160817 Peter Shepherd combined toc & text

Construction of the classic Six Metre
model yacht Michel Selig II
By Basil Carmody (basil@sfr.fr)
Table of contents
[xxx] = illustration
P
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I. Michel Selig
A. Six Metre yachts 1
[comparison of 6mR hulls]
[Third Rule equation]
B. The birth of Sixes 2
[Architects]
[Onkel Adolph]
[Louis Dyèvre]
C. Falling in love with Sixes 4
[Caprice]
[Michel Selig in Cornwall]
D. Michel Selig
1. History 5
[Launching]
[Steering wheel]
[Hebrides n = 3]
[Chris White & nail rot]
2. Restoration becomes reconstruction 9
[Unloading at Villa Manou]
[Temporarily propped]
[Movable props]
[Cabin & cockpit removed]
a. Taking off the lines of Michel Selig 11

[JMM & masking tape]
[Chevalet]
- Offsets 12
[Stations]
[Stations & waterlines]
- Two fundamental errors 15
b. Condition
- Lack of stiffness 16
- Floors 16
[Ring floor]
- Nail rot 17
[Nail rot from inside]
[Ring floor]
c. A complete re-build or a component by component
replacement?
19
[Nirvana moulds]
[Nirvana ribbands]
[Nirvana frames]
d. Lofting 20
[Half shell]
[Lofting platform]
e. Abandon 22
II.
Michel Selig II (MS II)
A. Intention 22
B. Bread n' butter contruction method 23
[Cardinal II]
C. Lofting again
1. Profile 24
[Station sections]
2. Stations and waterlines 25
D. Calculation of the ballast 25
E. Wood 26
F. Fabricating the rough hull
1. Transfer of waterlines to the planks

a. Slaloming through the knots 26
b. Drawing the waterlines on the planks 26
[Top and bottom of plans with red and green lines]
2. Half lifts
a. Cutting the half lifts 27
b. Preview of the finished hull 27
[Cumulative build up of lifts]
c. Drawing stations on the sides the "half" lifts 30
[Drawing the station lines on the sides of a half lift]
[Stacking the lifts]
[Alignment of the station lines]
3. Knots 31
[Two bits]
[Keyhole guide]
[Nail points]
[Bungs in place]
4. Gluing the half lifts together 33
[Close up of gluing the forward part]
[Close up of gluing the aft part]
[Overall view from the bow]
[Overall view from the stern]
5. Upper part of the hull 36
[Gluing the two lowest lifts together]
[Gluing the two top lifts together]
[Exterior bridges]
[Upper hull]
[Interior bridges]
[Bottom of the studs]
[Stud supports]
[Complete rough hull]
6. Plugs and sternpost 38
7. Full rough hull 39
I. Michel Selig I

A. Six Metre yachts
Six Metre yachts are built according to the International Rule
which was first drafted in 1907. They are among the most
beautiful yachts in existence, with long forward and aft
overhangs. They are referred to as "Sixes" or "6mR's".
A comparison of 6mR hulls. The top boat is the 1985
"Capriccio". The 2nd the 1930 Totem and the bottom
one the 1938 Goose, perhaps the most successful Six of
all times.
A rule is different from a class. The hulls of boats of the same
class are all identical (more or less).
A rule is an equation which specifies the relationship between
various parameters of a boat, with a number as the solution of
the equation. The current equation for the International Rule is:
where:
L = the overall length

d = a measurement of how much the hull has a
"wine glass" shape
F = the freeboard
S = the sail area
The International Rule also includes Eights, Twelves and even
higher. The numbers of their names correspond to the solution
of the equation. If the equation gives a result less than 6, it will
qualify as a Six . Ditto for the other names.
B. The birth of Sixes
1907 was at the highpoint of the first worldwide globalisation
period. It ended with WW I.
This globalisation also extended to yachtsmen of various
European countries who wanted to race against each other with
equivalent boats. The Rule permitted naval architects of these
countries to come up with their best designs for boats whose
parameters conformed to the Rule. In each country, yachtsman
commissioned boats from these architects and then raced them
in international competitions. The best architects were:
William Fife (UK)
Johan Anker
(Norway)
Torre Holm
(Sweden)
Gustav Estlander
(Finland)
Olin Stephens (USA)
The first international race of Sixes was sailed in 1907 on the
Seine River in France at Meulan, organised by the Cercle de
Voile de Paris. When the current was too strong, the boats
anchored. They also ran aground on the mud flats. It was won
by the German entry, Onkel Adolph, pictured below:

