The cabin

It's been a while since I last posted, but it's not because I haven't been doing work on the boat. Although things are going much slower than I'd like for them too. The main issue has been the holidays - which can take up a lot of free time. The other issue has been that I'm building a small boat as a Christmas gift and I'm really having to put in a lot of time here at the end to get it ready by Christmas day. I'm still not sure I can get it done in time, but I'm trying.

The keel on the Bayliner Buccaneer is molded as part of the hull. It is not attached to the boat, it's part of the boat. It's a shallow keel. During the building process, a 1250 pound lead weight is lowered into the keel space and glassed into place. A thick covering is then glassed over it, and flotation safety foam sprayed on top. Then the sole is glassed in over that.

I've torn out most of the sole and removed all of the flotation foam. I've exposed the top of the keel which was been sealed in with fiberglass as I mentioned. After inspecting the hull under the sole, and the condition of the top of the keel I've decided not to pull out the keel weight to repair the hole underneath it. The glass and surrounding structure is very solid and there are no signs of rot. Removing the keel weight and repairing the hole from the inside would be the way to do it if I were going to keep the boat another 10 to 20 years, but I'm not. Additionally, this is a 30 year old 24 foot Bayliner, it's just not worth putting that kind of time, money and effort into it. So the keel will be repaired from the outside. I'll go into more detail on how this will work later.

Here is a photo of the cabin before we started removing the floor



The above photo is a view of the vee-berth from the galley. You can see where the previous owner removed the decking in the vee-berth and pulled out some of the flotation foam. This was to get at the fresh water tanks that were thought to be leaking.

The above image was taken after most of the floor and all of the flotation foam was removed. This is the cavity under the sole that is filled with foam. I've cut through part of the glass for inspection purposes. Just underneath that 1 inch thick fiber glass is the keel weight. The glass helps keep the keel weight in place and attached to the hull. I'll be adding several layers of 12 oz. biaxial glass tape along the insides of this cavity for additional support before I put the floor back in. Then new flotation foam will be sprayed in.

Although I do not have pictures of it at the moment, the boat is high up on blocks and off of the trailer. It is under a large plastic tent, which totally encloses the boat to keep moisture out. The next step is to repair the keel from the outside. We've started sanding off the entire bottom paint job. On the keel, we'll sand everything off all the way down to the glass. Any weak spots will be repaired with cloth and/or epoxy if needed. All blisters will be ground down to the glass and repaired with thickened epoxy. The keel damage will be repaired by grinding out the crack and shoving thickened epoxy into it. Then the entire keel will be sanded to the glass and covered with 1708 glass cloth, then epoxied with several layers of epoxy.

I hope to have the hull (below the waterline) glassed and totally repaired and prepped for painting by New Years Eve. Then it'll be primed painted soon after with Interlux Micron anti-fouling paint. After that we'll start working prepping the outside of the hull for painting above the waterline.

I hope to post again soon.

Sail before haulout

Yesterday before hauling the boat out of the water, we took it sailing for about 3 hours. It was great. It's not a speed boat of course, but it sailed nicely (based on my very novice opinion.) We even used the jib. Of course now I want a spinnaker sail :-)

Hauling the boat out of the water was freakish. There is so much of the boat that you don't see because it's underwater. When we got it out it was HUGE. Trailering it home was not trivial either, we were all a bit nervous. After I got it parked in the yard I stood back and looked at it and thought "I really need some kind of therapy or hotline or something".

New sailboat project

Those of you who know me I'm sure are not surprised that I have a 24 foot sailboat in my backyard now. Those of you who do not know me, well, this is my fourth boat (meaning I now own four boats.) Yes, I'm aware that I have a problem.

I recently purchased a 1977 Bayliner Buccaneer 240 sailboat with trailer. I bought this project boat for very little money. The boat is in pretty good condition with the exception of a large hole in the bottom of the keel. This has caused active water leaking for about a year now. It's been sitting in a slip leaking about two gallons of water every hour. An automatic bilge pump kicks on occasionally and keeps the water out. Of course everything under the sole is waterlogged. The boat has not been out of the water in a very long time, probably several years or longer.

The floor is solid and the interior (pictures of that will come later) is actually not in very bad shape. Everything on the inside seems very solid and there are no indications of wood rot. Of course I won't know for sure until I pull up the sole. It will need a total refit however. The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the process of the repair and refit of the vessel. I also hope to get many comments from some of the very knowledgeable boat builders out there.

Photos of the boat can be seen here:
http://www.vonmiller.com/Bucc240/just_arrived/just_arrived.html