Zenith - Swedish B Class.

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neil
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Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by neil »

Some of you know that I have a 1926 Swedish B Class canoe with lots of history.

Zenith has been safely stored in my old boat shed for the past 6/7 years drying out until I had the time and enthusiasm to sort her out.

As I replaced the boat shed a couple of weeks ago I put Zenith in the workshop while building the new shed. Whilst it was sat in the workshop I gave her a good looking at - and the upshot is that Zenith is getting restored. The Finn is on a back burner and I've given myself a target of getting Zenith on the water for the 2013 CVRDA nationals.

She was dragged out of a field in Scotland 10+ years ago and had a hard life. There's two holes in the bottom, but on inspection the amount of planking required is no that much and won't be too arduous to do.

I've spent two days poking, looking and plotting and I can't find any rot. Honduras Mahogany is a wonderful thing. The inside of the cockpit has been painted many times - the paint is 1/4" thick in places, but the drying out process has allowed the paint to peel off nicely, leaving lovely wood underneath.

There's 104 ribs on each side, to 208 in total. Of which 86 are broken. This is going to be the major part of the restoration. The ribs are 1/2" x 1/4" oak, so I can see the winter taken up with steaming, steaming and more steaming.

Structurally she's fine. I've had to repair a few broken deck beams and refix a few more. I've made 3 replacements for missing ones - this has been taxing, remembering how to do beam shelf joints then doing them at such a tiny scale.

Anyway - here's some pics of her after I removed the remains of the ply deck - this was screwed in, with screws every 1" on every beam - hours to remove them as most of the decking was missing with the screws left in place.

Image

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Image
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Zenith's rebuild - www.pegasus18.com/zenith
Obscured by clouds
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by Obscured by clouds »

Lovely. I'm sure the Song of the Paddle forum would like details too

http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum
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roger
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by roger »

Good to see her in the workshop Neil and hope to see her on the water in 2013.
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Rupert
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by Rupert »

She does look wonderful - if she makes it to the 2013 Nats, there might be a clean sweep on the Concours, bit like there was for Rannoch!
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trebor
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by trebor »

Hi Neil, daft question coming, is it called a canoe because it is pointed both ends?
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by JimC »

trebor wrote:Hi Neil, daft question coming, is it called a canoe because it is pointed both ends?
Basically yes... Sailing Canoe history is complicated, but if you're interested you could start here. http://www.intcanoe.org/ichistory1850.php One of the oddities of International Sport is that the International Canoe is affiliated to the International Canoe Federation, even though we use the International Sailing federation racing rules. Reason is that Canoe National Authorties and the Int federation was started by the sailors at least as much as the paddlers. In those days the International Yavcht Racing Union was basically just leadmines, precious few racing dinghies existed.
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neil
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by neil »

although this is mainly American focussed this Brief History of Sailing Canoes is worth a read

http://dragonflycanoe.com/aca1935/ACA1935.pdf
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by Jono »

Hi Neil,

An even dafter question, and probably one that is relevant to most boats talked about on here.... how do you go about getting a cover to fit this sort of boat?

I presume you need to be handy with a sowing machine as well as wood work?

Cheers,

Jono
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by JimC »

Jono wrote:how do you go about getting a cover to fit this sort of boat?
You download the measurement form on Banks' website (or other vendors are available) and fill it in [grin]
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neil
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by neil »

Luckily, when clearing out the old boatshed I came across a full set of International canoe covers (top and bottom) - these will be used until I get around to getting some custom ones made - I'll probably be filling out this form: http://www.rainandsun.co.uk/measure.htm

But covers are a long way away as I'm currently hunting down a supply oak for the new ribs
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Zenith's rebuild - www.pegasus18.com/zenith
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by neil »

A quick update - 100 ribs and 15' of Honduras mahogany have been purchased. All the deck is removed and work has started removing the first batch of ribs. Before the first lot of ribs go in there's many hours of varnish and paint removal ahead.

A few evenings of scraping, nitromors, swearing, tea drinking and lots of hard looking at have resulted in the bow tank nearly stripped.

Image

Probably going to be 4-6 weeks to get all the varnish and paint removed from the interior before the steamer gets fired up.
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by Rupert »

I remembers as a kid being on the wrong end of the rivets (trying to hold the head against the wood) when someone needed some help with a National 18 at Tamesis. Much as I love the look of boats with ribs, I think that put me off actually owning one.

On the theme of covers (as we were in August) I had a nice breathable cover made to measure for the Minisail by Sail Register recently. The one I bought for the Firefly more than a decade ago from them is still going strong, so maybe worth a look when you get that far.
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by Michael Brigg »

With all those ribs and lands, (mind you, at least its a smooth carvel construction,) you might want to think of contacting this seller for some stripper if your happy to use the "dirty" stuff...
98_2.jpg
(6.47 KiB) Not downloaded yet
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261115259654? ... _688wt_721

They say that a properly dry martini simply has the open bottle of Martini brought close enough for the Gin to sniff it. This stuff is said to be to paint stripping what Martini is to Gin...

(Actually I am of the mind that the carcinogenic properties of Burning varnish from the heat gun, not to mention the stress caused by worry about damage to the boat far exceed the dangers of Liver cancer (only seen in Rodents that have been virtually pickled in the stuff incidentally) that have caused the EU nanies to ban Dichloromethane from use by amatuers.

As for alkali strippers, I'd rather have my eyeball on needles than use the stuff. It takes the lustre out of the wood, burns like hell if you get it on the skin, and will blind you if you dont use goggles. And it takes forever to wash out of the wood afterwards.

Curiously they are not worried about (far far greater) industrial use (and pollution) of the organic solvent stuff. I wonder how much expensive lobbying that took?
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neil
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by neil »

As it happens I finished the last of the "old" Nitromors last night, and floated back inside with clear sinuses. Will give this a go and report back.
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trebor
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Re: Zenith - Swedish B Class.

Post by trebor »

looks a terrible job to do, my back is stiffening up just looking at it, how heavy is this boat when fully rigged? Hopefully I will be able to see boat next year. Rob.
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