My first introduction to the Sande Ace was in about 1957, when the first 12 foot models appeared on buoys near our summer place on Hood Canal. I was immediately smitten by this little mahogany plywood boat with its beautiful lines, two cockpits with a center deck, and steering in the rear. My best pal, whose family had a place about ten miles from our, had managed to talk his father into buying him an Ace in 1959, complete with a Mercury Mark 30 mounted on the transom.
We were twelve years old at the time, and we had a great time riding around in that boat. The problem was, I wanted one for myself, so Dad finally caved in and let me order a new one in 1961. We would occasionally ride our bikes the six miles to the shop where my boat was taking shape, watching Allan and Orrin Sande as they graciously tolerated our naive questions. I took delivery of the boat that summer and we had a glorious time burning gasoline and courting the Hood Canal girls for several years in what my fisherman Dad called our "twin thunderboats."
Fast forward to 1969, when I returned from a year in Vietnam only to find that Dad had traded in my Ace for a glass family boat. I was devastated, but I accepted fate and went on with my life. Throughout the years I fantasized about finding another Ace, but my fear was that either Neptune or the rot gods had claimed most of them.
Then, it happened. An email appeared on my computer from my classified ad junkie friend in
Seattle that read, "13' Sande Ace. Merc 45, trailer, $700 OBO." That innocuous newspaper ad in
October 2000 signaled the start of a restoration journey and the continuation of a love affair
with these runabouts that were built roughly between 1956 and 1961.
I phoned cousin Rob in Kirkland, Washington, and he agreed to make the drive to North Bend
to view the subject of the ad. "It could use a coat of paint", he proclaimed, being careful
to not scare me. The good news was that it was amazingly original, with its bow handle, transom
handles, steering wheel, and the priceless 'Sande Ace' nameplates, all made of unobtanium, intact.
As Rob surveyed the boat and made his report by cell phone, I knew I was going to be the next owner of this boat. That night I phoned the owner and sealed the deal for the whole works for something less than the asking price. After the 750 mile drive from Sun Valley to Kirkland my heart sank as I approached my new purchase. It looked small, smaller than I remembered, and appeared every bit like a 41-year-old wood boat, and then some. The 3/8" plywood bottom had a hole in it you could put your head through, and it became obvious that probing with an icepick was not going to be necessary as I poked my finger through the plywood transom.
Needless to say,
I was full of obligatory optimism as I hitched the boat up to the Suburban and headed home.
I couldn't wait to show my wife a real Sande Ace, but I wasn't prepared to tell her that she
was about to become a weekend widow for an undetermined amount of time.
I made a deal with a friend to trade time at our beach cabin on Puget Sound for space in his
cabinet shop and access to his tools. After we manhandled the boat up to its snug little assigned
area on the second floor, some strange things began to happen to the wood in the boat. We live at
6,000 feet in a very low humidity climate, and the structural members were beginning to shrink and
develop cracks, which was their way of telling me where the rot was.
Knowing that the deck, topsides, transom, most of the bottom, chines, and portions of the
bilge battens were going to have to come off, I took the advice of my expert friends and proceeded
to build a cradle to maintain the shape of the boat, since there wouldn't be much boat left once
I began tearing it apart. Somehow, after considerable hand wringing, I managed to complete
a reasonable cradle, and was later able to remove parts right and left and turn the boat
upside down without it losing the integrity of its shape.
My first constructive task was to beef up the spruce frames with VG Fir slathered with epoxy and sistered on both sides of each frame. As I stood back and admired my work, I realized that the difficulties I had encountered with such a relatively simple task meant that I had a lot to learn.
I went out and bought a new cordless drill, a grinder, assorted rasps, a plane and chisels. I began researching materials and sources, and I found a brand of epoxy filler, penetrating epoxy sealer, and epoxy glue from an outfit in Seattle. After evaluating all of the epoxys out there, I opted for a product that remains flexible and is made up of natural wood resins. Things were looking up. I ordered 3/8" marine plywood for the bottom and 3/4" marine plywood for the transom. Now it must be understood that we live in the mountains of central Idaho, and marine plywood is about as scarce as ski bindings in St. Thomas. I located 1/4" ribbon Sapele mahogany in Anacortes, Washington, which was a great grain match for the mahogany that would be left on the boat, but it was a red color unlike the brown tone of the old wood. I would take care of this discrepancy later with two different custom mixed stains.
The mahogany plywood side planking at the bow appeared to be in decent shape, so I decided to replace only the aft section with the new plywood. I thought I would start off easy, so I began to strip the white paint off the keeper plywood. Forty-one years of paint needs a lot of stripper, and I had to be careful not to get too aggressive since the mahogany laminate on 1/4" plywood is very thin. Successive applications of stripper revealed perfectly preserved ribbon mahogany that you just don't see anymore. The extreme porosity of the grain meant very careful use of a brass brush to remove paint from the innermost pores.
It was time to turn the boat over and remove what was left of the transom, taking
care not to destroy its integrity since it was going to have to serve as a pattern for
the new transom. Building the new transom turned out to be perhaps the most difficult
task thus far, since it meant clamping the old transom to the new plywood piece and building a mirror image with reciprocal angles. It took me two tries to get it right, but after a few weekends, a lot of jigsawing, rasp work, and planing, I had a reasonable rough transom. The transom is actually frame #3 of the boat and is two layers of laminated 3/4" plywood. It is rife with notches and 15 degree obtuse angles for chines, battens, and quarter knees, and was an extreme test of my abilities and patience.
