Duckflat have started work on Kirribilli – the historic Australian 5.5 metre class yacht for a consortium of owners.
Keel is off – boat is upside down – hull is half stripped and half splined – starboard side. I’m assisting with the technical side. If the end result is as nice as the work Duck Flat and I did on our last keelboat restoration – “the orange boat” – that would be a happy outcome.
We had a talk today – she’s built of beautiful WR Cedar planking and glued with resorcinol glue. Tween planks is splined with almost like a veneer of cedar – no more than 1.5mm wide at the hull surface.and no variation in width. Not surprising of a Bill Barnett built boat!
She was painted with an acrylic paint but the hull had been given a coat of varnish first – so the acrylic is peeling off beautifully. Unfortunately the cedar is quite stained with small scale dark patches spread all over the surface of the boat. It 
won’t be possible to clear finish her. If she had been planked in honduras mahogany though …
On the tech side the floors seem to have been too narrow – they were kept that way so the sole could be deep and the crew down low for more righting moment – but they were wrong there – the crew has a much bigger effect sitting on the side deck or on the windward side under the deck. All the hull splits were immediately above where the floors terminated – so we will raise the floors (and the sole) to spread the load from the keel a lot further.
Also the keel entry and hull entry is way too sharp – would have hurt her upwind performance a great deal – particularly in rough water. So we will optimise the keel without changing the side profile view.
Also she has a little skeg fitted behind the rudder/keel which seems to indicate they were trying to tame her downwind steering – the boats of this era were touchy in a blow downwind with lots of rolling. We will probably enlarge the rudder for better control and cut it down toward the original if the control is fine.
We want her to go and want her to behave so will do some minor mods of this type – it actually isn’t much at all. We also have to be careful not to increase the weight – otherwise she will become a 5.55 metre yacht rather than a 5.5
Decks are shot – so they will be replaced with a new one – that’s probably the biggest avenue for reducing weight.
Link to the thread on woodwork forums with description of what is happening, how and why. You can also look above the post that you land on to fill in a few more details.