The class (the word is applied to Sixes) prospered. 1000 boats
were built before WWII. It became an Olympic class and it was
"the" development class. New ideas were first tried out on
Sixes.
An anomaly of the Rule is that the boats are twice as long as
their numbers. A Six is about 12 m. long.
This goes back to a humourous story at the London conference
that created the Rule in 1907. In fact the conference was fixed.
The northern countries and the U.K. had already decided the
form of the equation.
The monolingual French representative, Louis Dyèvre, wasn't in
on the "fix".
He huffed and puffed in French at the blackboard advocating a
variant of the American Universal Rule which has a parameter
in the denominator.

As a sop, the conference included a useless denominator to the
equation with a value of about 2 (see above). As a result, this
has the effect of dividing the overall length of a Six by 2,which
is why a boat which is about12 m. long is called a Six.
C. Falling in love with Sixes
We have a summer house at Saint-Tropez, France. It's over a
century old and it was tiny when we bought it (less that 500 sq.
ft.)
After the general contractor walked off the job after a year, I
took over. During this time, I came to love Saint-Tropez during
the winter.
When the house was finally finished, I wondered what I could
do to justify coming to Saint-Tropez during the winter instead of
staying in Paris.
By chance I saw a Six, GBR 48 Caprice
The 1946 Six "Caprice" designed and built by
McGruer & Son of Clynder, Scotland

and fell in love with the class. I then decided to look for a
wreck of a Six, which I soon found in Cornwall, which I could
restore in our garden in Saint-Tropez. She was K 75 Joanna, ex-
G 24 Michel Selig and Avalun VIII.
D. Michel Selig
1. History
Michel Selig at the Ocean Yacht Co. boatyard in
Cornwall at the time of purchase
First her name: G 24 Michel Selig, G 24 being her sail
number.. It remains an unknown. Literally, it means
Michael the Blessed. No German speaker I've met has
come up with an explanation.
She was commissioned by Hans Collignon, a prosperous
printer and active yachtsman who sailed on the Wannsee, a
lake on the outskirts of Berlin. He intended to enter her in
the June 1936 German elimination trials for the upcoming
Olympic Games, whose sailing activities were located at
Kiel, just to the east of Denmark.
For some unknown reason, he commissioned Reinhard
Drewitz, probably the world's best designer of sailing
dinghies of the period, as architect. Drewitz must have told
Colllignon that he was no match for successful 6mR
architects like Anker, etc. (see above). He may have
convinced Collignon to make a bet on the weather.
The Berlin boatyard of Wilhelm Buchholz built her. She is
the only Berlin built Six.
In June, the weather in Kiel is usually quite windy. There is
a 10% chance that the Scandinavian high will descend to
Kiel bringing calm breezes. Drewitz may have said that he
could design a Six optimized for low wind speeds and thus
perhaps faster than the other Sixes with their general
purpose all weather design.
His design was a Six that resembled a centreboard sailing
dinghy. In the formula of the International Rule above, the
variable "d" corresponds to a penalty for having a wineglass
shaped cross section, rather than a rounded one. Drewitz's
centreboard shape resulted in a severe penalty. To
compensate for it, he designed the boat to float bow down,

almost exposing the rudder, to lower the waterline length
which compensated the "d" penalty.
Two key opposing concepts in sailboat design are wetted
surface and hull speed In light winds, one wants a
minimum of wetted surface. For stronger winds, when the
boat reaches full speed, it reaches a limit based on its
waterline length (its hull speed). The longer the waterline
length, the faster the hull speed.
Drewitz designed such a light boat that, if the crew moved
forward, the boat tilted forward and its wetted surface was
reduced and, if it moved aft, the boat tilted aft, extending its
waterline length. It was a remarkable concept for the
period. It is now common practice for certain modern
racing yachts.
Apparently, Collignon rejected the concept after the boat
was built. To make her float "normally, he had 120 kg. of
the forward part of the ballast moved aft in the form of forty
3 kg. lead ingots, thereby also rendering her rating so that
she was no longer a Six.
Photo of Michel Selig before launching. The caption in
German explains Drewitz's concept of shifting the
crew's weight forward and aft, but the boat had
already been "adjusted" by Collignon to give it a

