Floors & Frames

Glimpses: Behind the Scenes Series
Written By Deborah Rudell

Floors with rot clearly visible against the planks and frames. Concrete still in place in this image, we jackhammered it all out prior to replacing damaged structures.

Floors all replaced with hardwood and through bolted to frames. View looking forward to where stem has been removed.

Today is about the skeleton of a boat. This turned out to be a major part of Elixir’s reconstruction. The infrastructure of a wooden boat is complex and requires hundreds of hours of skilled craftsmanship, all of it hidden in the finished vessel. 

After the keel, stem and stern timbers, the frames and floors are also major structural components of a wooden boat. When building a house, the floors are like joists and the frames similar to the studs in a wall. In a house, this lumber is all square and a uniform size. 

In a boat each floor is unique in its shape and angles and fastened with multiple through bolts. The frames also are unique and steeply curved to form the boat’s shape. The planks are fastened later and attach to the frames like sheetrock attaches to the studs inside a wall.

Unbeknownst to us when we arrived and started working on Elixir, these structures were compromised with rot, and structurally unsound. Yikes, way more that we signed up for, and well beyond our knowledge and experience, which was zero. 

In the days before computers, google, internet and email, we acquired and used an extensive library of boatbuilding books and Woodenboat Magazines for our education and reference.

 Rot clearly visible in the frame alongside the floor.

Repaired frame with new hardwood spliced in and marine plywood splint sistered alongside for added support and strength.

Deborah Rudell

I grew up in a small town in British Columbia, the eldest of four children. Typical of the 60’s and 70’s, there were many children in the neighborhood and plenty of independence and autonomy. My parents were busy with younger siblings and as a child I found solace in my stuffed animals and imaginary friends. As a preteen, my grandmother taught me about reincarnation, Edgar Cayce, yoga and Jesus. As a teen, my coping mechanism for the pain I saw and felt in the world was a reading list that included Max Heindel’s The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, Gina Cerminara’s Many Mansions, Levi Dowling’s The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ and books about Atlantis.

https://www.deborahrudell.com/
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Boatyard Friends