THE near DEATH AND RE BIRTH
OF A
1979 HUNTER 37 CHERUBINI CUTTER
HUNTER 37 CUTTER
Hull Repairs
Decided to repair the toerail first.
The toerail was removed and taken to the welding shop. . The bedding compound was still soft after 30 years. It got on everything. Has to clean all the tools, hands and rail with thinner.
A new lip was formed on the deck to re enforce the damaged part with heavy glass and West Epoxy. The deck was then screwed back to the hull and glassed over. All the bare areas received several coats of fine weave glass (surfboard glass) and finished with marine putty. All repairs were primed several times and flat sanded with a long board.
One of my employees had worked in a fiberglass shop before and made quick work of all the repairs. Had all damages repaired and primed in 4 days.
Took over one of our trailers to use for temporary storage. Don't know were all the crap came from but it was full to the max.
Notice the small A/C I installed on the forward hatch while working there. It was August and you could die of heat inside that hull
All scratches were cleaned, filled and sanded. Two coats of primer on each spot before the overall primer coat.
Hull was sanded to the fiberglass and inspected thoroughly. Two coats of Interlux 2000 barrier paint was used to re coat the hull while on the hard.
This is the area of the hull that had the most damage. Turn out great. All that sanding paid off.
Removed the fiberglass bow cover and had a stainless steel one made. I re bedded the cover and installed new chocks. Used 3m 5200 to seal the edges to the hull.
Used my multitool to remove all the hatches and re bed them with new polysulfide caulk
Hull Repairs
By now, I am pretty gun shy and after looking at the galley seackock valve, I got on the floor and used a small adjustable wrench to tap on the gate valve to shake some of the corrosion off. To my utter disbelief, the hole thing splits open and just lays in there. I called Pat in to look at it and he accused me of hitting the valve with a ball peen hammer. Not at all, I said, I just tapped it to shake some of the corrosion off and splat. NOW that was really scary. Can you imagine doing this while at sea and having this kind of failure happen?? At that point, I felt that cutting them off with a saw-zall was the only good way out. I also made new bedding plates out of the same material as Hunter had used. They had held up very well. I believe it is called sign board and is basically a very good plywood material with exterior glue and Kraft paper on both faces. Sign makers use it as it weathers well. I made new plates for all the thru hull. I bedded them all with 3M 5200. The 1St one was a bear as it was hot and the 5200 kept running every where. I had it all over me, my tools and other parts of my body. Decided to put the next tube in the fridge and cool it down some. perfect. It laid a good bead without running all over the place.
I had expected to find some corrosion on the seacocks. After all, the sea loves to eat metal, however I was not prepared for what I found. Part of it was corrosion and part of it was bad construction.
First, let me start by saying that all the seacocks were replaced with the appropriate units including the correct bases. You are looking at almost 1K of bronze parts. Hell, I have bought jewelry for my wife cheaper than this. I am glad she did not see that bill!!
Anyway, I Started one hot august day by looking at what I had and what I could keep. Took a pipe wrench and decided to remove the two 1/2" valves. One feeds water to the head and one to the engine. Now keep in mind that in this confined space, I could barely hook the wrench and take a push, but wham! the small water intake valve for the engine broke off. WTF, I said in several languages!! Looked like the bronze street elbow was screwed about 2 turns only to the thru hull and the sea had pretty much eaten all the thickness of the thru hull right at the thinest part, the threaded area.
. Moved to the front head and the valve for the head water intake also popped of the thru hull without a wimper. Now, I know better than apply brute force to these items as I expected them to be fairly delicate, but this was scary. After reading an article by Maine Sail on Hunter Owners web site, I understood that the Thru hulls have one tipe of threads and the valves have another. ( one is straight and one is tapered) There is no way in hell that you could screw these two items together more than a couple of threads, yet many builders in the 70's did just that to save $$.
So after some additional research, I decided that the only way to feel secure on this boat was to replace all the seacocks with the appropriately threaded base and matching bronze seacock.
After drilling the holes, I applied epoxy on the sides of the hole to seal any openings, and floated some marine filler in order to make the hull surface mate properly to the new bronze thru hull.
All the new seacocks are labeled properly. I know it may be annal, but I feel safer when I yell to someone to open the A/C water intake, they will be able to see which one it is.
Each unit received a new thru hull and a new nipple
I also needed to install the tube to house the depth meter sending unit. I realy did not want it outside of the hull and also did not want another hole on the hull so following the manufacturers instructions, I installed a 2" pipe onto the inside of the hull. This pipe will have mineral oil and the sender will be installed into the pipe. The sending pulses from the sending unit will pass through the fiberglass hull. Anyway, thats the theory. Will see.
April 13, 2013.
The anchor locker lid was water logged. A while back, I noticed a crack in the gel coat and due to the weight of the hatch, I suspected it had water in it. I pulled it off the boat and opened the underside with my grinder and cutting wheel. I found the plywood core wet and I stored the hatch in the warehouse for a month to dry.
After it dried, it was 20 pounds lighter. The plywood looked ok but since I had already gone this far, I decided to replace the plywood core. I cleaned the area of all existing core material and cut about the same number of 1/2" plywood blocks as were there initially. I dipped every one in epoxy resin to seal the edges and installed them into the hatch. I closed it by using the original fiberglass skin with several cement blocks on it overnight to make sure it was flat against the new plywood core. After sanding and prepping, I covered the seams with several strips of fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin. Once dried, a good sanding with a 60 and 120 grit flap wheel. made the seams disappear and two good coats of Interlux Deck paint made everything look as new. .
