Commander #3

[Fritz]

Hello All,

I am pleased to report that Commander #3 has a new home port in Point Pleasant, NJ. My Commander search started about a year ago and I found one in Maine that was in decent enough shape and in my price range. She needs some work, but hope to have her floating by the 4th of July. I will be using this excellent site as a blueprint for all my repairs/modifications & upgrades.


Thanks

Fritz

[Tony G]

welcome, Fritz. She is a gem in any state. These are truely beautiful boats in and out of the water. Congratulations on finding her and congrats on finding a hydraulic trailer to mover her! About 2 mos. ago there wasn't one to be found in south TX. They were all on the east coast cleaning up after Sandy.

[Fritz]

Thanks Tony, Can't wait to start working on her.

[paulsproesser]

Thanks Tony, Can't wait to start working on her.
Fritz, you definately found a gem #3 WOW ! I have owned and been restoring Commander 5 since July 31 2010 and until now It was thought to be the only one left in the single digits. I wonder where all the others are all the time, Its great to see someone found one finally and your ahead of the game with your hull being in great shape . We found mine for free on craigslist in Maryland and it was A disaster from stem to stern and had almost sunk during the blizzard of 2010. I spent the 2011 season redoing the topside and coamings then pulled it april2012 and did the hull and structural upgrades. The yard wanted $7000 just to do the bottom so I did it myself and the other repairs for about $1000. You have to get yourself in the mindset of JUST DO IT. Looks like your deck and interior are your biggest worry unless you have an inboard engine. The interiors clean up easily enough but dont seal or paint until you get your topsides fixed and sealed The best thing you did was finding this site , Everyone on here is very helpful and encouraging . And some are real masters at reconditioning these Ariels and Commanders and there are all the helpful links for what you will need . Have fun and get out in the water! OH and do yourself a favor and purchase the owners manual It will cut down on site searching and there are parts contacts there that are helpful.

[Fritz]

Thanks Paul,
I'm working away on it when I can. Making some good progress. The hull is in very good shape and the boat was awgrip just a few years ago. I do have some soft spots on the deck but nothing too major. Im still deciding on how to tackle this. Options I'm considering are:
1) repair from the top by cutting out deck
2) repair from the bottom - against gravity
3) injecting the CPES (clear penetrating epoxy sealer) into the deck core as per manufacture instructions.
I might try option #3 first in a small area. If that does not work to my liking, I will move to option #1 .
Next week I'm having the bottom soda blasted. I also plan on painting the mast prior to launching. The jib is only a couple of years old but it does have a couple of small holes which need to be repaired. I also want to upgrade the roller furling. The boat did come with two new self-tailing winches. I'm hoping to have the boat splashed by 4th of July.

I looked at all the work you've done on your boat...looks great, nice job!

Thanks for checking in with me and I will keep you posted on my progress.

Fritz

[paulsproesser]

Thanks Paul,
I'm working away on it when I can. Making some good progress. The hull is in very good shape and the boat was awgrip just a few years ago. I do have some soft spots on the deck but nothing too major. Im still deciding on how to tackle this. Options I'm considering are:
1) repair from the top by cutting out deck
2) repair from the bottom - against gravity
3) injecting the CPES (clear penetrating epoxy sealer) into the deck core as per manufacture instructions.
I might try option #3 first in a small area. If that does not work to my liking, I will move to option #1 .
Next week I'm having the bottom soda blasted. I also plan on painting the mast prior to launching. The jib is only a couple of years old but it does have a couple of small holes which need to be repaired. I also want to upgrade the roller furling. The boat did come with two new self-tailing winches. I'm hoping to have the boat splashed by 4th of July.

I looked at all the work you've done on your boat...looks great, nice job!

Thanks for checking in with me and I will keep you posted on my progress.

Fritz
I dont have any experience with the cpes I found the west system 6/10 thickened epoxy in the caulk tube to be a godsend . Its not as messy and comes with an applicator/mixing tip which I think may be what you want for the small areas you showed around those stanchions. you only get about 1/3 of a tube full for $22 , I would drill some holes out around 3 inches from the area and pump it in and into the bolt holes for the stanchion until its oozing out every hole, ALWAYS WEAR RUBBER GLOVES you dont want it on you it stays awhile. I didnt have a choice with my bowrail because the bow went up under a peir in a hurricane and punched the stanchions rite thru the deck before I got it and I had to get all the moisture damaged core material out. Then i filled the voids with 6/10 and cloth then epoxy and cloth underneath and on top with layers of mat and cloth then after primer and paint redrilled and mounted new fittings. I guess I was lucky with a full suit of sails and poles though they were all in great shape. On painting your mast look at Ricos' threads he did a fine job on his commander #38 and tells you what to use to pretreat the metal also. I plan on doing the same soon one day wish I could find a trailer but I'll have to settle for the yard for now maybe this winter who knows weve been enjoying the boat too much to take it out of the water again. I did all my topside work while it was in the water ,Its no big deal dont miss out on the summer it goes by quick for us here in the northeast . I just looked at your pic again . your going to have to fill that and cut a square out of the deck and reglass it ,it looks like it broke thru. cut a square out and fill the hole with glass mat and thickened epoxy then finish the top off with cloth , sand smooth fair it and recoat it. thats why i dont want lifelines on mine it looks like it may have hit the dock . I would rather people get use to using the cabin top handrails.

