Royono Gets Some New Planking

here aren't many large wooden sailing yachts around any more, and for most of us the pre-World War II days of Herreshoff, Burgess, Lawley and others survive only in photographs and great stories. The boats that these men designed and built which are still sailing are all the more special then, not only because they are large, powerful and handsome to look at, but also because they are unique. ROYONO is one of these, a 71' yawl nearly forty years old. She has a long, sweet sheer, moderate freeboard and overhangs, handsome varnished woodwork and a hundred other details that make her a classic example of the designer's and builder's arts and an exhilarating boat to sail. She was designed by John Alden for Mr. Spencer Berger of New Haven, Connecticut, and built as the MANDOO II by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. in 1936. The combined skills and details of Alden and the Herreshoff craftsmen produced a yacht that reminds one very pointedly of the way things used to be done. Few who see or sail her are unaffected by the spirit that went into her building. She is of composite construction—oak keel, Swedish steel frames and double-planked. The inner planking is 5/8-inch Port Orford cedar; the outer is 1-1/8-inch Honduras mahogany, with a coating of shellac used between the two. 3/8-inch bronze bolts secure the planking to the frames, and the cedar is, in addition, fastened to the mahogany from inside with bronze screws. The layer of cedar, being light, strong and very well suited to its use, is said to have been used also to keep the odor of damp mahogany from making life unpleasant below decks. The deck planking and deck house are teak and the original spars were Sitka spruce. A great deal of effort has gone into keeping ROYONO in top shape over the years. John B. Ford, her second owner, kept her until 1950, when he donated her to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. She sailed in many offshore races for the Navy and they spent considerable time caring for her in a proper fashion. One work list, from an overhaul in 1965, shows that sheer clamp plate amidships on the port side. The rusted metal was cut away and replaced with 1/8-inch galvanized steel arc welded to the frames. (Airco 6011C electrode was used as it is intended specifically for use on vertical surfaces contaminated with galvanizing, rust or oil.) The topside planking on the starboard side that was rotted was removed after the first planks were replaced. The cedar was significantly less affected than the mahogany and in one area especially, under the counter on the port side, the shellac and cedar were in such good condition that they were left in when the new mahogany planks were fitted. It's perhaps worth noting that one of the new mahogany planks installed was 23 feet in length. It had come from Keiver-Willard Lumber in Boston. Above the waterline the rot could perhaps be termed as biological, while below it would be termed as electrolytic. The two major areas of deterioration extended from the boot top down two or three feet and ran from amidships well aft under the counter on both port and starboard sides. The rotted area around each bolt, in the mahogany