Originally published in January, 2016.
Muriel Eileen, a 65-foot buy boat built in 1926, is now privately owned and has been transformed from a workhorse into a lovely, unique yacht. She has been maintained for many years by the crew at Hartge Yacht Yard in Galesville, MD.
This winter, her owner had her hauled out to repair a chronic leak in the shaft log area. Getting to the problem involved removing the rudder, the 42-inch propeller, and its three-inch diameter shaft, and several structural timbers only to discover that an old temporary fix involving a piece of deadwood and a deteriorating horn timber led to a joint filled with pitch and mud, the ultimate source of the leak.
Modern restorers constantly face the challenge of locating wood suitable for repairing old boats. In this case some seasoned Osage Orange was located. This type of wood is native to central Texas and Oklahoma and is often used locally as an ornamental and for windbreaks. It thrives in the sandy soil of Chesapeake country. The wood is very dense, dimensionally stable, rot resistant, and is perfect for the new timbers required for a new shaft log.
HYY Updates on the Muriel Eileen
About
Every couple of years since 1992 a 65 ft buyboat Muriel Eileen has come to us for some work, occasionally just for painting and caulking, but usually quite a bit more. A number of times we have replaced 10 to 15 feet of the cross-planked bottom, other years new rub rails, or some new frames and other timbers.
One year we installed electronics and another year a custom long leaf yellow pine box for an antique taft rail knot log. I guess over the years since she was built in 1926, the majority of the boat has been rebuilt by us and others. However the hull sides are mostly original full length planks with drift pins put in vertically for extra strength.
Muriel Eileen was built in 1926 in Bena, a town in Tidewater Virginia across the York River from Yorktown. Boats like this were used for all sorts of jobs as varied as hauling grain across the bay to the chicken farms on the eastern shore, to buying and transporting oysters from the watermen working the oyster beds, to dredging crabs in Virginia during the winter.
December
Our carpenters, Peter Bell and Ernie Stuermer, have just started on a challenging job (the word gnarly comes to mind) to repair a chronic leak in the forward end of the shaft log area. The first step was to pull the rudder, 42” prop, 3” shaft; stern bearing, shaft log and stuffing box. Maybe the forward end of the horn timber had deteriorated, but whatever had happened to it, it is gone now and in its place is a chuck of wood about one foot cube fastened with drift pins to the junction of the keel, horn timber, shaft log, stuffing box.
Some short stringer-like timbers that run beside the horn timber and forward onto the top of the keel. We removed the block and the short stringers. There are newer and longer stringer-like timbers fastened outside of the short ones that we surmise was added for extra strength. The tough part for the carpenters is where to put their bodies. The carpenters are alternately sitting, kneeling, or twisting in a bent over position to work on a part of the boat that is lower than their feet.
Unfortunately the timbers can only be removed with hammer and chisel that are constantly chipped on the many iron drift pins. Quite a strain on the constitution, and a few other things.
Next to be fixed was a vertical piece of deadwood just forward of the rudder post. It didn’t fit well and was the start of a leak that worked its way through a gap between the keel and horn timber then around new and old shaft logs. The fasteners between the horn timber and keel were long gone and the joint was filled by man with pitch and by Mother Nature with mud. With all this cleaned up we could see a former shaft log had been filled and a new one drilled in a new location. As we took Muriel Eileen apart, we're thinking about where we could get big pieces of strong, dry, stable, and rot resistant wood. Our normal suppliers don’t carry pine or oak pieces as big as we needed. Ernie remembered helping a friend cut down some big osage orange trees ten years ago from a farm on the Eastern Shore. The pieces suitable for knees went to a boat builder in New England. The straight pieces were stored at a piece of property on Weems Creek. Ernie and Peter Bell dug them out from under vines and leaves, milled them with a chain saw to manageable sizes, then hand electric planned one surface smooth and ran them through our big band saw.
So far the osage orange has been used for a wedge to fill the gap between the keel and horn timber, the block for the stuffing box, the short stringers that help hold the horn timber to the keel and one piece of deadwood. We’ll also use this wood for two new 8” x 8” x 5ft samson posts and some repairs to the round stern. More on the project next month.
January
The buyboat Muriel Eileen is back together and in the water. New and old pieces in the shaft log area were re-secured with bronze bolts custom made by Pete Appell to replace the wasted away iron drifts and bolts. Not wanting large washers and nuts protruding from the bottom, some bolts were welded to plates that neatly fit to the deadrise and buttocks lines.
The interior, aft of the engine and around the stuffing box, is mostly reassembled and being painted. Before long we will be starting on the samson posts and chunk stern -- a term for round sterns built from chunks of wood stacked like bricks and driftpinned together.
February
Work is ongoing to the 65 foot buy boat, Muriel Eileen, involving two new, solid wood samson posts. Even after milling the osage orange to more manageable pieces these five-foot posts were too large for our lathe, so Pete and Ernie made a routing jig to cut in the round profile where the lines lash, then bored and reused the old pins and topped with new hand-made lead caps on both. The posts will next be fitted and shimmed, before final fastening and painting.
March
Muriel Eileen, a 1926 buyboat, was launched before Christmas after we rebuilt the troublesome area where the horn timber meets the keel and is pierced by the prop shaft and shaft log. We painted the new wood in the stuffing box area and the interior of the hull from the shaft log area to the transom. We are now digging into bad wood on the chunk stern and the bulwark around the stern that appears to be the original yellow pine. The replacement wood is ipe and that should last forever.