Refit of Saving Grace Boat Profiles Forums

OK, here's what we've tackled so far on the major refit we find ourselves in the middle of:

Saving Grace hit the hard here in South Florida about a month ago. Maybe two, I've lost track of time. The first thing we did was have the bottom paint soda blasted off as the surveyor said the bottom was wet but he thought it was trapped in the layers of bottom paint which were very rough. Turns out he was wrong and that wasn' t the first or the worst. The previous owners had ground a bunch of blisters out and filled them with off the shelf Bondo. The kind you use on your car. Then they coated everything with a troweled on layer of epoxy that must have been put on in the rain because it was only half adhered. The parts that hadn't stuck had bubbled of just enough to trap water under that layer and hold it against the fiberglass hull that has been ground away and filled with pourous body filler. It took two people about a week with 8" sanders to get that layer of epoxy off and another 6 days with an angle grinder to get all the bondo and blisters gone. The yard manager has been periodically checking the hull for us and it has actually come down off the far right side where it was pegged because the fiberglass was saturated.

While the hull is drying we've also sanded off all the heavy brush marks from someone who either used latex paint or never read the instructions on what was probably a cheap one part marine paint. They must have tried to get it all covered with one coat in the middle of summer in the bright sunshine because the brush marks were thick. We've started back with Awlgrip but since it's our first ever and since the project has stretched from perfect painting weather in February/March to the rainy season, that's going slowly but we're so excited to be finally putting something back on.

We took the handrails off to rebed the bolts as half of them were dripping and when we did we found that they had been scrubbed and sanded until they felt thin and light, like balsa wood almost. The new handrails are taking shape in the shop but may not even go back on until the boat is finally back in the water. 

There's a pretty talented welder in the yard and he's remade our chainplates and the bowsprit fitting (cransiron?) because it had at least one hairline crack that we found when we pulled the bowsprit off. We pulled the bowsprit off because rot had showed up after the (inoperative) windlass came off for rebuild/replacement. When the end fitting came off we found rot under that as well so it was just as well that we bit the bullet and made a new one as opposed to patching existing as previous owners had done several times.

The new chainplates are going on the outside with old ones inside as backer plates so we've routed out where the old ones came through the caprail and put nice neat plugs back in there. The caprail itself has been adding to the annoying little untraceable leaks so we've been putting thickened epoxy in all the joints and cracks instead of the ubiquitous silicone which was slathered everywhere. We're assuming that they only did that after a number of beers as it was liberal and everywhere and almost uniformly ineffective. I have joined the ranks of those who will not allow silicone on the boat unless there's a window project going on. Which there won't be.

The masts and rigging came off shortly after the bottom was soda blasted and has been at the riggers for replacement as it was 20 years old. Good conditions and I have to complement Sta locs, they looked fine and none of the wires had any snags that I ever found. Still, 20 years is not something I want to worry about the first time things get hairy.

I had a very good friend, my best man from 23 years ago and a crackerjack mechanic "help" me rewire the boat. I say help me because he explained everything as he was going, several times but to no avail. I helped by getting material and handing him tools when he was upside down in the engine room for hours but "we" accomplished it in one long week. I got the panel from Blu Seas with a lot of consulting from Peter Jackson, wires from Best Wire and zillions of heat shrink connectors from somewhere else.

I'm assuming that someone had taken the original wheel because the boat came with a low-rent little spoked wheel that looked like a restaurant decoration more than an actual boat wheel so we found a 36" stainless steel "destroyer" wheel at Sailorman used parts place in Ft. Lauderdale and I treated the boat to leather from Boatleather which looks great. Much better than the rest of the boat right now.

The headliner came out before the boat was even on the hard and probably won't be replaced until I have all the lights and fans situated where they do the most good and all the deck hardware properly installed. We might be sailing like that until the begining of next season which is winter here. We've also completely neglected the deck which has taken a beating and will remain ugly until we're happy with the placement of the davits, travelers and new mast step.

There was an area around the base of the mast, maybe 3' x 4', that was soft. Soft to the point that it had caved in before someone noticed it so both doors into the head were shaved considerably. I'm going to cut that out and replace it with a non compressible fiberglass substrate, something called super something, and add a deck organizer under the mast step so I can lead all the lines aft. Just in case I get a wild hair and want to single hand. 

At the suggestion of my sailmaker I'm going to move the main mast running backs up the mast along with the attachment points for the inner stay/staysail stay. He suggested that so the staysail could be made larger and more effective when the monster genny gets overpowered which it seems to do at about 12 knots of wind. I think Scott made the point once that a self tacking staysail allows one person to tack all they want with very little trimming. I like that concept and am working out my deck hardware to accommodate that.

We found some inexpensive davits that we're adding to the transom as we expect to do less docking and more anchoring and want to explore all the streams and rivers on the ICW heading north not to mention the reefs and snorkeling places in the Keys which are also close.

I know, I know, it seems like wayyyy too much to tackle at once but I have been waiting for this for a long time (the kids are grown and gone) and it's time to pick up and do some long trips. I also really like the lines of the boat and frankly there wasn't much that we've added to the list that weren't priorities. 

Supposedly they had replaced the engine 4 times and this one has low hours which was one of the few "Saving Graces" of the boat.

We're going out for lobsters when we get our first successful coat of Awlgrip primer on the whole boat and the bowsprit goes back on which should be soon. Really soon!

Rick