The process of restoring something to its original state, whether it is a trinket, a piece of furniture, a boat, a car or even a building, can be very rewarding. For some people the process is far more satisfying than the completed item. Our son, Richard has been restoring an old drag racer, (1978 Dodge Demon) for the past 15 years. The engine has been in and out of the car numerous times. We are not sure if he will ever be finished. It doesn’t seem to matter to Richard. He just enjoys having a project. For my part, I want to see the fruits of my labour and so I would work frantically to complete the project, whatever, it might be.

Over the years there have been many. I guess my first was a homemade lap strake 16’ motorboat with a 10 horsepower Martin outboard motor. I was too young for a car but old enough to want something of my very own. I named the boat “Victoria”. My grandparents had a summer cottage on Victoria Point on Lake Simcoe. This seemed appropriate at the time, however, shortly after it’s restoration, I was involved with a pretty little girl who I later married. Her name was Joan Marie. To impress Joan I soon renamed the boat “Jo Marie” I don’t think it made too much of an impression because Joan was not at all interested in boats or boating. This however, changed over the years and she learned to tolerate and even enjoy boating and sailing.

This however was the beginning of a lifetime of boating and boat restorations for me. In all, we have had over 20 boats of all kinds and sizes. Many were restored from various states of disrepair. The largest, a 40’, 1923 Ditchburn was purchased for $500.00 in 1968. I built a cocoon around this boat and it sat in our backyard in Milton for more than two years while I totally rebuilt her. She was named the “Shamrock” but originally christened the Osiris” by Lady Eaton. This boat was built for R.Y.Eaton who followed Timothy as CEO of the nationwide department store chain, T. Eaton Co. R. Y. was a nephew of Timothy. He worked in the business, as did most of the family. However, R.Y. had greater skills and talents than some of the other family members and became Timothy’s replacement.

In 1927, “Osiris” was damaged in a winter storage fire and after being rebuilt was again christened by Lady Eaton “Shamrock”, R.Y. was vacationing in Ireland at the time of the fire, thus the new name.

Ozzie Waffle owner of Thorncrest Motors and a good friend of Gordon Sinclair Sr. owned Shamrock for many years and sailed her in the Muskoka Lakes. He sent me a couple of pictures. However, they were a bit blurry and weren’t much help for restoration purposes.

The restoration of this boat was a major undertaking on my part. Every spare moment was devoted to this project. I lost 65 lbs. In the first year, the combination of physical work, diet and stress were responsible for a total weight loss of over 75 lbs. Loading and offloading when she was purchased was our first hurtle. The large mobile lift at the marina in Oakville had little trouble loading her on the custom built trailer. When she arrived in Milton I just assumed the trucker would have a way of offloading her. He didn’t and we were faced with a dilemma. I should have planned ahead and ordered a crane. I didn’t and when faced with the problem, we soon found that cranes were not available in Milton on demand. What to do? The truck driver was very patient while I phoned around for two tow trucks. My idea was very simple. Jack the back of the boat up to clear the trailer, even by an inch or so. Then put a tow truck at each side of the bow with their hooks fastened together and pull. Hopefully this would lift the bow or at least take enough weight off to allow the trailer to be removed.

Slowly, the tow trucks pulled away from each other. Then the trucks rear wheels were blocked and their pulleys were left to complete the lift. The truck pulley motors strained, the front ends of the two trucks started to lift off the ground. The front wheels were over a foot in the air when the bow started to lift off the trailer. This was a critical moment. Blocks had to be placed along the chine on both sides as well as under the keel. Every block had to be precisely the same distance from the hull. It took some time to get it perfect. “Okay pull ahead slowly.” Our hearts were in our throats. “Everyone stand clear! If this doesn’t work, we don’t want anyone crushed under the hull.” The driver pulled his rig out ever so slowly. Some adjustments had to be made but it looked as if we were home free with no damage done to the equipment or to ‘Shamrock’. She was at home now for a few months at least. Everyone was amazed that we pulled it off. The transport driver had never seen a delivery quite like this one. The tow truck drivers talked of this call years later and I was the most surprised that it worked. It was the only solution I could come up with in such a short time. Perhaps it was in my self conscious mind, I can’t imagine why I didn’t preplan this.

Dry rot had run rampant throughout the hull. White oak was used for the massive ribs. They were sound. However the keel was full of rot, to the point where it was difficult to see how the old girl kept her beautiful slender shape. Her backbone was only a shell. What a horrible feeling when I discovered something as serious as having to replace over 30 feet of keel in a 40-foot boat. We knew we had dry rot problems. I had tried to convince Joan when looking at the boat that there was only about a 3 by 2 foot section of the hull that would have to be replaced. I knew that it was more as large areas of the hull were showing signs of possible problems. Further inspection proved to be worse than even I thought. I should have known. It’s always worse after you start chipping away.