Jeff had been MIA for several weeks since he was busy with work and I could not justify pulling him out of the work crew to work on my boat. Finally, this week end was not very busy and crews had Friday off. He agreed to help me and we tackled many unfinished projects.
First of all I wanted to get another 2 coats of epoxy barrier paint on the hull in preparation for the anti fouling paint. It already has 2 coats of Interlux 2000 but was looking rough as we had worked on the seacocks, and other items on the hull. A new coat of paint would certainly make it look better.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
I had purchased 2 gallons of Sea Hawk Premium Hull Barrier Epoxy in white and after painting about 5 sq ft it did not look good. The previous coat of gray was coming through and the white was not covering well. I called my local paint store and Mike agreed to add some green to tint the epoxy. It has a 5 hour pot life so off Jeff went to the paint store with a pot of mixed epoxy. Mike called back and told me that since it was white paint, and had lots of white pigment, he did not think he could get it dark enough as I wanted forest green. I told him to do his best and what ever he could do would be O.K. since 2 more coats will go on top of these 2 anyway. The color that came back was a turquoise green and it did not look bad. In addition, it matches the colors of the Costal Carolina University, where my wife teaches, and the football mascot is the Chantecleer and has the same color. So now, every body thinks I painted the boat school colors.
Jeff had been MIA for several weeks since he was busy with work and I could not justify pulling him out of the work crew to work on my boat. Finally, this week end was not very busy and crews had Friday off. He agreed to help me and we tackled many unfinished projects.
First of all I wanted to get another 2 coats of epoxy barrier paint on the hull in preparation for the anti fouling paint. It already has 2 coats of Interlux 2000 but was looking rough as we had worked on the seacocks, and other items on the hull. A new coat of paint would certainly make it look better.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Monday, April 1St.
So it was a glorious week end . After all the wind and gray clouds of past, It was a welcome sight. I even put my summer shorts back on and my flip flops(also known as Vietnamese army boots, but I digress). I noticed I almost lost my flip flop tan lines on my feet. Time to work on that some more.
This week end, I decided to tackle the anchor roller system. I had already procured all the parts needed, I just needed time to put the whole thing together. The anchor roller on these size Hunters are rather anaemic and most owners have added additional support to them. They cannot be replaced as the front shroud attaches to it and it would be a major undertaking to replace the whole thing.
The original rollers were still in very good shape so I decided to re use them. Instead of regular bolts to secure the new side plates, I used carriage bolts since they have a rounded, smooth head that would not interfere with the rode or chain. They were however a bear to tighten as they had to be held with vice grips so they would not turn as I tried to tighten them. Every thing went together well and now the anchor rode will roll on an additional roller that should help.
I did make two additional holes at the top and I may make an stainless arc to join both sided. This would keep the rode from jumping out when the boat is at anchor and bucking. It would keep the rode captive in the roller unit.
The Hunter Owners Web site has a list of owner modifications to the Hunter 37 cutter and several owners had already made such improvements. After studying the system it made sense as it reinforces the unit and also allows for the chain and chain swivel to roll past the roller without any obstruction. Also many of us just leave the anchor out and this would support the weight nicely.
I visited my neighbor, Southern metal fabricators, and looked around in his mistakes bin for some stainless plate. I found some the appropriate thickness and promptly cut to sides to twin to the existing unit. His punch press came in handy as I hate to drill stainless. It punched all the holes without even breathing hard.
In addition, I found a 12 inch trailer roller at the local boat store that would do as my new roller. I cut it down to size. I had to order 2 8" threaded rods to put the whole thing together from McMaster-Carr. I could have used stainless bolts but I rather not have threads on the shaft so I ordered stainless rods with threads on the last inch only. That would make for a longer lasting roller.
While the interior was drying, I tackled the hatches. I had on hand a 3 part kit to clean lexan and Plexiglas. I started by cleaning one of the small 12x12 hatches above the galley. They are all smoked plastic and show their age by having a very dull look. I started by rubbing the heavier grit compound with a microfiber, moving to the lighter compound and using a buff ball. It did wonders for it.
Now, they are sleek and clean. They all look much better.
.Friday, May 24, 2013
New aft cabin port.
I just received a new port for the aft cabin. It was the last port that was not changed and it had a broken dog so under heavy rain, it would drip right over the rear cushion. Not cool. It is complete with new frame, lenses, gasket and screen. Just have to remove the old one and bed it in the new one.
Ports should be O.K. for a while now. Replaced all the large ports and lenses in 2011, all the small port lenses in 2012 and this is the last one. I am running out of boat to work on !!!
New port is different than the original one. The spigot (area that protrudes from the wall) is 2 3/8 while the original was 1 7/8. No big deal but a perfect ankle catcher. I can see someone walking by barefoot and clipping their ankle on this port. So , checked the order and sizes and it,s the only one made in that size so out when the table saw and Voila! a new 1 7/8 spigot custom made. A little sanding will made it all smooth. I have a tube of 3M 4000 to bed the new port. Also, the original had screws all the way through. The new one has a smooth trim ring. I could drill the trim ring for the screws but I like the smooth look. We secured the port, ran the screws and bedded the trim ring with 3m 4000.
The 4000 allows me to remove the port in the future. Should I have used the 5200 (Satan's Caulk) It would never come back out without a hammer and chisel. ;-)
