batten seam vs strip planking

[patrick.blanchard]

Hi,

I like the look of batten seam planking. Is it easier to build and maintain than strip planking?

Ted Brewer's Tern 32' ketch hull can be carvel planked, batten seam planked, strip planked or covered with 2 layers of plywood sheet. It's a single chine hull that resembles the v-bottom hull of powerboats.

Thank you
patrick

[Jim Ledger]

Batten seam has its uses, along with some drawbacks. There's a lot of extra notching of frames and fitting involving the battens, for one. The battens themselves make the interior surface of the hull difficult to drain completely and difficult to clean and paint.

[paladin]

and my last three boats have been strip planked, so I'm a bit predjudiced....last was 44 feet. I found it much easier to work alone, and just as easy to make changes or repair (one small boo boo). The hull was fair first time out without excess work, extremely rigid......and the bilge as dry as the basement in downtown Phoenix......

[TerryLL]

Years ago I built a Swampscott dory batten-seam and it was a heck of a lot of slow work with all the frame notching. The last dory I built was glued-lap and it flew together in nothing flat. All the extra ledges in batten-seam are a real problem because they catch dirt, water, fish slime, etc. I've never built strip, so can't comment on that except to say that a smooth interior is a joy when it's time to sand and repaint.

[JimConlin]

Chuck, were your boats simply strip planked or was there a structural sheathing of glass or some other like material?

If the boat can be planked with plywood, I'd read Sam Devlin's book.

[Jay Greer]

While each method of construction you are considering has its merits as well as draw backs, aside from traditional carvel plank construction, I am most familiar with strip planking as a building method as I worked at the Carl Chapman Boat Works in Newport Beach CA building L36 Sloops. These boats were designed by William Lapworth and, to my knowledge were the first strip planked boats to be built by that method. Strip planks were milled with one edge concave and one convex and were glued with Weldwood glue and verticaly fastened with bronze ring shank nails known as "Anchor Fast Nails". We being tratditonal builders hated the processs as it was messy, dirty and required spiling of some of the strakes that created an unfair planking line as the worked progressed. However, the method has proven to be successful as nearly all of the boats are still sailing after some forty five years after the inception of the modern strip planked method. The first boat we built as a strip planker was "The Flying Scotchman" which took first in the Transpac, way back at the inception of light displacement designs.
Today, I would first explore the idea of epoxy saturation construction over strip planking as there are fewer problems involved with plank spiling than with the strip method of construction.
Jay