quickly. After only six hours, the keel was dropped to a level line of blocks. We were surprised, however, to see that, even with the bottom of the keel leveled, almost 4 inches of arc remained in the line of the rabbet — the joint between the keel and the lowest hull plank. We determined that there were two separate things going on. First, the forward 40 feet of the 4-inch wormshoe (a sacrificial plank on the end of the keel that takes abrasion from grounding or attack by worms), was missing, allowing the forward end of the keel to sag. The forward wormshoe had probably been missing since 1903, when she grounded at Grays Harbor, Washington. The fix was easy enough. The forward part of the keel was jacked up and a new wormshoe section installed (see illustration of midship section, left). Even with the bow raised this much, however, there was still about 3 inches of arc in the line of the rabbet. We had to lower the midship blocking by 3 inches to straighten out the rabbet. The only explanation was that the vessel had been built with a bit of spring-loading against the hogging that was certain to arise when the hull was first floated. The first bit of hogging deformation would have actually bent the keel back toward a straight line. Then, as at several other points, we would stand back and marvel at the ingenuity of the original designers and builders. With the hull blocked to its approximate shape, the work of replacing rotten frame timbers could begin. The first step was to install ribbands along the hull. Ribbands are long wooden battens, about 2½ inches by 1 inch, by at least 40 feet long. These were screwed to the outer surface of the frames with drywall screws, their upper edges landing, as nearly as possible, on the seams of the old topside hull planking. The inner surface of the ribbands stood in for the hull planking. The shape of each piece of frame timber to be replaced could be patterned from the space between the ribbands outside and the ceiling planking inside. The renewal of the frame timbering began with the designation of every fifth frame as a “station” frame. The process of reframing was worked out in the course of renewing the station frames, beginning with Frame #25 on the starboard side. NUMBER 68
Ribbands are being installed to mark the runs of the original hull planking. The chalk numbers indicate frame numbers. 2004-05-17(5)
Frame structure and futtock numbering diagram. Drawing by Eric Balderston, Bay Ship & Yacht. 11