Assessing the Work

Most of my focus prior to purchase had been on the hull, but once I got the boat home it was time to do a thorough evaluation of what it would need. I had already found a few surprises while prepping the boat for transport.

First, the headsail was on a furling system. While the furler itself looked serviceable, the headstay was clearly shot with broken strands of steel cable visible at the top. The rest of the standing rigging wasn't much better. This wasn't too disappointing since I planned on replacing the standing rigging anyway. Inspecting the mast closer, I found one of the halyard blocks attached with rusty steel screws. This would clearly need to be addressed as well. The furling jib had no UV cover and had obviously been left out in the sun for some time, so the outer foot of the leech was tattered and beyond repair. I quickly made the decision to find a used hank-on jib to replace it. The main also had a bit of UV damage along the leech, but in this case it was just a few spots where the tape separated and I planned to repair it.

Next, I set about testing the swing keel winch and verifying the keel moved. Thankfully, it did! However, I noticed it looked slightly off-center in the partial trunk. Further scrutiny revealed the lifting cable attached to only one side of the keel, causing it to lift slightly off center. The attachment point was a bolt through the cast iron keel, with a rusty fender washer holding a shackle in place between the head of the bolt and the keel. The lifting cable also appeared to be just galvanized and already had meat hooks. This would definitely need some attention. Another surprise was the rudder. Off the boat it it looked fine, but when placed in the gudgeons, it was obvious that it came from another boat, probably one with a slightly reverse transom, as opposed to the more traditional angle of this boat. Update: I strongly suspect this is an O'Day 22 rudder. My gut feeling was either an O'Day 22 or Paceship PY 23, but looking at images it matches the O'Day 22 rudder pretty perfectly.


I already had in mind to re-bed all the deck hardware, "potting" each fastener hole with epoxy to prevent moisture from reaching the core. I had done it plenty of times on previous boats, but I still wasn't looking forward to it as I counted roughly 70 fasteners through cored areas. I was surprised to find only three backing plates in the whole boat; the backstay plate and aft pair of stanchions. Everything else was either just plain flat washers, or fender washers in a few cases. One of the most appalling things I found was that one of the previous owners had actually drilled two holes straight through the port side deck to mount the VHF on the interior!? There were also two cam cleats, visibly missing bearings, attached to the fiberglass coamings directly with wood screws, one of them not even stainless and rusting badly. The winches were very tough to rotate, so I disassembled them to assess things. The winches were like none I've ever encountered before. They didn't use modern winch handles, and they weren't the old-school slotted type either. Some searching online led me to discover these were most commonly found on early MacGregor/Venture sailboats. It seems Laguna also managed to nab some. No manufacturer markings of any kind that I could find. The starboard winch disassembled easily enough, but the port winch was so badly corroded that the pressed-in bronze center stem broke loose from the base, stuck inside the drum. All of the pawls were solid blocks of corrosion and the screws basically disintegrated when I attempted to remove them, even after soaking in PB Blaster overnight. It was clear I needed new winches. Thankfully, this boat has only two and they are quite small.

At least the electrical system of this boat was minimal. It had a small fused switch panel with three circuits: navigation lights, masthead light, and interior lights. I opted to keep it simple for now, but I knew I had to replace all the existing wire; it was plain copper, not fully tinned like modern marine-grade. Inspection of the navigation and mast lights revealed all were too badly corroded to save. I planned on replacing all lighting with LED units. There was one modern LED interior light that I opted to save, but another rusty incandescent had to go.

Every boat is a project boat, this one is no exception.





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