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Originally Posted by Pack Mule
I joined to get some info but couldn't get into the woodie section . I'll try Bob Lowe . Right now I'm just curious and want to learn more . Thanks
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Ask your questions in the general section. The woodie section is an earlier website that has been grafted onto the GB owners site and so far as I know is relatively inactive. Bob Lowe participates in the general section.
The planking of 99.9 percent of the woodies is mahogany. A few, or at least one, a GB32 that lives in BC, were planked in teak. I don't know what the framing was made of. The hulls were carvel (flush) planked with cove lines. The fiberglass GBs duplicate the appearance of the wood hulls as well as being the same Ken Smith design. From photos I've seen the frames appear to have been sawn but Bob would give you the correct answer.
A long time ago I posted some photos here of photos of the original Kowloon (Hong Kong) yard. These may be what Ken is sending you. Wood boats were also built in the company's newer Singapore Yard but I don't know if these included Alaskans. Alaskan production continued for awhile after the Grand Banks line was switched to fiberglass in mid-1973.
I've been told that American Marine had wanted or intended to switch the Alaskan line to fiberglass, too, but before this could happen the company overextended itself on fiberglass Grand Banks production in mid-1974 and was headed for serious financial difficulties and the company couldn't afford to make the switch. So the Alaskan line was shut down, the Kowloon Yard was sold and the company concentrated solely on fiberglass GB manufacture in Singapore. From the outset, alll fiberglass GBs were made in Singapore until the advent of the much more recent yard across the strait in Malaysia.
So it remained for other companies who built the deFever design that was used for most of the Alaskans to produce them in fiberglass along with Fleming which uses essentially the same design (Tony Fleming was a yard manager for American Marine for a number of years in the early years.)