Exposing Stern Knee

Ý I wasn't sure what to call this section of Sarah we just exposed, but from page 94 of Waldo Howland's biography, A Life in Boats The Concordia Years, there is the picture above. The caption reads in part: "The backbone is set up on its ballast keel and deadwood, with the floor-timber bolts in place, awaiting installation of the frame units. Cheek pieces fastened to the stem and horn timber provide extra strength and the necessary additional wood to receive plank fastenings."

This photo from Elizabeth Meyer's Concordia Yawls - The First Fifty Years further confirms our suspicions that there weren't great big gaps between the cheek pieces and the horn timber or between the floors and the keel.

You don't want to know how many hours, 180+ screws, 19 bolts and four planks later it's a little easier to see the problem(s).

These four pictures show cracks in the stern knee that have developed from drying out these three years she's sat on the hard. The knee has been loose for some time though. Dave found wedges driven under the floors in several places and multiple floor bolts broken.

This has obviously been a problem area, and these pictures show some of the various repairs that were done over the years.


Dave knew the prior owner had had a problem with leaking in this area and the new pieces to the left of the stern post were visible as soon as Dave got the bottom paint off (which was September/October of 2000).	This picture shows a dutchman, a wildly warped stern knee, and if you look closely in the daylight in the warped area, you can see one of two pieces of allthread that were used in an attempt to pull the area back together. The floor bolts are broken in the frame on the far left and the one forward of it. There is also a repair on this side which mirrors the new pieces on the starboard side.

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