Maluka restored for Rolex Sydney Hobart

by Helen Hopcroft on 24 Dec 2006 The smallest, oldest boat in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart is Maluka. She’s a 9.01m timber yacht that was built in 1932. So many people were involved in her restoration that shipwright Rob Gordon described her as ‘the black hole of Maluka that pulls everyone in.’

Restorations started in early May 2007 and continued at a frantic pace until the boat was launched in December. Owner and skipper Sean Langman estimates that it took 15,000 man hours to get the boat in the water.

Apprentices volunteered to work for nothing on the weekends just to meet the launch deadline. At times up to 12 people were working on the boat at one time. Langman described it as an ‘extreme boat building challenge’.

‘Sean’s big kick isn’t commissioning or building new boats but making something new of something old’ said Rob Gordon.

The restoration was headed up by shipwright Gary Ferres. A timeline was drawn up and the boat builders tried to keep at least one or two weeks ahead of schedule. The pace of work was frantic. ‘We were going really fast everyday’ said Rob.

They tried to keep ahead of schedule because they knew that the ‘end was going to be a complete s**t fight’.

Langman ‘always bites off a bit more than he can chew. But he knows how to chew quickly!...’

One of the reasons for the tight deadline was that Langman wanted to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Maluka’s original owners successful Sydney to Hobart voyage.

The ‘Lucky Clarks’, as brothers George and William Clark became known, had been shipwrecked the previous year when attempting the passage aboard Maluka. They patched her up and successfully completed the voyage in 1936.

The first job in the fast paced restoration was to remove all the interior cabinetry. They pulled it out and threw it in a skip. ‘Then Sean said he wanted to stick it back in so we got it back out of the skip…’

Once they had an empty hull they started work replacing the boat’s ribs. The ribs were constructed from a freshly milled piece of spotted gum. Rob Gordon explained that using green wood for the ribs was essential.

‘The greener the better because when you steam the wood the sap in the timber softens up and it allows it to become supple’. This flexibility isn’t possible with seasoned timber.

The ribs were steamed in a long box which is heated by a large gas burner. The gas burner warmed water in a beer keg and the steam was piped through into the box. The box was inclined on a slight angle so that the steam rose up through the wood. A rag was used to block the steam box entrance.

The spotted gum was steamed for approximately one hour per inch of thickness. Once it was removed from the steam box the shipwrights and their apprentices needed to work fast. Most of the bending needs to be done within the first minute.

‘It helps to over bend because the wood tends to relax after the event’.

The ribs were temporarily attached to the frame with screws. These screws were later replaced with copper nails.

Rob explained that in some places nails were driven through the planks and a copper washer placed over the spike. The spike was then whacked with a peen hammer. This acts like a rivet. The technique is called copper roving. Clenching is where the end of the nail is bent over at 90 degrees.

The shipwrights closely supervised the apprentices at this stage of the restoration.

‘90% of the business nowadays is fibreglass and the other 10% is steel, aluminium and wood… It’s surprising how few of them know how to use a hammer.’

But the apprentices were keen and quickly mastered the new skills. ‘Once you become skilled with your hands, you can adapt your hands to the task.’

There was a conscious decision by Langman and the shipwrights to pass on knowledge of the traditional skills to the apprentices. Rob said that he didn’t think that they did much wooden boat building at TAFE so they tried ‘to fill that void for them a little bit’.

Langman encouraged them ‘to go and work on it especially on early stages during steaming in the ribs and planking’.

Learning some of the ‘oldest technique(s) of building boats’ was ‘priceless’ according to Noakes apprentice Ben Cormack.

I asked why so many of the apprentices were keen to work on this particular restoration?

‘It was the first time we’d had the chance to restore such a classic type of boat.’ Ben liked the fact that an old wooden boat would be lining up against the maxis on Boxing Day.

‘It’s such a natural and elegant way to do it’.

Once the structural work was completed the team prepared the hull for fibre glassing.

The surface was stripped of old paint and debris. A shallow cut with a circular saw removed all the old caulking from the carvel plank seams. The planking is mostly the original Huon pine.

Huon pine is a beautiful wood to work with. ‘You wouldn’t want to work with anything else once you’ve used it’ commented Rob.

The seams were filled with glue and the whole hull sanded. Then the fibreglass sheath was applied.

It took six weeks to fair the hull after the fibreglass sheath went on. ‘It would have taken about a week and a half for a timber boat’. They worked with three people using a long plank like a screed. They mixed up 12-15 kilos of bog each time and used this to fill up the undulations in the fibreglass. The cost of the project ‘went through the roof’ at this point.

‘It’s a superbly strong boat now’.

A carbon fibre mast went in and the interior fit out was completed in Australian red cedar. Boat builder Ian Smith did all the internal joinery. Apparently few changes have been made to the original fit out. The trim is spotted gum and teak.

Maluka weighs about 7 tonnes which includes approximately 700 kilo of furniture. The bowsprit was so heavy that it couldn’t be carried and had to be craned into position.

There was no attempt to lighten the boat by removing furniture. ‘Sean’s original intention was to sail the boat down to Tasmania and keep her down there as his cruising boat. The race was just a means to get down there and have a bit of fun.’

I asked Rob how he got involved in the restoration of Maluka? It turns out that his father had worked as a boat builder for 68 years. He was taught his skills by an older shipwright and he passed on these skills to Rob. Rob remembers being given his first paint brush at age 4 or 5. Neither man went through the formal TAFE based apprenticeship system.

Rob’s father was friendly with Langman, who came to see one of the last timber boats that Rob and his father built together. (Rob’s father was still building boats up to 12 months before his death earlier this year.)

Langman was apparently so impressed by the boat that he asked Rob to work on another project at Noakes. This project led into Maluka which was Rob’s first experience of fully restoring a wooden boat. He normally builds them from scratch and enjoys the creative nature of this process.

He described the feeling of starting with an empty shed, a bag of nails and a pile of lumber and the final satisfaction of looking at the completed vessel.

‘What you’ve created is all yours. You send her out and she’s got a life of her own. It’s a bit of a wrench when she goes.’

I asked why Rob thought Langman was racing Maluka in the Sydney Hobart?

‘I think he just got bored… He sincerely believes that he can win this on handicap with the right conditions’.

Do you think this is possible?

‘I don’t know much about the handicap system, but if he says he can do it, I believe it.’