"normal" waterline. (Note the "wine glass" cross
section.)
He sold her, bought a second hand Six for the Olympic
trials and was eliminated. Her new owner, Dr Tubiak,
named her G 24 Avalun VIII, sailing her at Collignon's
yacht club, the Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee
The Scandinavian high didn't descend on Kiel in June. It
also turned out that no one was able to get Michel Selig to
sail fast. (Previously, a dinghy owner had complained to
Drewitz that his Drewitz designed boat was too slow.
Drewitz took it over and raced it for the rest of the season,
winning almost every race.)
By 1939, she was in England, renamed K 75 Joanna. In the
1960's she was modified as a cruiser with a steering wheel!
Joanna at Tobermory equiped with a steering wheel
and a two cycle Sea Gull outboard
For the period 1970 - 1984, she sailed in the Hebrides.

Michel Selig, then named K 75 Joanna, in the Hebrides
Her owners, a syndicate of young yachtsmen, loved her.
By the 1990's, she was in need of a restoration. She had
several owners, each intending to restore her and then
giving up
Chris White, one of the syndicate members, and his
son with Joanna at the start of her restoration period.
Note the black spots on the hull. More about them
below.
An interesting sidelight of her history is what became of her
plans. Drewitz bequeathed his practice to Helmut
Ruhrdanz. After the Soviet occupation, Ruhrdanz was in

East Berlin. His son needing medicine only available in
West Berlin, he was allowed to go back and forth.
One evening as he was entertaining three young East
Berliners, they told him of their plans to cross over to the
West via a tunnel. They were caught and mentioned their
conversation with Ruhrdanz to the Stasi secret police. The
The Stasi arrested and imprisoned Ruhrdanz and, in the
process, confiscated all of Drewitz plans, presumably
including the only copy of those of Michel Selig.
2. Restoration becomes reconstruction
As mentioned above, friends found Michel Selig for me in
Cornwall. I had her shipped to Saint-Tropez sight unseen.
Michel Selig arriving at our house in Saint-Tropez
Propped up preliminarily. Note the prevalence of the
black spots

Shored up with movable props
After removal of the cabin and self bailing cockpit
added when converted to cruising

2. Restoration becomes reconstruction
a. Taking off the lines
One of the first tasks in restoration of Michel Selig was
to create a set of plans for her. I knew that the hull was
sufficiently twisted that the distance from the port and
starboard sides of the hull to the centreline would not
be the same because of this
The first step in doing this was to "take off her lines",
i.e. measure enough points on the surface of the hull to
be able to produce a three dimensional model, of the
hull.
With my gardener, we measured 800 points on the hull
along the waterlines, the stations and the buttocks
(longitudinal sections) - both port and starboard.
My gardener establishing the reference design
waterline on the hull

Establishing reference verticals at a station. An offset
was the distance between a vertical and the hull.
Despite the appearance of the photo, the verticals were
truly vertical.
- Offsets
In preparing the design of a boat, a naval architect
first defines a side view of a boat (its "profile").

A drawing of the profile of Michel Selig with detail of
the components of the backbone, which is thus more
properly called a construction plan.
He then draws a number of equally spaced vertical
lines on the profile (the"stations") which represent
vertical sections of the hull.
Similarly, he does the same thing horizontally (the
"waterlines") which represent horizontal sections of
the hull.
Three views of Michel Selig: 1.) upper left - the station
profiles, viewed from the stern, are superposed, 2.)
upper right - ditto, but viewed from the bow, 3.) the
waterlines of the starboard half of the boat, viewed
from the bottom, are superposed.
The results remain a two dimensional representation
of the hull. One can combine the stations and

