14-Year-Old .Plywood Boat

A lZ-foot, flat bottom rowboat in which Thomas C. Birk gf Aberdeen, Wash., has fished up and down the streams of the Olympic peninsula for the past 13 years has the longest use record yet reported for a boat built of plywood with waterproof phenolic resin gluelines.

The reason is a simple one !

Birk's boat, constructed in 1934, was built from among the very first sheets of plywood of this type ever produced. Harbor Plywood Corp. began production of Super-Harbord, panels with the phenolic resin gluelines, late that year, and some of this first material went into the simple, rib-free utility boat.

Actually, the skiff was originally built by Dave Sommerville, an amateur builder then living at Aberdeen but nor.v residing at Tacoma. Birk bought the craft from Sommerville a year later and used it continuously until it was purchased by Harbor Plywood Corp. this fall to be established as a permanent exhibit of the endurance of the outdoor type plywood.

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Sommerville used rl-inch plywood (panels with phenolic resin adhesives suitable for marine applications and permanent outdoor exposure now are identified as Exterior type by the fir plywood industry) both for sides and bottom.

Following simple constru.ction, which capitalizes on the

Old-Tiner. Thig ll-yecr-old plywood rliff cffordr one ol tbe longest, il not lhe longert, ncrine uee recor& lor Douglcr lir Plywood oI ihe type now known sr Exterior. It wcr built ol /r-inch SuperHcrbord when lirst rncnulqctured in f$4. The bocrt hcl seen constqnt rer"ice on Hood Ctrncl <rnd Olynpic Peninrula etrecrnr until bought loet lnll by Hcrbor Pllnrood Corp. lor dirplcy purposer.

Photo wqs tqlen on Wynoochee river in Septenbert inherent strength of plywood, the boat was ,built with only longitudinal framing. No ribs were needed. The seat brackets amidships and the sternpiece act as vertical stifieners.

Sommerville hit upon thls design as he was interested in (Continued on Page 63)