Progress on the refit General Forum Forums

OK, I get that this isn't a problem to be solved but who doesn't want to know about one of the "old ladies" being restored?

We bought Orion about a year ago, fixed her up enough to make the two day trip home and then shortly after that pulled her out and started what appeared to be a couple month refit, according to what the surveyor noticed and mentioned in his presale report. 

Turns out he missed a couple things and my boats up to this point have not been this large nor this old so the telltale signs of neglect and leaks and faulty maintenance were not apparent when I poked through the boat. Here's what we have had to fix/repair/replace so far and this is just what we considered safety and liveablily items:

-The bowsprit had lots of dutchmens in it but when the windlass base came off there was a huge patch of rot so we disassembled that and fabricated a new one with doug fir and epoxy. That's gone back on with better fittings, etc.

-The fitting on the end of the bowsprit was split and splitting and actually broken along some of the weld lines so a replacement was fabricated and installed for that

-The whole ketch rig came off and all the rigging, which was stainless with all norsemen fittings, was sent out to be remade. 

-The masts were sanded, patched where there was bad corrosion and awlgripped. After rolling and tipping the entire boat (it's gets bigger and bigger every time we hand sanded the hull!!) we finally broke down and sprayed the masts. Cut the painting time exponentially.

-The hull looked like it had been painted with a broom so we sanded, patched and rolled and tipped the whole thing about 6 times if you include the primer and topcoat. Learned a lot about Awlgrip. It's not an easy process. Possible but Boy Howdy is there lots of rules and narrow parameters. Here's a tip: if you've ever sprayed anything in your life, look into renting a tent frame and spray the boat. Did I mention it's exponentially faster? We realized after we were done that we could have rented a wedding sized tent, covered it in plastic and shaved about a month off the time we spent resanding the hull between every coat. Our Awlgrip salesman started his career as a sprayer for large boatyards and mentioned that he could spray three coats of primer almost as fast as he could circle the boat where each coat took us a day to roll and tip and a day to sand. 

-Replaced the mizzen mast step with 1" thick starboard as the aluminum had split. Pulled and rebedded the main mast step with a "deck organizer" plate for turning blocks under it. It had been leaking for years and compromised the mast so I had to disassemble the door frames going into the head so the deck could be jacked up and the mast could be shimmed to keep the flattened deck above it at the correct camber to correspond to the surrounding deck. 

-I pulled every piece of deck hardware with the exceptions of the stantions (next year!) and rebedded them by filling oversized holes with thickened epoxy then redrilling through that epoxy plug. 

-Sanded and varnished all the bone dry, exposed teak. We decided to use "Lust" from Jamestown distributors because you can hot coat it as fast as you can work your way around the caprail. It dried to the touch in less than an hour (here in the tropics) but stayed soft (here in the tropics) for days after.

-Replaced all the nav lights with LEDs

-Pulled the rat's nest of wiring out (huge pile) and rewired with a new panel from Blue Sea. There's gadgets on there that are going to take me a couple long cruises to figure out...

-Had the hull soda blasted then had to hand grind every square inch of epoxy barrier coat that must have been put on on a rainy day because most of it was not adhered and so pourous it was actually trapping water against the hull.

-The cutlass bearing was shot and the PSS had been incorrectly installed and if I hadn't noticed it when I was peering around the engine room before we took off must have been an easy way to sink the boat as the shaft was turning inside the stainless collar (the set screws had never been tightened) and the only thing keeping the water out was the little O ring that was doomed to wear out very soon. The engine came out and we replaced one solidly rusted motor mount, the PSS and the cutlass bearing as well as the water pump which was also leaking. We also did white bilgecoat in the engine room which was very satisfying.

-We yanked out all the headliner because the portlights and deck hardware had all been leaking into it and the mold was obvious. We're going to use white bilgecoat in the head since it's very dark and start the paneling and beadboard on the ceiling next year. 

-The storage was all accessible with small raised panel doors which didn't do the massive amount of storage justice so we made those openings larger, as large as possible and used teak veneered marine plywood for doors. They look great, work well and really make the space much more useable and accessible and they're much easier to lean against in the salon.

-We chucked the awful carpeting but haven't figured out what to do there yet.

-The area around the galley and especially the sink had been covered in cork flooring, rather haphazardly so we yanked all that out and we'll be putting a corian top back in with better ice box seals built in. 

-I ordered and received some pretty massive replacement port lights for over the nav station and galley (must keep the cook happy!!) but that has taken a back seat to just getting the boat back in the water which we're seriously hoping will happen in the next couple weeks. Like sometime last may so we could make that shakedown trip up the intracoastal.

-We got a great deal on an Avon dinghy with davits so I had the yard welder make up a couple stainless brackets so we could have the dingy on davits when we finally head off on that much anticipated shakedown. The Bahamas beckon but we obviously still have lots to do. 

Here's what we've learned aside from all the stuff about epoxy and awlgrip: It's hard on a relationship unless all parties have a clear understanding of what to expect and, preferably, they are invited to join as often as possible! That's a big one unless you're either a bachelor or plan to be one soon.

The remodelers credo: It will take much longer and cost much, much more than you can possibly imagine. I had a spreadsheet of all the items I was going to do including time and cost and I'm pretty good at that stuff since I've been a remodeler in the construction industry for many decades. Not even close. When I announced that I had a plan and a spreadsheet everyone in the yard office had a good snicker and they were right. I knew there would be overruns going in but I'm much better at spotting residential housing issues then I was spotting issues with a boat when I started this project. We learned so much and that's half the fun of these projects but I'd never ever do one of these on a shoe string with any expectations of satisfaction. If you're just patching things up enough to get going, no problem. I've waited a lifetime for this project to I wanted better than patched and I wanted safe. I'm pretty sure I could bounce this hull off a shipping container and feel solid which is important. Not going to win any races but we're thrilled with her looks and the trust we have in her every system.

More later.

Rick