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Guest lucasredblue

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Guest lucasredblue

     Hello everyone I am the new owner of hull #1191.  I got it from a guy named Mike in Independence Kansas.  He said he built it in 2001, and used it until 2004.  Then it was kept covered.  He said the cover went bad in 2004 and didn't replace it.  I picked up the boat about a month ago, and have it covered at a friends house.  I plan on fixing it up and learn to sail with my son.  Whenever I go to work on the boat, I find new problems.  I was wondering if anyone would give me their 2 cents worth.  There are some pictures on flicker.  If you can give me your opinion if it is worth the time to fix I would greatly appreciate it. Http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasredblue/ is the address.  If anyone wants to see a specific part of the boat let me know and I will get the pictures as soon as possible.  Thanks in advance for any help.

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Judging from the pictures, I'd say definately yes on being salvagable. Check the deadwood area and mastbox for rot, sand it down and paint it. It's a home-built wooden boat, there will always be issues :D . As long as the hull is sound, the rest can usually be fixed. The rigging looks a little twisted up (maybe you could replace that fiddle block with just a double block on top), but really, it looks like a couple of eye bolts are twisted. Looks like the previous owner tried to rig some kind of bridle on the gaff, too.

It actually appears to be in better shape than mine at the moment.

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It looks like you could make her whole again.  Ask the builder if he used epoxy, vinylester or polyester resin.  If he doesn't know specifically, ask him the brand name.  That will determine how you patch the places where the resin has delaminated.  You can use epoxy on all three, but the method you use to make it stick to the substrate might change.

On the stem pictures, you mention that you felt you made a mistake by pulling on the crack.  But that's exactly what you'll want to do: find out where the fiberglass and cloth has delaminated.  One method is to take a small hammer and tap around a place like that.  Tap a place where you know it's loose, and then tap away from that area until the sound changes ... you'll recognize it when you hear it.  When you get to doing the repairs, you'll want to remove the delaminated parts.

Tap around the cracks along the top, and if they sound like they are just cracks without delamination of the area around it, your repair may be just flowing epoxy into the crack, sanding it and painting it.  Areas that have delaminated like on the stem can be repaired by removing all the loose / delaminated glass and then filling with epoxy thickened with wood flour, micro-ballons or cab-o-sil (or a mixture of two of those).  Don't use Bondo unless you can find a marine grade filler (Bondo is not waterproof).  A 4" grinder is helpful in grinding back the glass to the good part.  Every thing except the keel under the boat will be pretty easy to repair.

It looks like the builder glassed the keel ... which we've had some debate about here.  I favor leaving the keel unglassed as per the designers, because the keel is made of solid lumber nearly 12" wide at the widest part, and it will expand about a quarter inch at different times of the year.  Wood does that.  But it really isn't too much of a problem, because these boats live on their trailer, and water that gets into the keel can usually also get out of the keel.  All the pictures of rot and damage in these boats that I have seen are from water getting into the boat and sitting there (most of us glass the outside, not the inside of the plywood).  So while repairing the keel would be the hardest to do, by removing the rigging, mast, etc. and turning the boat upside down, do the tap test.  If you don't have rot, it probably is not necessary.

To be honest, I would give it a good washing, make sure the steering mechanism works OK, and put it in the water for a little test sail.  The smile you get will give you quite a bit of incentive to give her the TLC she deserves. 

And I'll suggest a modification ... put a drain in the cockpit.  There is a free "planlet" at the Stevenson's site; you can open the 275kb PDF file by clicking here.  Several of us have done other cockpit drains (I used a dinghy drain from West Marine offset from the keel, and it worked fine).  That way, any rain that finds its way into the cockpit won't sit there and rot her out.

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