1932 S.F. BIRD, IDEAS WANTED

[HUMMINGBIRD22]

HELLO, I'm in the process of deciding fate of a 1932 S.F. Bird Boat. She's in OK condition, doesn't take on water, but recent haul out shows signs of her needing major work that I can't afford. I've listed the boat, no calls. I've inquired about donating, no calls. I've a thought, but most pay no heed to the idea of decommissioning or breaking down the boat carefully and repurposing the pieces/parts/fittings/sails/lines and misc. items into smaller projects, perhaps even building a smaller boat with the ribs/planks/floors. The mast/boom are very good condition. Sails are new. I've replaced a number of planks/floors (cedar/fir/oak) recently. She's sitting in Sausalito, CA, not a lot of empty lots for the project. I can sail her to other spots around S.F., but most yards have nixed the idea or they want too many $$.

In need of a good idea! I don't want to take the fittings off and smash it up as most have suggested.

Thank you,

 

[Wansworth]

Sorry unrelated question,how are the people living on their boats afloat in Sausalito,Isaw a vid that many where being chucked out to make way for modernization of the area,no more boat bums.Suprisedyou have no takers for your craft,maybe if it was on the east coast

 

[DownWest]

I just glanced at the Wooden Boat Forum, but didn't see any mention there? Probably a better place to ask, as US based.
As for yards, could you not trail it to a place inland for repairs? Very nice looking boat.

 

[jamie N]

Welcome. What a beautiful looking boat, and what an invidious position to find yourself in.
It's an awful thing, but would you feel able to 'give her away' to someone who does have the means for the necessary work?
It's not unheard of for someone to 'gift' an item to a more able person who is going to repair/love, a boat/bike/car, on the understanding that if they sell it on, 10% comes to the original owner, the important thing being that the boat/bike/car isn't scrapped.
I've done this with a motorcycle that I'd a bond with, and all parties are happy.

 

[Hummingbird_22]

So, a little over a year later, an update by the new owners of Hummingbird.

A friend found this thread and sent me a link.

We got Hummingbird in June 2023. We hauled her out for an insurance survey and found a cracked butt-block that was fixed on the spot. The only other concern was the lack of a self bailing cockpit. I am a photographer, and had been shooting the San Francisco Master Mariners races for the past 10 years, so I started through my albums looking for pics of Hummingbird. Sure enough I found some from 2018 and 2019. At this time, she looked nothing like the boat in my pictures. The boat had been hastily repainted and the color chosen was questionable at best. Still, below deck she looked fantastic. I knew that the transom was made from Mahogany, and wondered why it had been painted over. Also, what happened to the rub and toe rails as well as the breast hook at the bow? I came to the conclusion that since the boat was out of the water, I should try and find the beautiful mahogany transom that I knew was under the paint.

I started in with a sander and was making slow headway, so I pulled out a heat gun hoping the varnish that used to be there, was still there and I'd be able to scrape the old varnish off with the paint. It worked... With a few hours of work, the transom was stripped down to bare wood revealing that someone had taken a belt sander to it, and done so across the grain... Ouch.

I got creative and managed to sand the issue out of the wood giving me something to work with. I broke out some model paint brushes, and hand painted the name back out so that it matched the pics I had from 2018.

July 6 2024 Hummingbird went back in the water with a beautiful looking transom once more. I also removed all the hardware from the cap-rail around the cockpit and belt sanded it level again as it looked like someone had stripped it with some sort of abrasive rotary tool without taking the hardware off. I cringed at having to use a belt sander, but it was the only way to get things back to near level.

We took Hummingbird to her new home and gave the deck a good cleaning, and another coat of varnish went on the caprails and transom.

She was starting to come together. Still a long way to go, but headway was being made.
The next task was to reef out the cove stripe. It was filled with 95 years of old paint and filler. In some places it was nearly completely filled in. I spent several hours experimenting with different ways to clean it out, eventually finding a dowel with some stick on sandpaper to be the hot ticket. Slowly I ground my way down to bare wood and was able to make the stripe fairly even and uniform. I discovered the first color off the wood was gold. I didn't think gold would show up against the current paint, so I went with black. Not ideal, but it worked.