[Lucky Dawg]

Hey Fritz,
Congrats and welcome!
Don't know if my pictures of Lucky Dawg's deck restoration would be of assistance to you. I did a number of things right and a number of things wrong. Both helped educate me! I was 100% inexperienced from day one of this project.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100988960116603858412/Deckjob#
KW

[Commander 147]

Hi Fritz

I will add in my two cents worth for your consideration.

As you can tell from my Gallery page I chose to go at the deck recore from the top and for me it turned out to be the right choice. One of the things I considered prior to starting was that I always intended to redo all of the non-skid on Destiny's deck because I wanted it all uniform and trying to match the existing pattern proved too costly and too difficut for me. So at that point there was no good reason to fight gravity and recore from the bottom.

I learned a lot along the way but the things I learned that apply to your situation are listed below.

First I learned that the top layer of glass on the deck was a lot thicker than I would have guessed before starting. And because of it, it was difficult to tell just how far the rot had gone throughout the deck. The only way I found reliable was to drill a series of 3/8" holes in the deck starting where I was confident I had rotten core and working out from there until I hit white balsa that was still good.

Second the rotted core was sopping wet. I could pick up a piec of it and squeeze it between my fingers and make water drip out of it. Once that water finds it way in it is very difficult for it to get back out. So trying to pump in epoxy through holes drilled in the deck would be in my mind a questionable way to fix the problem because I'm not sure how well it will bond to wet surfaces.

Third I looked at almost every method out there to redo the non-skid on Destiny and I settled on Kiwi Grip because I felt it provided the best looking finished product with the lowest cost of both time and money. And it can be applied over the existing non-skid and newly repaired patches and they will blend together. In addition you can get any color that can be mixed in paint. I talked to the comapny and they said you can have anyone that mixes paint color add the same colors to Kiwi Grip white and get whatever color you want.

Just some things for you to think about before you begin your project that I learned along the way. I hope it helps in some way.

[Fritz]

Hi Kyle, thanks for all the pics and comments. They will be a big help with future projects on my #3 Commander. This is an excellent forum for learning what to and what not to do thanks to people like you.

Fritz

[Fritz]

8994

Worked on Commander #3 all summer. Just got her in the water for hopefully six weeks of sailing. Had the bottom soda-blasted, applied Interluxe 2000E and then Trinidad SR bottom paint. New roller-furling installed along with a new rudder (thanks to Jerry Carpenter, C-147).

Please excuse the sail trim, battens, outhaul and downhaul are not installed yet.

Many more projects in store for the winter.

[Lou,com4]

Very nice Fritz! Can you believe our boats will be 50 years old?

[paulsproesser]

Fritz, nice color and did you also varnish the coamings? And Lou welcome i'm the same age as the boat, That's one of my reasons that drove me to restore mine:p that green hull looks nice. just perfect for maine , what a picture. Do you guys realize that our boats were put in the molds on the same day? I saw an article on pearson somewhere and it showed the yard and factory and all the old hull molds were sitting rusting away in the yard. wish I knew the exact date they were cast and all the Ariels were cast in the same molds too, They had alot of them. There's a fellow around the creek from me with a boat of similar design but more streamline and swift moves quite a bit faster than our boats but I have'nt gotten close enogh to see what it is yet but this guy has a bright yellow hull. the color is a bit weird and the only one that color in the whole area but it fits the owner, he looks like a mad scientist. SAIL ON AND HAVE FUN!

[Lou,com4]

Thanks Paul! We love our boat, and will eventually restore it all. It's the kind of boat you can pass along to your kids.

[Fritz]

Thanks Paul, Yes, I have about 8 coats of varnish on the coamings. I have all the interior wood stripped from the boat and will sand and varnish over the winter. I will also be getting a new main sail for spring. Since I've had my boat in the water (3 weeks) I've gotten more compliments than my previous other three sailboats combined.

Fritz - Commander #3

[paulsproesser]

Fritz , use Kutzit or Strypeez to chemically strip the wood then lightly sand with 400 grit and wash down with denatured alcohol before you apply anything new.

[Fritz]

Thanks for the tip Paul. I will definitely one of those products.

Fritz

[Fritz]

97409741

The past couple of years I noticed a weeping keel when the boat was hauled in October, which really bothered me. After reading through the various posts on this forum, I decided to take the plunge (literally) and dig out the old foam from the keel. Tough job but finished up today. I will have a light shining in the keel for the next four months to dry it all out. My plan is to add epoxy/fiberglass around the rudder shoe as well as the rudder strap pins followed by either epoxy foam or a high density polyurethane foam.

Thanks to all of the input on this site which guided me to take the appropriate corrective action to remedy this problem.