waterlines on a profile view, thus creating
intersections of the stations and waterlines.
To add a third dimension of the hull, the architect
defines a plane which cuts the hull longitudinally
(the "centre plane"). (The waterlines shown above
are drawn reative to the centre plane.) He then
defines the distance between the centre plane and
each intersection of a waterline and a station. This
distance is called an "offset". Once he has done this
for each intersection, he has in effect defined the
hull in three dimensions. The set of these offsets is
called a "table of offsets".
Our 800 points were in effect a table of offsets for
both the port and starboard sides.
- Two fundamental errors
My architect should have told me to immediately
convert the take off data into a set of plans and a
table of offsets. This would have led to the
discovery of the inevitable errors in our
measurements which could then have been corrected
by re-measuring the erroneous data.
He didn't and I merely set the take off data aside.
I also didn't record rigourously precise data defining
the profile of the boat. This would haunt me later
b. Condition
- Lack of stiffness
The condition of the hull was abdominal. I could
move the transom 20 cm. to the left and right. The
ballast keel had been removed. Planks were
missing. The wooden keel and the deadwood below
all seemed rotten.
- Floors
When a boat heels, the ballast keel would like to stay
in a vertical position, thus separating itself from the
hull.
"Floors" are used to counteract this force. They are
metallic. They are firmly attached to the ballast keel
and then they extend upward alongside the inside of
the hull distributing the force of the ballast keel on
the hull.
Between the wooden keel and the ballast keel, there
were a number of shims which adjusted for the
difference in the angles of the two. These are called
"deadwoods".

As was customary for the period, and especially for
fresh water sailing, Wilhelm Buchholz had used soft
steel for the floors and also for all the bolts attaching
the floors and deadwoods to the hull..
In saltwater, the "through hull" steel bolts attaching
the floors to the hull had begun to electrolise.
Similarly, many parts of the floors in the bilge had
rusted away.
"Ring"floor completely rusted at the bottom where it
was in the bilge
- Nail rot
Two photos above showed the black spots on the
exterior of the planking.
All the black spots corresponded to "through hull"
steel bolts attaching the floors to the hull. Seen from
the inside of the hull, the wood around the bolt was
completely rotten. The floor could be removed by
simply pulling it away.

Holes of rotten wood where the floors were attached to
the hull (between 17 & 18 and between 19 & 20
This is a fairly unusual phenomenon called "nail rot"
where the electrolysis of the bolt causes the
surrounding wood to rot. It occurs on some Sixes,
but never to this extent.
In Michel Selig's case, the nail rot had attacked
every plank and also the wooden keel and the
deadwoods.
I don't know why this occurred to this extent.
Perhaps the steel used by Wilhelm Buchholz
favoured nail rot.
I also don't understand why my own architect and
other architects who examined Michel Selig, never
explained the nail rot situation to me. I wonder if
the seller of Michel Selig, a professional yacht
restorer with whom I even developed a friendship,
knew, but decided to take advantage of me.

I could only conclude that almost every components
of Michel Selig was rotten. The task I faced was not
to restore, but to re-build completely.
- A complete re-build or a component by component
replacement?
Given my age and my health, I knew that I would
never be able to constru20ct a new Michel Selig.
The approach of replacing individual components of
a deformed hull seemed unwise and extremely time
consuming for a mediocre finished product. I
therefore chose a complete re-build, hoping that I
would advance sufficiently to motivate a successor
to finish the re-build.
In building a Six, one usually works on the hull
upside down.
The planking is the fourth layer of the construction
process. The layers are:
-a set of vertical "moulds" which establish the shape
of the hull:
Moulds of the 2011 replica of the Six "Nirvana" (or
"Seasta") designed by Olin Stephaens and built by
Yachtwerft Robbe & Berking Classics GmbH &
Co.KG of Germany
- a set of horizontal "ribbands" which create the form
of the boat:

Ribbands of Nirvana
- the vertical "frames or "timbers which are steamed to
the point of being pliable and then attached to the
ribbands:
Frames cooled and hardened after being attached to
the ribbands
- and finally the planks which are usually attached
to the frames by rivets.
I hoped toget to the point of creating the moulds which
would have permitted my successor to set them up and
proceed to the following stages.
d. Lofting
The sequences of steps for producing the moulds
are:
- taking off the lines of the hull (discussed above)
- drawing the plans of the hull
- lofting or laying off: drawing the plans on a 1:1
scale,

- cutting the moulds from the full size plan.
When I started the reconstruction phase of Michel
Selig, the first step was to lay off her plans full size
so as to be able to fabricate the "moulds" over which
the hull would be built. I had decided to sidestep,
the drawing the plans.
This included the construction of a "drawing board"
slightly bigger than the size of Michel Selig.
Because of a lack of space and because I was setting
off to re-construct Michel Selig, I dismantled her,
saving every component.
Michel Selig partially dismantled
Next, I built the full size "drawing board" or lofting
platform.