A small change, but what a difference it made. At this point, we really wanted to get out and sail Hummingbird as much as possible. We had her out 25 times from the end of June when we got her, to the beginning of November when I shot this pic.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

I had started doing research on Hummingbird not long after we got her, and discovered she wasn't built in 1932 as her title states, but actually in either late 1929 or 1930. Through the San Francisco Maritime Museum's archives, I found pictures of Hummingbird from June 1930 proving she wasn't a 1932 boat. I also found this...
"22 - Humming Bird (built 1930; sloop: yacht: Bird Class, No. 22) Built by George Kneass. Name spelled HUMMING BIRD (with a space between) in 1931-1938 Yacht Association Year Books. Owned by St. Francis Yacht Club member G.W. Kneass (1931-1932); St. Francis Yacht Club member Harry Young (1933); Harry Young (no yacht club listed) (1934-1937); San Francisco Yacht Club member Harry Young (1938)."

We had planned to haul Hummingbird out at the beginning of the year, but the weather wasn't cooperating, so it wasn't until May 2024 that she came out. Armed with these photos, I knew the direction I wanted to take to bring this Bird back to her former self.
May 3, 2024...

Let the games begin...

Will

 

[Wansworth]

So, a little over a year later, an update by the new owners of Hummingbird.

A friend found this thread and sent me a link.

We got Hummingbird in June 2023. We hauled her out for an insurance survey and found a cracked butt-block that was fixed on the spot. The only other concern was the lack of a self bailing cockpit. I am a photographer, and had been shooting the San Francisco Master Mariners races for the past 10 years, so I started through my albums looking for pics of Hummingbird. Sure enough I found some from 2018 and 2019. At this time, she looked nothing like the boat in my pictures. The boat had been hastily repainted and the color chosen was questionable at best. Still, below deck she looked fantastic. I knew that the transom was made from Mahogany, and wondered why it had been painted over. Also, what happened to the rub and toe rails as well as the breast hook at the bow? I came to the conclusion that since the boat was out of the water, I should try and find the beautiful mahogany transom that I knew was under the paint.

I started in with a sander and was making slow headway, so I pulled out a heat gun hoping the varnish that used to be there, was still there and I'd be able to scrape the old varnish off with the paint. It worked... With a few hours of work, the transom was stripped down to bare wood revealing that someone had taken a belt sander to it, and done so across the grain... Ouch.

I got creative and managed to sand the issue out of the wood giving me something to work with. I broke out some model paint brushes, and hand painted the name back out so that it matched the pics I had from 2018.

July 6 2024 Hummingbird went back in the water with a beautiful looking transom once more. I also removed all the hardware from the cap-rail around the cockpit and belt sanded it level again as it looked like someone had stripped it with some sort of abrasive rotary tool without taking the hardware off. I cringed at having to use a belt sander, but it was the only way to get things back to near level.

We took Hummingbird to her new home and gave the deck a good cleaning, and another coat of varnish went on the caprails and transom.

She was starting to come together. Still a long way to go, but headway was being made.
The next task was to reef out the cove stripe. It was filled with 95 years of old paint and filler. In some places it was nearly completely filled in. I spent several hours experimenting with different ways to clean it out, eventually finding a dowel with some stick on sandpaper to be the hot ticket. Slowly I ground my way down to bare wood and was able to make the stripe fairly even and uniform. I discovered the first color off the wood was gold. I didn't think gold would show up against the current paint, so I went with black. Not ideal, but it worked.

A small change, but what a difference it made. At this point, we really wanted to get out and sail Hummingbird as much as possible. We had her out 25 times from the end of June when we got her, to the beginning of November when I shot this pic.

Will

Thanks for posting…a proper boat with a proper jib

 

[Hummingbird_22]

Day 1:
Off came the redwood rub rails that didn't really do anything. Also, it was time to see what was rusting in the bow of the boat.

I found a joint in the stem that holds an iron carriage bolt through the stem. An attempt was made to remove it, but it didn't want to budge so it was decided to leave it alone. We also started looking at the tops of the sheer planks with the intent to make new rub and toe rails for the boat. due to the fact that the once square edges of the sheer planks are now round, this was going to be tough. We'll come back to this...

