Heartland Classics

There it sat – in a shed along with the other mahogany has-beens, dirt covered, infested with spiders and wasps at war with each other to own every nook and cranny of the hulk. Dry rot lurked hidden beneath the surface of once glorious varnished mahogany – challenging the observer’s detection skills. Its hard top was there giving a hint of its former slick cutting edge styling. In spite of the little voice saying “you don’t have time or a place to work on that”, we bought the sad little Century Sabre and brought it home. Seventeen years later, I started to work on it – which was three years ago.

Careful inspection of the Sabre confirmed extensive rot on every major piece of wood below the water line. Looking at the fiberglass decks 10 years ago, I didn’t think the boat would show well, thus abandoning a “pure” restoration constraint. Having covered a Chris-Craft Riviera bottom with fiberglass in 1960, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to use wood at all. Remembering a Lugar fiberglass kit boat in the mid-fifties which had a glass shell and wood frame, I thought I might try to apply the same concept to the Sabre.

Seeman Fiberglass in Louisiana sells a product called ‘Seaflex’. The product is raw glass cloth with hardened glass rods woven in for stiffness yet still flexible enough for forming. From the straightened frame (two weeks work with several come-a-longs), I laid up a fiberglass bottom. Unfortunately, all of the frame and part of the planking was bad. Forming a new frame one rib at a time, I glued each one to the inside of the finished fiberglass shell with 3-M 5200. The new engine stringer was cut from an oak stringer out of a 28’ Sea Skiff that Dan Diehl owned. The new wood frame allowed me to plank the boat in traditional fashion. (This step required the building of a steaming device.) The most difficult process on the entire project was to make the wood frame fit under the existing fiberglass decks. Since the decks could not be adjusted, I had to fit the frame to the decks above, instead of simply making the deck fit with a saw like Chris-Craft and Century would do with all of their wood boats.

So our Sabre is close to completion, its dirty rotten hull a distant memory. A few original pieces, a few brand new pieces, and a lot of “creative use of materials” parts went together to soon put a fun ski boat back on the water.