So how is the sailboat going?

I noticed that it's been a few weeks since I let everyone know what's been going on with the Sunfish sailboat, so I thought I would fill you in.

The boat has been out of the water for a little while, partly because there hasn't been all that much wind (and I love big wind in the little boats) but also because it's been drying out in the sun on the side of the house. In order to dry out a boat that only has a 1/2" hole on the side of it to drain water, you need to open the inside to the outside. So I ordered some inspection ports to put into the hull so I have an easy way of opening and closing the hull. The picture on the left is what it looks like when you cut the hole into the deck of your sunfish for the port. It's not for the faint of heart, it makes a lot of noise and it's a bit of work to cut through the gelcoat and fiberglass.

After cutting out the holes, I put the inspection port in with some 3M waterproof silicone and stainless steel screws. It looks pretty nice, except I waxed around the port with a wax that changed the color of the gelcoat. Oops. I was able to get rid of it by using some 3M fiberglass polish. (No, this is not an add for 3M, although they do make nice products) Here's a picture of the inspection port retainer in place, after the bad wax but before the good wax.

I ended up putting three ports in, one at the bow, one at the stern, and one in front of the cockpit but behind the splash guard. Now the trick is to open the ports on sunny warm days, and keep them closed on rainy days. And now that this part of the project is done, I am done with the hull for a little while. Next comes the wood pieces of the boat. They all need to be re-sanded and re-varnished so they look and perform well again.

Here's a picture of what the daggerboard looks like before refinishing. It's spent a lot of time in the sun/weather, and most of the original varnish has come off, and the wood is very faded. The board is actually made of mahogany (sorry to those of you who don't like using rainforest wood.) The rudder also has been out in the weather for quite some time, it's lost it's color and doesn't have any varnish on it anymore either. I don't have a picture of it, but I will take some more as I sand and refinish.

Anyway, that's it for now, thanks for reading, I hope you have a great day!
See you at camp!
Mac