bill,
i'm glad that feecraft gale is your boat. a beauty like that needs to be here in detroit area. will you be coming to the gm tech center race in august with it ? that's where i run my boats when i have time. been so busy lately, haven't even run a boat yet this season. i don't race, just a play boater.
you're familiar with the Crimmin photos so yo know how good they are.
of the 8 crimmin photos of the shu shu i have , only 2 really show the boat close enough to easily see that no caulk lines are visible. yes, they were probably very evident if looking at the boat in person at that time, 1965 madison race pits, but the lines are not there. the edges of the planking are clearly seen but not the contrasting caulk lines.
my infomation from fred farley and hydro museum re the history of the '67 bud explains that the boat burned during testing sometime in 1963. shirley then had boat repaired including the new mahogany deck. this work was probably not completed until sometime in 1964 or 1965. the madison race may well have been first outing after the deck install.
i'm still waiting for my copy of the jan / feb issue of UNJ which has feature article on the shu shu and eileen crimmin. should have interesting info and maybe photos i don't have.
hope to get info from jerry schoenith and stephan garey too.
the point is that the crimmin photos of boat at '65 madison race show a freshly rebuilt hull. now i am not an expert re boat varnishes circa 1965 and how quickly the sun / water may have affected the color of the caulk lines but they are definitely not visible as white lines in contrast to the brown deck. my hunch is that the original varnish, or whatever coating used , basically "stained" the caulk lines and the planking the same color.
period photos of the '67 bud taken from further distances clearly show those caulk lines much like the boat looks today.
i realize that this a seemingly trivial detail but those lines make a big difference in the appearance of the deck. it's that beautifully clean mahogany deck , blue cowling, white fin and simple graphics which make the boat so attractive to me.
i asked roger newton about this when i received the shu shu dwg and he said the caulk lines were there as drawn. obviously the decks were instaled with caulked planking but the question is " did they actually appear as white lines " ?
the point is moot now, as far as i'm concerned , because i've decided that i'm not putting the lines on. too much clutter which spoils the appearance imo. besides, i'd probably mess it up anyway.
send me your email address and i'll send crimmin pics if you're interested. they will be lo-resolution but good enough. as you know, the pics on the CD have almost perfect clearity.
thank you,
dave