Building a Shelter

Now that I have exposed much of the boat, it's
time to build her a shelter from the hash New England
winter.

I used an old greenhouse frame and some clear
plastic that I bought from Home Depot to make a shelter.

Bigger Projects Begin

I got the boat back to MA. I was happy and relived that the trailer made it.
It was stressful as the lights weren't working and the day was getting late.
I pulled the boat 2.5 hours from Rhode Island to Western MA.

The boat wasn't even sitting in the yard 10 minutes and I started tearing into the cabin.
I'm anxious to see the bones of this girl.

Right away I encountered wet wood everywhere. Naturally, I kept digging and digging hoping to
hit some dry material.

I started by ripping out the old soggy v-berth:

It took a while to cut out this piece as it was glassed in.

I ended up using a very sharp chisel to slice the glass tabbing.

And sadly I had to cut this piece in two to get it through the

companionway. This will make it a little tougher using it as a template.

The old foam was disgusting and a bear to get out. It was glued

down with some heavy stuff and the foam itself was super brittle.

I ended up slicing it into manageable pieces with a large paper cutting knife.

After it was cut I used a putty knife as a spatula to liberate the foam from the hull.

Next, was digging into the busted up keel material.

Bad news... After cutting out the fiberglass cover

I found a wet cement slurry.

I scraped what I could out with the claw of a hammer and sponged

the water out. I repeated this for 20 minutes before I realized I needed

a new POA.

The obvious truth was that the keel was FULL of water.

Drastic times, call for...

It's been four days since the drilling and water, albeit

one drip / 15 min, is still finding its way out of the keel.

Brightwork Beginnings

Crappy cold night and the boat is still in Rhode Island.
I took the rudder, spars, and a few other parts back home and decided
to start working on some of the brightwork and try cleaning up the rudder.

The tiller was in rough shape after spending god
knows how many years outside exposed.


I ended up having to scrape and file
the millimeters of old oxidized varnish off... no good.

The hard work payed off and the tiller shined right up.

























While I cleaned up the tiller I soaked the rudder
in a weak acid to dissolve some of the old
salts off. After the salt was gone I was left with an
even more pitted looking rudder. This project is going to
have to take a backseat.

(Rudder taking a bath.)

Buying Kpeting

I bought this Com-Pac 16 on December 5, 14.

She is in rough shape, but I will be working on her until she

is seaworthy and looking fresh.

I have been researching Com-Pac16s for a while and this little boat looked like a perfect project.
After just finishing a Pearson 26 rebuild and selling her (https://sites.google.com/site/sailapearson26/), I am ready for a new project.  But instead of moving up in size, I want to move down but up in complexity of the jobs I'll be doing.

The Com-Pac 16 is about the right size for me to feel comfortable taking it down to the hull and making modifications. A small project means that I can only make mistakes.

She is a sail-less, motor-less, and full of problems 1980 Com-Pac 16.
For better or for worst I payed $500 for the boat and the trailer.

I will make my list a projects public at some point, but for now here are some of the problems that jumped out at me when first looking at her.


Cabin needs to be rebuilt:

The rudder is pitted and in need of some attention:

And of course I could find all the gelcoat crazing I wanted to.

There are other problems, of course, and I know I will find more as soon as I start tearing into the project. She has been sitting at least 2 years, according to the old owner, and my guess is I can conservatively double that time to get an accurate picture of how long this boat has been neglected.

Time to breathe some life back in her.