As a 1978 model-year boat, Copycat is due for a deep refresh. Thankfully the polyester resin of yesterday has well resisted the stress of time. Some may call this survivorship bias: if it made it this far, it can only be well built. Yet, the perspective of restoring an almost 50 years old boat to an adequate level of seaworthiness and esthetic can seem foolish. Most importantly, the relatively small size of Copycat makes it an appropriate size project to my liking.
This list will certainly get longer as any boat owner knows. Theseus committed the original sin and ever since the life of a boat owner consists of yearly maintenance where it is unclear how much of the original boat remains.
The first elephant in the room is the hull itself: the bottom paint is peeling and likely in need of a full stripping and refresh. The old paint will be stripped, the hull sanded, faired and a barrier coat of epoxy will be installed. But while only visible when stored on her trailer, this problem doesn’t affect the structure of the boat in the short term, however resolving it will ensure a long life in the future.
The bottom paint exhibits rough texture, a sign of pealing under layer.
A next low hanging fruit that will be dealt with the bottom paint, is the obvious wear observed on the gudgeon, as shown on the photo above: gudgeons are hole-shaped hardware that receive a cylinder mounted on the rudder — a pintle. The pintles mounted on the rudder is also worn out. Probably the tiller wasn’t properly secured while the boat was on her mooring. The bottom of the tiller shows indeed some wear consistent with rubbing on the transom.
The top pintle mounted on the transom exhibiting excessive wear, the rudder and the worn out pintles, the bottom of the tiller is also worn out from excessive rubbing on the transom.
The gel coat on the top sides are certainly a bit oxidized and exhibit some spider cracks here and there. The deck has a couple of small chips and cracks which will need to be addressed as well. The teak rub rails are in good shape, but most of brightwork has very faded varnish as shown on the pictures below. The cabin doors, the cabin side trim, the hand rail will have to be striped, cleaned and varnished.
Small chips on the deck sides, worn out varnish on the brightwork.
There are however some more substantial and structural issues: one that is very common is that water has intruded behind the main bulkhead plywood (this is the vertical surface that separates the inside of the cabin from the outside). This water leak is likely caused by a leak around the seat cleat, but also where the coaming meets the outside of the bulkhead. The first step will be to remove enough wood to find and fix the leak source, then replace the bulk head: remove all the old Douglas fir plywood, bond another piece of fresh plywood, and tab it along the edges of the hull with epoxy and biaxial fiberglass tape.
The bulkhead is the vertical surface that separates the cabin from the outside. The corners show some wood rot, the rot is more substantial once one starts digging under the paint.
The most significant damage may be the floor of the cockpit itself. While the boat is made of fiberglass, the floor of the cockpit is a plywood sole mounted on plywood stringers. In the middle of the floor, there is a teak trim and some sailing hardware mounted. Unfortunately, water is known to seep through the mounting holes of the trim, soaking the plywood like a sponge and turning it into rot. This is definitely the case here as evidenced by soft and bouncy spot. I won’t know how bad until I dig deeper under that layer.
Under this floor, a potential all rotten mess is awaiting me.
All in all, this should keep me busy for quite a bit of time!