Lofting platform for laying off the lines of Michel Selig
at a 1:1 scale
e. Abandon
As I started lofting , I encountered the errors introduced
at the time of taking off her lines. The major problem
was that I was unable to fit the wooden keel within the
profile.
To analyse the problem, I entered my data into
AutoCAD. There was no solution, I would have to
shorten the wooden keel.
It was at this point that my age and health caught up
with me. The lofting process probably required
kneeling down and then getting up again over a
thousand times. My knees weren't up to it, so I had no
choice but to totally abandon the project.
It was one of the saddest events of my life. Not that I
had spent so much time arriving at that point, but that
wouldn't leave a usable trace of Michel Selig for
posterity.
II.
Michel Selig II (MS II)
A. Intention
Since I was unable to finish a full sized version of Michel Selig,
I wanted to leave a physical model (Michel Selig II, referred to
as MS II hereafter) of her for posterity.
With luck, I discovered the Six Metre Class - Model Yacht
Association in England which counts over 80 yachts (referred to

as R6M's), most of which are "moderns" as opposed to
"classics". Michel Selig is a "classic", so MS II will be also.
The association has its own Rule which is virtually identical to
the International Rule and ten times more readable.
The scale of the model yachts is 2/3" for each foot of a Six or a
multiplier of 0.139.
The yachts are radio controlled.
Three of its members were extremely helpful:
- Mike Ewart, president of the class, who encouraged me
every bit of the way and who guided me to the two key
counselors, without whom I could not have built the
model.
- Henry Farley, the official measurer of the class, who
has measured over 80 model yachts. He was extremely
helpful for all the quantitative aspects of planning and
building the model.
- Cliff Grove, one of the top builders of model yachts in
the world. Our ample e-mail correspondence led to a
genuine friendship. He helped me with all the details
of actually constructing the model.
When finished, I hope to donate the model and its plans and
offsets to a maritime museum so that Michael Selig can continue
to live after I'm gone. (I'm now 79.)
The finished boat would measure 1415 mm overall with a mast
of 1806 mm.
B. Bread n' butter construction method
There are two principal ways to build a model boat:
- the "planking" method which approximates that of
building a full size boat with frames and planking
- the "dugout" method which resembles the construction
of a dugout canoe, starting with a single piece of wood
and then emptying the inside and carving the outside
At age 12, as a summer camp project, I had already used the
dugout method, starting from a single piece of redwood.

Cardinal II, built by the author at age 12 as a summer
camp project (restored by his son, Nathaniel)
A variant of the dugout method is the Bread 'n Butter method. It
consists of slicing the boat horizontally into a stack of planks cut
to the waterlines. Each slice (a "lift") can be cut to the outline of
the waterline at the eventual thickness of the hull. This enables
the use of a band saw to cut away all the excess wood both
outside and inside the intended hull thickness.
It was this method used for Michel Seling II.
C. Lofting again
1. Profile
The profile was the first priority. It permitted the
calculation of the position of the beginning and end of each
waterline. Similarly, it provided the values for the bottom
ends of the stations.
The profile plan permitted me to draw the bottom ends of
the stations on each cross-section of the sections plan

2. Stations and waterlines
Station profiles for stations 15 - 20
First, each station and waterline was drawn separately to
ensure a smooth line. Next they were drawn together, as
per the finished product of a naval architect, to make sure
that they were correctly separated, one from the other.
A table of offsets was prepared from these drawings
D. Calculation of the ballast
I wanted MS II to float on the same lines as Michel Selig. In
fact, this was necessary for MS II to conform to the Rule.
Henry Farley said that the only way to determine the weight and
position of the lead ballast would be through trial and error. He
advised me to build the lower portion of the hull (the "plug")
detached from the upper portion - and also to build several
copies of it for the trial and error process. The plug would be
connected to the upper portion of the hull by two lengths of
threaded stock which would also connect the ballast keel to the
hull.
In fact, the plug didn't run fully aft. I fabricated a fixed
sternpost for the after portion. This would permit me to build
the rudder and its radio control independently of the task of
fabricating the plug..
E. Wood

