How to bottom paint a small sailboat...

2011-02-15T02:02:00.000-08:00

I sure do like small boats...

I decided to bottom paint the tanzer, so I can keep her overboard and have some sailing speed (she was growing a rasta beard...)

I pulled her off the trailer on to some carpet scraps, and careened her using a halyard wrapped under a spreader over to one of the scaffolds in the boat yard. I did get some funny looks, being as the next smallest boat in the lineup around here is 60 some feet...

Tanzer 16...

2010-11-14T12:03:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I bought a 1967 Tanzer 16 to play with.

The coring in the hull was bad, so I ground out the 9 foot x 14 inch wide piece of balsa wood that a previous owner had glassed in place on the port side. Don't know what goop was used to bond it to the hull, but it came up without much fuss... the goop on the other hand was still tacky, but didn't smell like polyester or epoxy. Mystery goooo!

Ground out all the tabbing and such, cut out a piece of 3/4 divinycell and started getting geared up to put it back together. I glassed in a piece of 8 inch tabbing to support the centerboard trunk and the keel.

I'm goofing around with a 5 gallon kit of Copoxy, which so far works as can be expected with epoxy goop. The consistency is a touch thicker than west system, but it wets out easier in the cool temperatures we've been having. I am very impressed with how it dealt with wet surfaces. I patched a seam in the port side balsa that was cracked late last night on top of mushy wet balsa. Part of the glass was literally wet with water through and through, I tossed a bit of resin on top and was very surprised this morning to find the glass wet out with epoxy.
The patch was just me thinking I'd go ahead and drop her in the water and take her sailing today. But... and there is always a but... since it was blowing the flags straight as a board and white capping the sound I figured I'd start putting her back right today.

I've been goofing around with Pylasteki a few hours a week, but finally decided that I need to get out sailing... and something I can toss in the water for lunch break sure seemed like the way to go.

The next day I finished grinding out the old balsa and glass that a previous owner put in...

I laid in a 10 foot long 14 inch wide piece of divinycell, beveling the outboard edge so the glass laid down nicely. I glassed over it with copoxy and 1708. Finished it up with some System Three quick fair.

From there it was just a matter of stepping the mast, and running up to west marine for a 1/4 inch pin for the forestay, a block, and new halyards, rope for the main sheet... and a garboard drain plug.

Leah and I put her overboard, and went out for a sail.

As a friend of mine said... "Wow! Now there is a boat that $100 bucks will go a long way on."

$700 for the boat and trailer.
$186 from West Marine
$102 to get the boat and trailer titled and registered...
$70 It was a touch over a gallon of resin, 6 24 ounce pots and one 6 ounce pot... Had about 8 ounces of waste.
Not much... Lost a few ounces of quick fair... flipped the mixing board over into the sand lot. Oopsie.
Around $30 bucks. A third of a sheet of divinycell...
$5.36 3 mixing buckets at .40 cents. 3 2 inch chip brushes at 20 cents. A squeedgee... .56 cents 2 norton 24 grit grinding discs for my 4.5 inch grinder... 1.50 each.

$1093.36 and about 12 hours work, parts hunting included.

I'll do the starboard side over the next couple days... but right now the weather is to nice in the afternoons not to hit the water.

Age old deal with boats, one should always buy the one that is already how you want it and needs nothing. Grin.

Zach

Zach's Tanzer 16

How to bottom paint a small sailboat...

Tanzer 16...