C-281

[asimo]

Hi All,
After a year and a half of lurking and learning from this forum, I finally have some time to post some pics from our group's work on C-281. We still haven't formally rechristened her yet, so we'll keep it at 281 for now, but she's a great boat, and getting more fun all the time. I'll try to keep this chronological. This was a first-time boat repair project for me, and I'm hooked. **Thank you for all your work making this forum an amazing resource** Hope you enjoy and send your ideas my way!

-Adam

[asimo]

281 was in pretty good shape when we got her. Some folks have clearly loved her over the years. Upgrades included a fairly new full-batten main on track cars, a traveler, and soft vang. The bilges were painted and she was quite dry. She came with a Tohatsu 6hp in fair condition and 4 headsails of varying quality, as well as a mystery spinnaker.

[asimo]

Deck Repair

We thought it would be nice to clean up the deck, take some old hardware off and clean up the deteriorated deck non-skid and gelcoat. We thought it might take a few weekends. Did I mention this was my first sailboat project? haha.

Maybe 100 hours of labour?
1) Fittings and degraded gelcoat removed/sanded off. We tried to keep her sailable for as much of the time as possible, so we left some crucial hardware on until the last minute!







Step 2, fill holes, low spots and fair.





Then paint the trim and non-grip surfaces with Awlgrip primer and topcoat (Snow White with matte-additive), using the roll and tip method. The candystriper rollers and wooster ultrapro soft brushes were the best we found (thank you internets)







Then mask off and paint the nonskid areas with Kiwigrip. This actually went to fast that I scarcely have photos of the process. Super easy! The best part is the kiwigrip is so thick and irregular that it hides a multitude of fairing sins.

[asimo]

Gooseneck Repair
A strong Jibe caused the old gooseneck fitting to give way, but co-owner Cleveland fabricated a new one and attached it.

[asimo]

Coaming Repair with Epoxy
West System Epoxy with 404 additive is your friend. I think the cockpit coamings take a fair bit of stress and abuse. Teak oil helps

[asimo]

There was a small but nagging leak that was leading to some water in the bilge. The cause actually turned out to be a nearly failed cockpit drain hose. As this is under the waterline, full failure could have been catastrophic! It also meant that in order to replace it, I had to dive under the boat and stick a plug in the drain thru-hull hole. Getting the tubing over the fiberglass involved 30 minutes of struggling in a tight space with astroglide.

[asimo]

We hauled out in Sausalito at Spaulding Marine. Our poor old rudder was looking pretty worn out. Spaulding machined a a new bronze shaft for us, and we shaped and built a new rudder out of marine-tek plywood using pretty close to the original design.

[asimo]

Another big project. We worked with Spaulding Center for Wooden boats, they were great! We had them haul the boat and and do the bottom job. They let us work there to do our own topsides since it was low season around the Holidays. We wound up using Awlgip in Sky Blue, with the roll and tip method.

Overall a much more joyful project than deck repair haha. Running the bootstripe lines was particularly fun.

[asimo]

Using guidance from the forum (Thanks Bill, Ed, Rico!), we installed jib tracks for better sheeting angles with our smaller headsails. Butyl sealant. Burly G10 backing plates on the inside.

[asimo]

Almost "done"
Sailcover

Coming

Going

[Robert]

Looks beautiful, great job! Are you sailing out of Sausalito?

[Cleveland]

Thanks Robert, nice thread Adam! No berthed at SF small craft harbor at fort mason.