The Halcyon

The halcyon

The Archimedes was originally home built by a master craftsman named Tom Henderson in his backyard in Apollo Beach, Florida and christened the “Halcyon”. Tom began construction in 1971 and it took him approximately 10 years of full time effort to complete. Below are pictures taken during various phases of construction and an article from the local newspaper that was written at the time.

Note:The pictures and and their captions are from a scrapbook composed by the second owner of the boat and later posted on a website he built to advertise the "Ketch de Jour" for sale.

This is an article the local paper did as he was constructing his dream in Apollo Beach.

Here, Tom and his wife Pat are building the wooden mold for the concrete hull.

This shows the completed mold and below a close up of the ferro mesh.

Tom told me in an email, one key to the success of a ferro cement boat is this mesh. It is made of a corrosion resistance, high tensil strength spring steel from Belgium. This mesh, in conjunction with the high strength concrete, gives a ferro cement hull not only tremendous durability, but also resilience. I can attest to this from my own experience. I had occation to hammer on one of the interior bulk heads during our remodeling of the Arc and was started at how the hammer bounced back in my hand.

Many home builders substituted common chicken wire to save money on construction and the result is a brittle combination that is not as strong and then begins to crumble years later when the mesh rusts from the inside out.

Here Tom is detailing the mesh before laying up the concrete.

Tom is testing the Leyland Triumph diesel. Tom told me the engine came from an old double decker bus. He rebuilt it and installed a keel cooler for a closed loop system to spare it from the ravages of using salt water in the coolng system. He's shown here testing it. To this day that old diesel, we affectionately call "Big Ben" starts up every time.

Below, Pat is mixing the mud, (concrete), for Tom to lay up. At the time, Pat was an office manager at Rinker Materials Corp. Tom was able to consult with the engineers there to determine an ideal mix for the cement. It tested at 9,000 psi after completion.

Another critical thing about building a ferro cement boat is the layup of the cement. Avoidance of air pockets, as well as "cold joints" and proper curing are critical. Tom was able to apply the cement very evenly and without air bubbles using a special trowel he constructed from a hand massage instrument. He must have worked himself to exhaustion to achieve a continous pour without cold joints, its hard to know, but the hull is without question as solid as a rock! (Pun intended)

Here the bilge keel tanks are shown before capping. This design allows for large volumes of water and fuel storage, positioned as low as possible in the boat for stability.

Installing the cover for the rear auxillary fuel tank and a picture of port side before application of the concrete

Here is shot of mold being removed. Tom told me he had built a few other woodedn boats before the Halcyon. In one of our many communications over the last few years he said that if had known how much work it was going to take he probably wouldn't have built this one out of concrete. He lamented that he basically had to build two boats because the mold was so much work.

Here Tom is detailing the "barn door" rudder. When we hauled the Arc in LaBelle Florida over 30 years later it was still in excellent condition.

The keel cooler for the 1963 Leyland Triumph, (formerly called "British Standard") diesel engine.

Here, "Big Ben" is being hoisted into the Halcyon, "Archimedes Style", using levers and pulleys, both invented by the famous Greek Philosopher who has become the new namesake of Tom's creation.

Another "Archimedes Style" operation, stepping the new main mast.

When I originally bought the "Ketch de Jour" I had no idea I would eventually come up with my plan to make it a solar electric boat. This was something that evolved several years later and is detailed in the next chapter of the boat's history. Because much of the wood in the spars was severly deteriorated after almost 30 years, my orginal intent was to rerig it with surplus alumimum hardware from a wreck or salvage yard. But that's not how it turned out. All the rigging and spars were handcrafted from wood and stainless steel. There wasn't a nicrome press fitting on the whole thing and all the cabling had hand braided, clevis ends. Even the pulleys where hand made using plate stainless and epoxy molded rollers with brass bushings. I had owned the boat for over a year when I looked closely at a pulley one day and realized this. The term, "They don't make things like they use to" certainly applies here and the Halcyon is testiment to what we can accomplish using simple tools with a little ingenuity.

The quality of workmanship on this boat has never ceased to amaze me. From all the hand made stainless steel rigging hardware to the cabinets and interior finish work. Tom Henderson was a craftman's craftman and almost everything on this boat was hand made. Sometimes I feel my effort to transform the Arc into a modern electric boat are unworthy of its heritage.

Just before launch after 10 years of hard labor.

Just Another Day in Paradise

After construction, Tom and Pat lived the dream of cruising their newly constructed sailing ketch for about six years, until illness forced them off the water. He sold the Halcyon to a man from Matlacha, Florida who was so impressed with the vessel he renamed it, “Ketch de Jour”.