I wanted a light wood which would be relatively easy to carve.
Western red cedar was my preference, but its price at the saw
mill near Saint-Tropez was prohibitive. I settled for a spruce
(Picea abies) which has an average of one or two big knots for
every 1.5 metres.
The saw mill didn't want to plane the planks to the spacing of
the waterlines (13.9 mm. or about half an inch). I settled for the
thickness of two waterlines (27.8 mm. or about 1-1/8").
Separate planks were used for the starboard and port halves of
lift. This allowed cutting the inside portion of the lifts with a
band saw.
F. Fabricating the rough hull
1. Transfer of the waterlines to the planks
Whereas the margin of error in drawing the plans was ± 1
mm., that for working on the wood was of at least ± 2 mm.
a
Slaloming through the knots
The first task was to find a path on each plank which
avoided knots. To say the least, it was tedious.
For a given plank, the upper and lower waterlines lines
of the lift form a pair, which can be named by the upper
waterline. There are four possible positions of the
upper waterline relative to the two faces of the plank:
- on the topside of the plank, the centreline of the
upper waterline can be on the right or left edges
of the planks
- ditto for the underside of the plank.
For each position, one can slide the waterline from one
end to the other of the plank looking for a point where
the upper waterline doesn't pass through a knot.
One must next verify that the lower waterline also
avoids knots.
To do this, I produced lengths of cardboard with the
upper and lower waterlines drawn on them. I cut it
along the upper waterline and then slid both cardboard
halves from one end to the other of the plank to find the
best position
I cut then cut the cardboard along the lower waterline
and verified that the position chosen for the upper
waterline also proved a knot free path for the lower
one.
b. Drawing the waterlines on the planks.
I then drew stations on both sides of the plank
corresponding to the correct position of the waterlines.

On the upper side of the plank, I drew a "safety margin"
line 3 mm. outside the waterline. This was the line
used for cutting.
On the lower side of the plank I did essentially the
same thing: 6 mm. for the thickness of the hull, plus 3
mm. as the safety margin.
The top side of the lift that goes from waterline 11 to
13. One can see the waterline (green) and the 3 mm.
safety margin. The extreme width of the plank
indicates that the hull is almost flat between these
waterline.
The bottom side of the same lift that goes from
waterline 11 to 13. The distance between the green and
red lines on the bottom of a lift is 9 mm. : 6 mm. for the
thickness of the hull and a 3 mm. safety margin.
2. Half lifts
a. Cutting the half lifts
Since I can't use electric cutting tools because of the
anti-coagulants I take, I subcontracted the cutting of the
lifts to my old friend and ship's carpenter, Manu
Allibert of Saint Tropez. He found the planks well
prepared and cut the lifts with his band saw, working
for a total of five hours.
b. Preview of the finished rough hull

The photos below show the cumulative stacking of the
seven pairs of half lifts, starting from the highest lift to
the full boat. In the next to last photo, one sees the four
lifts of the plug and sternpost stacked on the lowest lift.

The two half lifts of lift no. 1 The four half lifts of lifts nos. 1 & 2
The six half lifts of lifts nos. 1, 2 & 3
The eight half lifts of lifts nos. 1, 2, 3
& 4
The ten half lifts of lifts nos. 1, 2, 3, 4
& 5
The four lifts of the plug and the
sternpost
The complete hull consisting of
fourteen half lifts of lifts nos. 1 - 7,
plus the four lifts of the plug and of

the sternpost
c. Drawing station lines on the sides of the "half" lifts
In preparing the plans for cutting, station lines had been
drawn on the top and bottom of the lifts. During the
carving phase, station lines are needed on the outer and
inner sides of the boat.
This meant connecting the station lines on the top of a
half lift with those on the bottom. Disappointingly, the
lines rarely lined up completely. There was usually a
discrepancy of 1 - 2 mm. - and sometimes much more.
This led to drawing lines of three colours:
- blue: for the initial linking of the top and bottom
lines, i.e. one half lift at a time,
- green: for resolving discrepancies between the blue
lines on both the inner and outer sides of the two
halves of the lift, i.e. two half lifts at a time,
- red: for defining a definitive station line on the
outside of the hull over all the lifts (after gluing the
lifts together).
Drawing the station lines on the sides of a half lift.
They should correspond to the station lines on the top
and bottom of the lifts. One can see that they don't.
The square ensures that the lines will be
perpendicular.
The next step was to verify that the station lines of the
two half lifts are in alignment.