Lots of poking and prodding revealed where the rotten plywood bottom stopped and
the reasonably sound wood started. The Ace is a flat bottom boat, and just where it
began its curve toward the bow is where the wood appeared to be ok. The original plans
called for a scarf joint at this point, but I was not about to attempt one of those
with my limited skills. It was time to call in the experts. My boatbuilder friends
and I all stood around and after a lot of rum enhanced discussion, it was decided that
the bottom would have to be cut across at the stem, and the new bottom piece joined with
a butt joint and epoxied and screwed to a backing piece of plywood on the inside of the
joint. Separate plywood pieces would have to be fitted at the tapered chines. Whew.
But first, the rotten keel, chines, and bilge battens and uprights would have to be cut
out and replaced. I didn't want to replace their entire length since the forward
sections seemed sound, so I cut out the rotten parts and spliced in new VG Fir pieces
with generous use of epoxy and sisters. The chines are White Oak, so I wound up milling
the oak and fir myself using a table saw and planer. I was beginning to amaze myself
and prayed for no disasters.
The new transom was actually a fairly good fit, so I opted to bolt, screw, and epoxy
it into place, knowing that there was no turning back once I did it. With the help of a
friend, I put on the new bottom, heeding original builder Allan Sande's words to "......take
care to keep the back half of the bottom straight, as a short, fast boat like the Ace has a
tendency to porpoise or jump." Epoxy and Anchor-Fast bronze nails ensured that this bottom
wasn't going anywhere. The old chines were so rotten that I had to guess at their taper,
so I figured I guessed right when the chine planking fit perfectly. Application of the aft
sections of the plywood side planking turned out to be an ordeal, since there is a fairly
severe bend at the transom and I had to soak the wood pieces with hot towels and clamp
them in place. Before flipping the boat, the new mahogany was stained to match the old,
and all the wood was filled and saturated with epoxy penetrating sealer.
I flipped the boat, removed the cradle, and it actually was beginning to look like a boat again. It was April and I realized I was going to have to hustle to get this boat ready for the summer official launching at Hood Canal where everyone was already coming.
The Ace's interior was painted with a 'splatter' or 'multicolor' coating that I was
having a hard time tracking down, but it turned out that the Sande brothers used a
product called 'Zolatone', an industrial paint used to coat cars' trunks in the 50's and
60's. I ordered some that was close to the original color, and had a painter friend spray
the interior. It turned out beautifully, and now I was getting excited. I cut out the
new deck pieces using the old ones as a pattern, and epoxied and nailed them on. Weeknights
I was making new seats out of clear cedar and applying seemingly endless coats of varnish
to them. I made the new seat supports out of VG Fir, and fabricated new floorboards out
of 3/8" plywood. I wanted them to be mahogany, so I laminated 1/8" mahogany veneer on
the plywood and got a beautiful result after 9 coats of varnish. The original plain
painted dashes on th Ace had always lacked interest, so I decided to laminate VG fir
over the spruce frame beams. I located some old growth fir with tight grain that I milled
to 3/16" thickness, and both varnished dashes looked like a million bucks.
It was now time to move the boat to my garage for glassing and painting. We gathered a crew and carefully slid the boat down the stairs on a piece of carpet and carried it outside and onto the trailer. I stood back and got a reintroduction to the beautiful lines of that little boat.
I ordered 4 ounce fiberglass cloth to cover the bottom and topsides, so that not too much weight would be added to the hull. It was easy to work with the epoxy, and the cloth became invisible once it was saturated. A few more finish coats of epoxy, and I was ready to paint. I used a glossy polyurethane paint for the bottom and the deck and topsides accent, faithfully adhering to the correct paint scheme of my original boat. The epoxy manufacturer recommended a urethane varnish for maximum bond, and the next several weeks were spent laboriously applying coat after coat of this stuff.
By this time, the rechromed hardware had arrived, as had the rebuilt outboard.
In the time between paint and varnish coats on the boat, I stayed busy painting the
motor and restoring the original 1959 TeeNee trailer that had come with the boat.
I fabricated mahogany spray rails to match the originals, installed the original
fin back on the bottom, applied the hardware, and suddenly the boat was finished.
I had never run the outboard, so I mounted it on the boat, hooked up the restored
controls, and ran it in a garbage can full of water. It started right up and I was
ready to roll. Wow, deja vu all over again!
I wanted to keep the shakedown cruise quiet for fear of embarrassment in front
of my friends if something went wrong, like it didn't float or something. My wife,
Cindy, and my kids came along to the mountain lake for first float and it performed
magnificently. Full of confidence, we towed the boat from our Sun Valley home to Hood
Canal for the official christening and maiden voyage, and, along the way, we stopped at
Sande Boat Works in Belfair, Washington, where the boat was originally sold in 1959.
We met with Allan Sande and his wife for a pre-arranged rendezvous that turned into a
party when our launch party guests drove by, saw us, and stopped. Allan was happy to
see the boat and I was thrilled to show it to him, explaining to him the entire
restoration process in about 15 minutes.
We launched the Ace in the rain with friends and family at the Hamlin summer
place in August 2001, amid much fanfare and hoopla. With the 45 horsepower Merc 400,
the boat zipped along at an honest 42 mph. It was quite a hit, and I guess I was
noticeably proud of my little "thunderboat". As Dad presided over the festivities,
I detected a twinkle in his eye and a bit of pride in his youngest boy's accomplishment,
even though there is no fish well in the Ace.
I had a great time restoring this boat, and I learned a lot along the way.
It is a wonderful feeling to breathe new life into an old boat and motor destined to rot
or rust away. My wife showed an enormous amount of patience during the process, but she
knew how important it was to me. It also feels good to know that this may well be one
of the finest examples of a boat of which probably no more than 500 were built. This Ace will be around for many more years, a symbol of our innocent past and a tribute to the vanishing art of the commercially produced handmade wooden boat.
