Back on it

It's been a while since I posted because all my time has been taken up with other projects.  Specifically, my Hobie and sailfish both needed the attention more.  At the end of the season, I managed to break both of them (Hobie and Sailfish) so badly that I had to cut the season to an end early. 

One of my friends forced the issue by crashing the port pontoon into the rocks, punching a hole in the bow.  This was actually a good thing.  The last few times I sailed it, I noticed that the same pontoon was taking on water faster than usual.  I figured a bolt or seam was breached, or I was just spending too much time with the pontoon burried in the water when I was flying the hull......WRONG.   That pontoon had a latteral crack along three feet of the hull's bottom edge.   Water was flowing in just about as fast as if I had left the drain plug open.  It was the internal flotation that was keeping me from sinking, not any boyancy.   It took my friend's mishap to force me to fully inspect the hull for damage.  The reapir work was extensive such that I could not do it and salvage the paint job.  I ended up sanding off the flames, patching all the dings and cracks I found and painting the whole thing over again.  Since you can't do just one, I had to redo both.  I'm back to a plain-jane White Hobie cat.   I'll put some cool flames back on it in the spring.

My 2nd pressing task was the 45 year old Sailfish I got for free when I bought the Hobie from my wife's cousin.  Apparently, this sailfish had been in the family since the 1960's.  Six years ago I decided to fix all the holes and repaint it.  Since then, I made every attempt to put it to good use.  After this last summer and multiple repairs since that initial rebuild, I've given up on it as a usable boat.  The Fiberglass is just too brittle for it to be sailed in anything but calm weather....and just what fun is that?

I had to corect several hair-line cracks, fill in many gouges and take the last paint job back down to the old gellcoat.  I also had to replace one of the handrails that did not survive the removal process.

This pic is a view of its new permanent home.  It is now an expensive ornament on the carport wall.  The hardest thing about this rebuild was designing a system of brackets and the means to get the boat in place without tearing the brackets off the wall.    After failing twice to place it, once with four teanage boys, and the 2nd time with the help of some adults, I resorted to picking the whole thing up with a block and tackle and swinging it into place. 
The little fish-thing in the middle is a piece of wood I cut and stained that has two bolts going into the wall.  It's not going anywhere.

...so that was the last three months.   I've no explanation as to why its taken me this long to get back on the job other than I did not want to work on a sailboat I did not have a clean title on, which I now do.  It has officially been registered in Louisiana for the past couple months.  Thanks goes out to the Lee in OK who went the extra mile to help straighten the legal mess out.   BTW, if you buy a boat in Louisiana, a signed title is not enough to get it registered.  Also, if you don't have a registration for the trailer, you are screwed.  The way Louisiana DMV laws are written, there is no way to legally register an old trailer when it comes in from out of state.  My only option is to write a district representative, I think.

back to the Clipper:

The task at hand that I've tackled is painting the interior.  Here is a quick pic I took of the underside of the pop-top.  The fiberglass was a speckled and mildewed brown.  You can see my progress as I cover it all with a high-gloss enamel.

Yes, I did all by hand with a brush.  I tried to roll it, but it did not get in the dimples very well.  You can't tell, but once I brushed it one direction, I had to go back over the surface with perpendicular strokes to get it all.
Something that has been bugging me was the windows.  They look aweful.  The frames aluminum is oxyidizing, and the plexiglass is spiderwebbed.

 

The light, that's got to go.  I just need to pick up some nice LEDs to go in its place.

 The problem was this stuff.  When they installed the windows, they used some sort of uber-adhesive glue that would have forced me to break something in my quest to get the frames out of the holes.  That being said, I decided to cut my losses and just paint what I could.  Later on, when I have better tools, or know-how, I will go back and try this again.

  

I did manage to get the inside braceing parts of the frames off and repaint them.  Here is the before and after pics of my painting efforts.

The after picture shows the improvement to the windows frame

I ended up taping the windows and painting the inside edge of the frames as well.  I does look 100% better than before.   Walls painted and the frames cleaned up, these sort of details are starting to prove their worth.