The keel, which was white oak, 8 inches thick and tapering from 12 inches to 30 inches in depth,all had to be removed, but then what? When building a boat the first piece to be laid is the keel. Everything is attached in one way or another to the keel. It is like removing the basement of a house and replacing it. Not easy, but not impossible. For two years I crawled around under this huge hull jacking and shimming. Every move had to be calculated. One wrong decision, one jack put in the wrong place or turned to high or left too loose could have this 10-ton craft toppling over and crushing me.

This was a project I originally took on with a partner. Sometimes partnerships don’t work out and so I soldiered on all by myself. Having never taken on anything this grand in the past (my largest project up until then was a 1936, 19’ Interlake Sloop). I had no idea what a major undertaking this was to become. Finally after weeks of chipping and hacking, sawing and scraping I had a 30 foot hole down the centre between the 2 sofa-size, 6 cylinder Kermath engines. What a dilemma, how do I fill up the hole in the bottom of my boat? As I am standing looking into this abyss, a sinking sick feeling overwhelmed me. These two massive engines hadn’t run in over 15 years. What If? Stop, one thing at a time. But if they can’t be run, all my work will be in vain. They are too large to be taken out and replaced – WOW, what have I gotten myself into. Stop focus. The engine problem comes next. Right now, how do we replace the 30 feet of keel? Most obvious would be to purchase a solid white oak tree, have it partially shaped with large band saws, shaped and formed and then jacked into place, then more shaping and fitting. NO! This would take months. There has to be a better way.

As with all problems, sometimes they can’t be solved overnight. Time and thought will have to come into play. So there are many other jobs to do. Get on with them and the answer will come in time for my new keel. With a project of this magnitude, I was forced to put on blinders, (figuratively speaking) and concentrate on one project at a time.

At the bow “Shamrock” had 6 feet of freeboard. The whole hull had to be scraped and sanded, especially below the water line, for two reasons, to find dry rot and also the replace the cotton caulking: In the 20’s, when caulking between the planks on a wooden boat, a small space was left between each plank to allow for expansion when the dry wood comes in contact with water. Natural cotton is jammed in the void with a gaw, a chisel like tool. This is a technique used for hundreds of years in boat building.

In some makes of recreational boats (Trojan) for instance the planks would shrink when in dry dock so much as to leave a quarter inch crack. In cases like this when launching, slings would be needed to support the boat from sinking while the hull seized up. After two or three days, the boat would be as tight as a drum. Shamrock was no exception. When she was finally launched it took three days before we were confident her pumps would keep her from sinking.

As the most important part of a boat is the part generally not seen, the keel problem had to be resolved. One night, not able to sleep, lying in my bed every horrible thought imaginable was going through my brain. All the “What if?” questions -What if the engines have to be replaced? What if – I can’t fill that void where the keel once was? What if – all the wiring and electronics don’t work? What if? Suddenly I had an inspiration. What if I had a metal fabricator take some measurements and then form a ‘U’ shape, flanged on each side to conform to the shape of the hull. Bolt it all in place to the ribs, weld the pieces together then fill the void with re-enforced cement. It could work – It did work! This was so much easier than I could even imagine. Another mountain climbed and conquered.

Time went slowly by, night after night, three to four hours after supper until the cold made it impossible to continue. Weekends were better. The cocoon I had built acted like a greenhouse and providing we got some sun, the temperature inside could be 20 degrees higher than outside. Grass was even growing 4-6 inches high while snow lay on the ground outside my work place. In the spring of 1970, it was finally time to remove the cocoon and reveal the fruits of my labour. What a special day that was. I could now stand back and look at this beautiful craft and visualize her finally in the water again. What a thrill. However, much work was still to be completed. New plywood decks and then a vinyl coating – varnish and paint – deck hardware and a wheel. Everything had been stolen off the old girl and had to be sourced.

A friend, who worked at our local Chrysler dealer, checked out the engines and except for fuel pumps and a cracked block in the port engine, everything seemed okay. “Cracked block, that sounds pretty serious,” I said. “Well I think I have a solution, I think if we drill a hole and —“, “Just do it.” I said, “And let me know how much it costs.” Whatever Bob did, it worked. The two engines purred like contented pussycats, but only when gasoline was flowing. We soon realized that 50-year-old fuel pumps with leather diaphragms would need to be replaced.

Kermath went out of business after the war in 1946. Parts were not readily available for sure. However, Harry James an old character in Orillia had purchased a pile of stuff from Pal Engines when they went out of business. Harry took me to his basement. It was full of engine parts of all descriptions. He showed me a bushel basket full of my fuel pumps: Everyone with a leather diaphragm. The leather was covered with a greasy white chalky substance. “How many do you want?” “I’ll take them all.” I said. There must have been 40 or 50 in the basket. We got about 3 to 4 hours of running time out of each one before the leather finally failed. After that, electric fuel pumps were installed and Dad and I were given a rest from crawling into the engine room, almost every trip.