I'm sending you a conversation that took place in 2009 between Joe, Claude and me about restoring a very old (1929) Star class sailboat. You'll see who they are as you read along. I didn't know either of them at the time. It was almost a joke with the guys at the shop; the boat was a total piece of rubbish but still had it's shape and good hull planking, unlike the Fish we got that was totally rotted away. We finished the project about 6 years ago and not much has happened with the boat. The last I heard it was going up to Roger Allen at the Buffalo Maritime Center.

We never saw it like this. I can see how this may trick someone into thinking all it needed is a little sanding and paint. The keel and rudder have been taken off.

Dave,

I own the Star that you saw in Cortez. One expert determined the the cost for materials to restore could be as high as $15,000. While I think this is high I have decided not to proceed. This Star was built in 1929 by Joseph Parkman in Brooklyn - this is based on the info we have. I have two masts, lots of sails and all of the parts needed. It seems a shame to destroy the boat at this point. Would anyone at you shop like to have it? We just made a cradle which would go with the boat. The boat would be a freebie.

Joe

This is our first sight, Helen wasn't impressed. All of the frames were totally dry rotted and had been bolted together at some point with regular steel bolts that were rusted away and had inflected "iron cancer" on the surrounding wood. This poor old boat was definitely ready for the dump.

Joe,

Howard and I drove over to take a closer look at your boat. It's in really rough shape. We can't see how it would take more than a couple thousand dollars in materials to take the hull back to like new condition. It's getting someone crazy enough to do the work that's the problem. If we took it and fixed it we don't know what we'd do with it. Howard loves a challenge and is sort of interested but doing it for you. How about this, we fix the hull up for the cost of materials plus something for the shop. If we get started and find it's going to be a lot more expensive or way too far gone you can it all off and go on to plan B which is we have an old junk boat here and you're out nothing except the cost to haul it to the dump, about $100. If it works out the boat will end up back on it's trailer looking like a million bucks. This will give you the historic old wooden boat back; we don't know nothing about the rig, we're wood workers and cat boat sailors and Stars are famous for having the most complicated rigs in the world, you might be on your on getting the rig set back up. We saw the keel but not the rudder, is it still there? Is there a trailer? These boats have some kind of really fancy rig don't they. Let me know what you think, even better, stop by the shop here and see what we're doing.

Dave

Then we got it into the shop and Howard started taking the bad wood out, He also used some bad words because it was all bad wood. Half of the transom fell off.

Dave,

I will try to stop over next week and finalize the deal. I'm in. I do have a good Star trailer for it that was imported from Germany for use with Star boats. It has had little use - I purchased it from a man in Annapolis. You can pick the boat and trailer up at any time. A lot of bronze deck fittings were removed from the deck when the deck was removed. I had hoped to restore the boat as close to original as possible. I don't have any definite plans for its use. I will get all of the bits and pieces I have over to you. There are also two masts. I have some plans from Mystic Seaport I will also get over to you. There are complete rigging plans. I also have a lot of pictures of the boat before the deck was removed.

Joe

But Howard never gives up so he just kept taking stuff out and putting new stuff in, custom fitting every piece.

Joe,

Claude is the Star VP for the western hemisphere and lives in Tampa.

Dave

Hello Claude,

We are in the process of restoring a really old star and the owner isn't sure what he will do with it. It's boat #561 built in 1929, listed in the book as "Mede"a from Ct. but may actually be "Pickerel". The owner brought it down here to Bradenton Florida with the intention of "fixing it up" and realized what an impossible job that would be for him. This hull was ready to be cut up and burned. He ask us if we would like to try to do something with it and in a moment of insanity we said ok. The boat is starting to look really good. Almost all of the frames, floors, deck and deck beams had to be replaced. The outside planking was still in very good shape. The finish will be shinny and fair and hard to tell from a new glass boat. Looking inside will show a wooden boat. We have the original short mast as well as the tall rig from after 1930. The owner would like to do something special with this boat. Is there a national Star museum or something like that? I'm copying Joe the owner on this email.

Dave

The hull was covered with a hundred years of horrible stuff. I'm not sure it can even be called paint, some of it was like tar that was great fun to sand off. I got to do most of that in my spare time, his time's to valuable to be doing this grubby apprentice work. He made a rolling frame so we could roll it over to easily work on all sides.

Dave,

How far are you from having it finished ? I am leaving in the morning for Italy and the European Championship. I will be back in mid June. I would like to come see it then , as I am very interested.

Claude

Claude,

The hull will be complete in a couple of weeks. The rig is questionable because of the change between the 29 short rig and the 30 tall rig, we have both. My shop is down in Bradenton. Joe tells me that the builder of this boat also built the winning star in the '32 Olympics, #615 Jupiter, the first year Stars competed. Please direct your other questions to Joe, he's the owner and would like to see something special happen to this boat.

Dave

Naturally all of the keel bolts were rusted away so Howard made up some 3/4 inch threaded bronze studs to put it back on.

Claude,

The hull number is #561. It was built in 1929 by Joseph Parkman in Brooklyn, NY. Come look at it when you return and we will talk. My problem is that I really don't have a use for the boat - I am not a racer plus I am confident the boat would not be competitive with new boats. I intended for the boat to be a hands on project but that ended up not being feasible due to the scope of work required. I am not looking to make any profit on the boat. At this point I think Dave and Howard, who have done the work, and myself would like to see the boat go where it's historical significance would be appreciated.

Joe

Finally it was time for me to do something since Howard's allergic to epoxy I did tons of fairing and sanding and filling and sanding and then I glassed the whole thing to keep it stable.. That little hole you see is for the rudder shaft.

Claude,

#561 is significant because it was one of the last boats built with the short rig and one of the extremely few that were re rigged with the tall mast. The mast is six feet shorter than the tall rig and had a sail track instead of a slot for the bolt rope. These short masts couldn't be bent or the track would pop, the tall ones take on all kinds of shapes. This boat came to us with it's original short mast complete with the sail track. This mast is in need of major refinishing but I bet it's one of only a few if any originals still in existence. As you can see from the list of stars, there are only 15 boats built between 1920 and 1930, the era of the short Marconi sails, still surviving. Out of that 15 I wonder how many still have their original short masts complete with hardware. Most are not even complete boats.

Dave

Then it was time to paint, this is the one boat where we didn't use house paint, we wanted it to look like a molded glass boat. I hate "tipping" paint, should have called Rex and Kathie Paine to do that, they really good at it. Howard installed all of the old hardware, some even had glass knobs. It had controls that would make the mast bend every direction you can imagine. There was even a control to move the mast step. He went a little overboard and edged everything with mahogany trim.

Figuring out where to put all this stuff was fun since we hadn't seen it before it was taken off. We did have pictures and a good set of plans to work from. There was still a lot of "does this look right".

Here's the final result, better than new; it took us about 6 months to do. I don't know how he did it, magic I guess and a big "sky hook"to lift things. And, most of this happened while we were recovering from the fire that burned the main shop to the ground. We built this huge new shop with just the six of us. Never under estimate what motivated old guys can do. This boat was the first thing in the new structure.