sloop to schooner?
 

I have an interesting project a friend just bounced off me and I’m wondering what you folks think.

He has an early 70’s centerboard, sailing cruiser, he’s stripped the deck cap and liner out of, and in fact nothing remains of this boat but the cast iron case, weird shaped cast board (typical then) and ‘glass hull.

The hull form is shallow, fat and had a bit of freeboard with the deck cap. LOD was 22’, beam 8’ and draft 18” (board up) flat transom stern slightly under the LWL. She looks to be a typical late 60’s design with “V” sections forward, firm bilge and beam brought well aft to the 5’ wide transom. She could be a Hunter, Catalina, ODay or other little cruiser of the era.

The transom was hit and the HIN is missing and the secondary number wasn’t found in the pile of ‘glass he has about his yard, nor on any area in the hull (I thought they always put two numbers on just for this reason?)

The hull doesn’t look familiar to me, nor the deck. He was told it was a Helsen, but had no luck getting a response from the designer (now working for Hunter) about lines and specs.

It’s a standard chopper layup, maybe on the heavy side. She has a neat cast iron centerboard case which serves as a stub keel, thus keeping the case from intruding too much into the cabin space.

He wants a knockabout schooner. He’d like her to have a traditional look to it with round comings and a day boat layout. I sailed this boat once with him after he got it and it sailed okay with the baggy main and all, but the pop top provided 5’7” head room and he felt it was a waist of materials to have a cabin and not use it.

The thought of converting this boat at first seemed silly and much more work then he could afford (I told him as much), but now that I’ve thought about how I’d go about it, I’m thinking of telling him lets go for it.

Getting the lines from the designer seems out. Pulling the lines off is an option.

Here are my thoughts;

-Adding a shallow skeg, well aft the depth of the stub keel ahead of the transom hung rudder for the lateral plane needed in this rig. Possibility dragging the stub keel shape all the way back to the stern, for a “full stub keel”

-Masthead with gaff fore and over lapping, bimu main of smaller proportion then would be typical. This would help keep the CE forward, free standing sticks

-The deck layout would be small side decks to the fore mast and flush decked from there to the eyes, two layers of ¼” ply over sawn framing.

-The cockpit would run from fore mast to transom with seats down each side.

-Stepping the main off to one side of the centerboard case, the fore looks to miss the forward end by a touch and it’ll be on deck where a bulkhead can live under.

-He needs only access to sails and small gear thru the fore deck, so maybe no hatch on deck, but in the fore mast bulkhead.

-Being designed as a cruiser I can lower the freeboard a bit and get a hungry look from her.

The other construction steps would follow normal repairs, (new transom, framing, furniture, sticks, rig, etc.)

Any thoughts about using a fat centerboarder sloop rigged hull as a schooner platform?