Ariel #24

[Tim Mertinooke]

Well, I purchased Hull #24 and will have her resting safely in my yard by the end of this month. She is in sailable shape on a nice roadworthy trailer less than an hour from my home in western Massachusetts. My wife and I are school teachers and plan on cruising the New England coast together most of the summer with our 4-year-old son. The boat will be kept in Newburyport on the Merrimack River where we have kept our Cape Dory Typhoon for the past five years. At the end of the season she will then be trailered back to my house about two hours away to be worked on. My list of projects probably looks similar to everyone elses; couple soft spots on the deck, spongy cockpit sole, replace ice box, paint interior, etc. The two most pressing issues however that will need to be done before splash time is the rudder shoe and a bulge in the keel where the lead ballast is. The rudder shoe seems strong and has no play. The fiberglass sheathing over the shoe is cracked and once I get it to my house, I will be able to grind it off to get a better assessment. My feeling is that it looks worse that it is because it appears to be very strong and the bronze rudder shaft is in good condition. The bulge however takes priority and I am ready to attack it with a grinder, then start the layup routine. My initial idea as to the cause of the bulge was water migration through the bilge, then freezing. The bulge location is where the lead ballast is, so the expansion may have pushed against the lead and the fiberglass. The other side of the hull opposite this bulge shows no bulge at all. The perplexing thing however is that it is in a very localized area. Maybe it wasn't freezing water, but a blister? Maybe water that reached the laminate from the outside then froze? It was mentioned to me on another board that this sort of thing has happened to other ariels and would be very interested in hearing from those who have been there and done that. Bulges and soft spots aside I am very excited about our new ariel. Having been an Alberg fan my whole life and weighing the trade-offs with bigger vs. smaller, the ariel is a perfect fit. Big enough to cruise, small enough to trailer home at the end of the season. My plan is to document my restoration on a website that should be up and running by the time the boat gets home.

Tim