Commander #5

[paulsproesser]

I am the proud new owner of Commander #5. These are preliminary pictures before any work has been done. The stern motor mount definately has to go and also the baby blue deck. It's hideous and is being prepped for new white gel coat and the bottom will be navy blue. Inside shots were after alot of scrubbing with bleach to remove mold and the winch handles were encrusted and had to be wire brush cleaned and buffed. They are the original south coast winches and winch handles. I plan to redo all the combings exterior wood just as ariel 109 has done. The reason we haven't posted sooner is because we have been sailing every weekend since july 2010 and we aren't done yet. We found the plaques in a bag of crusty crap with screws and everything else and cleaned them up. Somewhere they will be mounted again. As soon as we can we will post more updates on the progress. Thanks for all your help. Commander #5

[Chance]

Paul, welcome and thanks for the initial photos of your Commander. Good to hear you have been enjoying her. Was she already in the DC area when you bought her? Never saw her listed. You have good taste, how can one go wrong with an Alberg design? Will you be re-doing the gel coat yourself, as you mentioned? She looks good, with the exception of the distasteful outboard motor bracket, which as you know is an easy fix. Her interior looks incredibly clean and well maintained. It's interesting how Pearson changed the profile of the bulkheads as production went along. Have you hauled her to see her bottom sides / rudder, etc.?

What's her name?

Thanks again and welcome.

[carl291]

Yes Welcome,
You've made a nice find, this boat must have had very few previous owners to be that original. It certainly cleaned up nice below. Is it an inboard model? Does it have and outboard well? Seems odd to hang a mount off the stern. If those are the worst holes in the hull you have to fill, you're very fortunate! Carl

[c_amos]

She will be stunning!

In every boats life there are seasons. I suspect C-5 has just entered a good one.

Thanks for the pictures, I shall look forward to seeing more as work progresses.... What ever you do, she will be worth the effort. These really are fine little ships we have!

[Tony G]

Welcome aboard, Paul.

Everyone here speaks the truth when it comes to these fine crafts. They all seem to have a 'being' or 'soul' that accompanys their history and yours comes with some really cool plaques to boot!

[Commander227]

Welcome Paul,
How cool to have one in the single digits. Have fun with the spruce up.
Mike
C227

[paulsproesser]

Thanks Chance, I will be doing the gelcoat work and have already been filling all the small cracks and holes while sailing. She was on craigslist briefly in july 2010 when my girlfriend found her under free listings so we decided to jump on it. The owner due to health reasons could'nt take care of it anymore and just left it tied to the dock at his house in St. Marys city Md. where i picked it up. He aquired it from a fellow who bought it at auction wo did the bottom, rudder and interior work but gave up and never got to sail her also he stripped the exterior wood and left it that way and it may not be possible to save it and he had it in the northeastern chesapeake area and when he got it at auction she had one previous owner, I found almost everything I know about her from previous postings on this website in the archives under commander 5 back to 2006, I plan to haul her in the spring and do the bottom i concentrating on the topside till then. As far as a name my 11 year old boy who knows how to sail and navigate now, when he saw her barnicles around the waterline he dubbed her The Krusty Krab from the spongebob cartoon but i dont know if it'll stick but it is fitting rite now, i'm getting all the electrical up to date going led ,new wiring, switches / rocker panel etc. As you all know it never ends but when i picked her up it took me 12 hrs to get her to my slip 12noon to midnight and had to navigate off the bay in pitch black without any electric and of course no lights in the rain and two of the channel marker lights where i was heading were burned out so i made it with a flashlight

[paulsproesser]

In response to carl 291 thanks and thanks to all of you for the insight I learned to sail in the early 80's and worked in boatyards and even worked the local boat shows selling them ,annapolis, d.c. and Baltimore just out of high school and my profession then was reupholstery and refinishing furniture which has proved to be handy throughout life so far but I've been an HVAC technician with steamfitters local union 602 wash d.c. since the mid to late 80's and yes she has a inboard well in the lazarette and all that cleand up nicely too but it needs a little work . In my journeys I have spotted two or three other commanders and ariels and a vangaurd in the area and when I get the time I'll try to get more details

[Ariel 109]

Is that a cockpit floor mount compass? How cool, I love those.

You might try and save your coamings and winch stands. They might just clean up real nice and those Commander coamings are so long.

Great having you aboard. I really look forward to hearing about your adventures.

Ben

[paulsproesser]

To Ariel 109, yes it is a floor mount compass it was on the boat when i got it and made a new lexan lense for it. we are gonna try to save the coamings and the winches are brass under the tarnish. thanks.

[paulsproesser]

The winch block

[paulsproesser]

This is the side view of winch base. I found some african mahogany that matches for the rebuild. In the process of removing wood from boat to fix and refinish wood.

[Ariel 109]

Those Commander winch blocks are so much taller than the Ariel's blocks. Do all Commander winch blocks taper downward, opposite of the Ariel winch blocks? Or is this because your boat is so early in the production? Making new ones is a fun project. Remember Ebbs advice about using resorcinol glue and it's advantages over epoxy.

[paulsproesser]

The new winch blocks

[paulsproesser]

The coamings