3. Knots
The alignment of the station lines on the sides of the
four lifts of the plug are being verified. Thrre are
discrepancies.
Despite slaloming among the knots in drawing the
waterlines, some half lifts ended up with knots. For these, it
was necessary to drill out the knots and fill them with
bungs.
I found that a 19 mm keyhole saw could cut out a bung to
fit into a knot drilled with a 16 mm. drill.
The two bits used to drill through knots and then
fabricate a bung. The 16 mm. drill removes the knot.
The 19 mm. keyhole saw produces a bung which will fit
tightly in the hole drilled.
A keyhole saw bit has a drill in the centre to guide it. The
bungs needed to be solid throughout, so it was necessary to

emove the drill from the bit. Normally, this results in the
bit skidding on the wood before it starts cutting.
To avoid the skidding, I used a guide - and I also drove nails
through the guide with the points sticking out to avoid
skidding
The keyhole saw bit guide (centre). The other holes were
drilled in attempts to find the right combination of keyhole
bit and drill bit.
The nail points sticking out of the keyhole guide to
avoid skidding
It was important to line of the grain of the bungs with that
of the half lift.

The bungs and the rest of the hull were glued with
polyurethane glue. In France, it is considered carcinogenic.
It is no longer available to non professionals. Accordingly,
I had to buy 5 litres at an exorbitant cost.
The bungs glued in place and lined up with the grain of
the half lift.
4. Gluing the half lifts together
In gluing to half lifts together, I lined up the station lines
and held the half lifts snugly one against the other and in the
same plane, securing them with clamps.
The first point to remember is that polyurethane sticks to
everything except polyethylene. I covered my work board
with a sheet of polyethylene and I wrapped the parts being
glued in what is called in the U.S. "Saran Wrap", a light
polyethylene film for the kitchen used to cover food
It was necessary to insert nails just forward and just aft of
the wedges to prevent them sliding along the hull as I
tightened the clamps.

Gluing the forward part of two half lifts together. One
can see the Saran wrap around the part being glued.
Its purpose is to avoid adhesion to the wedges. One
can also see two nails which prevent the wedges from
sliding forward under the pressure of the clamp.
Gluing the aft part of two half lifts together. One can
see two nails at the aft end of the lift. Their purpose is
to avoid the entire lift sliding aft under the pressure of
the clamp and wedges at the forward end.

Forward view of two pairs of half lifts being glued
together. One can see the nails blocking the wedges.
Note the use of a mason's clamp for the wide part of
the lift

Aft view of two pairs of half lifts being glued together.
One can see the nails blocking the wedges.
5. Upper part of the hull
The upper part of hull consists of the seven lifts glued
together.
Gluing the two lowest lifts together
My collection of wood clamps was insufficient for gluing
together the upper lifts, which are the longest, using them
alone. I had recourse to 3 kg. lead ingots and masons'
clamps.
For the ingots to squeeze correctly, it was necessary to place
a support under the lifts where the ingots were placed.
Before clamping, I placed the ingots in place. Their weight
stabilised the structure, preventing it from shifting as I
placed the clamps.
The centre of gravity of the masons' clamps is not in line
with where the pressure is being applied to the lifts. This
gives them the tendency rotate out of the vertical, thus
placing a twisting force on the lifts. To avoid this, they
were placed next to the lead ingots which helped the lifts
resist the twisting force
Gluing the two top lifts together. Note
the lead ingots and the masons' clamps.
As the upper part of the hull narrowed, it was no longer
possible to place the clamps directly on the lifts. Bridges

were necessary. According to the need, some were placed
outside the hull and others inside the hull.
The narrower width of the top lift, with respect to the two
below, makes it impossible to place the clamps directly on it.
The solution is to use a "bridge" which spans the top lift and
then to put the clamps on the bridge.
Fulll upper hull being glued. The bottom ends of the clamps
are shown in the following photo

The use of bridges on the inside of the hull where one sees
the bottom ends of the clamps of the previous icture
6. Plugs and sternpost
The plugs, the sternpost and the lowest lift were drilled
vertically for four pieces of threaded stock (studs).
Holes were drilled in the aft part of lift 1 of the plug to
lighten it. Given the uncertainty as to the eventual position
of the ballast, no other holes were drilled in the lower lifts.
The lifts of the sternpost and one of the three plug were
glued together.
Four temporary "bridges" were placed in the upper hull to
anchor the studs, thus allowing the plug and the sternpost to
be attached to the upper hull.
The bottom of the four studs permitting the removal of
the plug from the upper hull
7. The full rough hull

Temporary supports on the inside of the upper hull
permitting the attachment of the plug studs
Complete hull with the upper hull, the plug and the
sternpost, the latter two attached to the upper hull by
the studs