scraper buried itself in severely rotted wood with the first several swipes at scraping the external layer of grease off. We tested elsewhere with the same result. Virtually all of the bottom’s interior skin from the keel to the bilge stringers and from the helm station to behind the transmission is just gone.

Releasing the bottom is the absolutely last thing her owner wants to hear, but I am guessing that we will find similarly rotted exterior planking – at least on these planks’ inner faces – when we begin releasing the bottom planks.

At the risk of beating on a very tired old drum, here again is why other than guesstimating what preserving these ancient vessels will cost is tantamount to rushing into a fool’s errand.