The bigger issue, tackling the fairing the hull desperately needed.

The hull was rough. I had my work cut out for me. (Yes these two pics are from last year, they are the only ones I have showing how rough the bow was.)

It was time to get dirty. I started in with a Festool sander but realized I wasn't really getting anywhere quickly. The hull was just so wavy and rough. It was going to need to be long boarded by hand.

The end of day 1...

6 hours of sanding with a combination of festool and long block hand sanding.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

Day 2...

This was all mostly done with the long block sander by hand. There was really no other way to get it flat and uniform.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

The end of day 4 (I think)

Following the sanding of this, we laid down some fine fairing compound. It was getting late in the evening when we started applying it. That didn't prove helpful at all. One side dried nicely and was able to be sanded the following day with no issues. The Starboard side was another story. It just wouldn't setup. The following day I came in and sanded the port side fairly quickly, but the starboard was just packing up sandpaper like crazy. I got through it and again late in the day got the first coat of primer on the boat.

It was amazing to see the difference a coat of primer revealed. In primer she looked 100% better than she did just a few days before.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

Day 5 saw the primer sanded and the first coat of real paint go on. I opted for Interlux Brightsides enamel paint thinking it might flex a little more than a polyurethane based paint. I rolled and tipped the paint. She wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted, but time was against me. The plan was to do her first race in 20 years the following weekend. There was a lot to sort out between when this was taken, and the start of the race.

Now Hummingbird was starting to look like a well taken care of boat. One more coat of paint to go.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

Coat 2.

Back in the water. (Please excuse the fiberglass repair that wasn't set when I did the last coat of paint.) This was 4 days before the race. I did get the area painted.

Will

 

[Hummingbird_22]

A year later, and a lot of hours of trial and error work to make Hummingbird sail correctly, we were 30 minutes faster this year in the Master Mariners Race vs last year finishing 2nd place. Here is the onboard video of the race (most of it at least. I didn't have a chance to start the camera before the start, and the battery died on the run to the finish line.)

If you are in the SF Bay Area and wish to see Hummingbird in person, come out to the Corinthian Yacht Club's Wooden Boat show June 15 2025 at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon.

Enjoy,

Will

 

[justanothersailboat]

Lovely to hear this beautiful boat was saved and is back to being sailed and raced - looks like you did a lovely job restoring the hull (and I bet a lot of other things too).

 

[Hummingbird_22]

Lovely to hear this beautiful boat was saved and is back to being sailed and raced - looks like you did a lovely job restoring the hull (and I bet a lot of other things too).

Thank you. Yes, I'm happy to say Hummingbird is sailing better than ever. Figuring out how to make her sail right has been a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle with no picture. Lots of pieces, but only a vague idea of how things are supposed to go together. The two biggest pieces to make the boat sail right were putting the 500(ish) lbs of lead back under the mast step, and relocating the boom back down to where it should be. I got the lead all back in the boat in late April, and once I got it placed in the right location, the boat started sailing really well, or at least it felt good. It was still slow however. We went out for a shakedown sail with Cuckoo (same boat in the video above) who had just come out of the yard after having a bunch of work done. They literally sailed circles around Hummingbird no matter what we did with the sail trim. I didn't know what else to change. We sailed the boat so hard that day that we caused a check in the boom that I ended up having to fix. After fixing the boom, I looked closely at the mast for any issues as we sailed the boat really hard that day. It was through looking things over that I found the pair of pinch marks on the mast that were about 3 inches lower than where the boom was. I went back and looked at some old pics of Hummingbird from 20+ years ago and discovered that the boom had indeed been raised causing a luff bubble in the sail that we couldn't get rid of once the wind picked up. I lowered the boom down to where it should have been, and, well, the video says it all.

The past two weekends of seen a flurry of cosmetic work being done on Hummingbird in preparation for the Corinthian Wooden Boat show on June 15th. The sails came off, most of the fittings were removed, and all the varnish was done, paint touch up was done, and she should look good for the show on Sunday. I didn't get the toe rails on for this year, but I did get other things cleaned up and looking good.

A couple pics from Master Mariners this year.

Will