Rebuilding a 44' sailboat

[erwin.tarr]

Hello all,

Hopefully I will soon be the proud owner of a rusted-to-the-panties steel hulled 44 foot sailboat. When I get her on the hard here at Patrick AFB, I will start a log for the repairs using this thread. This will be an ongoing group of photos and "how it was done" items related to plating replacement.

I thank all of you especially Wynand, Mike, Frosty, and K9 for all your help in my first look into steel hulls.

I currently own a 30 foot Allied Seawind Pilothouse and have gotten some pretty good experience in sailing from it. However, I plan on retiring from the military in two years and my wife and I would like to try the liveaboard lifestyle while we are still young.
I have a chance to get a steel hulled sailboat with a beautiful interior but it needs 30-40% of the plating below the waterline replaced.
I went to two years of welding training before joining the military and my oldest son has really enjoyed the two years of welding shop classes that he took in High School so this could be a great project for my family.

Here goes nothing...

Ray Tarr
Patrick AFB, Fl

[Wynand N]

To pickup from your last post elsewhere.

Ray, it is a matter of personal preference to either build the hull upside down or in the upright position.
When you have a crane facility or the funds to hire a crane or two, upside down is the obvious choice as most of the plating and welding is done in a "down hand" position so to speak.

Upright method favors the homebuilder working on a shoestring budget most of the times. The hull get build from the keel to deck in the upright position - the negatives; bottom plates (quite heavy) installed above one, some overhead welding, although this should not be a problem with competent welders.
In fact, I had built a few hulls the right way up and quite a few the wrong way up, both ways have their pros and cons.

To rebuild the bottom plating of this hull can be done in the upright position, actually, it is the only way to do it really. First, get or borrow one of that little electronic metal thickness testers and sound your hull all over and pay particular attention to below the waterline bordering the hard chine.

To remove the bottom plate below the chine, use a grinder with cutting disc and cut through the chine and be careful to keep the cut smooth and fair as not to have any bumps in the chines. But first, go inside the hull and weld fit transverse stiffeners (angle iron) just above the chine at about 1 meter interval to keep the hull shape intact when you remove the bottom plate.
When the plating is cut through at the chine and the keel root, go inside the hull and cut the stringers / frames welding (usually spaced) from the hull plating and remove bottom plating.

Now is the time to inspect the transverse frames and longitudinal stringers, keelson, floors and replace/repair where needed. If the plating above the chine to the waterline sounded poorly with the thickness tester or is suspect, cut out that section and replace. Remove the transom in more or less the same way. Replace all plating and weld. Then shotblast the whole hull and deck inside and outside and apply a good epoxy primer.

Ray, this is about the way I would go about it to put simply, but there are may other things that go with it. Chainplates, tanks - more so if integrated tanks were fitted etc etc. The biggest job is to get the interior stripped and fitted again......

[Kay9]

You were going to do another imspection today, please let us know what you found, and what you have decided.

K9

[erwin.tarr]

K9,

I am sorry but the yard was closed yesterday. I am headed down today.

Ray

[Kay9]

No need to apologize to us. Im just intrested in your project.

See if you cant get her for 800-1000

K9

[erwin.tarr]

Well, the inspection did not go well. I drove 450 miles round-trip to find a misrepresented boat in pretty terrible condition.

To start it off, the boat wasn't 44 feet long. It was 34 feet long! How can someone advertise a boat and be off by 10 feet?

The corrosion was less then expected when inspecting from the exterior. The pictures were pretty well taken for the ad and most of the hull still had bottom paint if only a little corrosion bubbling other than the identified soft spots. The interior inspection told otherwise though...

There is standing water in all bilges and the hatch is damaged, allowing water to enter every time it rains. Spray-in foam kept me from performing a proper inspection but every place the allowed inspection showed severe corrosion.

The engine, which was stated as "rusted" was missing. Only the drive shaft is there.

The interior is rough at best but could be salvaged into a reasonable layout.

All said-and-done this boat doesn't seem worth the effort. I already own a reliable 30 foot sailboat and the amount of effort required to gain me a little beam and a little length doesn't seem worth it.

The masts, winches, and mahogany/teak in the interior were in pretty good shape. In fact, I would love to have the mast/boom/rigging for my boat. Someone looking to finish their boat off with ketch rigging could probably get a good deal. In addition, the scrap value might be worth tearing it apart but I am not sure how much its value would be with all the corrosion on the steel. You would have to contact a scrap yard to get their estimate.

And the search goes on...

Ray

[Kay9]

You in a good place Erwin. The hardest thing to do, is walk away from a boat that has your hopes up. Good man. Ill look around some also and see if we cant find you something better.

K9

[erwin.tarr]

Thanks K9,

I think I would have had a harder time with my decision had it been a 44' boat like advertised. A 34 footer just doesn't seem worth as much effort...

ray

[Kay9]

Hey. There is a 40' here in the oregon coast. She is steel hard chined and allmost new. She is a home build, but looks good from the outside. I think they are asking 8000.00 If you want Ill be happy to go get the specs for you.

K9

[tcpbob]

Tis a dangerous move you contemplate... reserecting a rotten steely sure can be hard work and steel is getting more expensive. since you are going in eyes wide open.. on the metal work, a deciding factor of feasability may be the other gear.. engine, rig and etc.... Anyway, my expereince suggests being very suspicious of fitout that hides hull plating and teak decks should be avoided altogether. It astounds me how downright stupid many big name designers were about steel boat construction 30 years ago. When you go to work i bet the hardest part is in correcting defects that didn't have to be.... compounded of course, by neglect. Also... you will need to have a good method of painting weathered steel to save the bits that don't require replacement. Very important for peace of mind and ease of care after relaunch. Don't know if you have considered that yet. It's not near as easy as some paint reps would tell you. But it can be done... I know i did it.

I hope you find the candidate that is worthy of your enthusiasm. Saving a good boat is very good karma... even if it isn't finacially wise (sometimes).

here is a glance at my project...

cheers

[buckknekkid]

I went through your site and vowed never to buy a steel boat...

[StrandedMariner]

Originally Posted by tcpbob

Tis a dangerous move you contemplate... reserecting a rotten steely sure can be hard work and steel is getting more expensive. since you are going in eyes wide open.. on the metal work, a deciding factor of feasability may be the other gear.. engine, rig and etc.... Anyway, my expereince suggests being very suspicious of fitout that hides hull plating and teak decks should be avoided altogether. It astounds me how downright stupid many big name designers were about steel boat construction 30 years ago. When you go to work i bet the hardest part is in correcting defects that didn't have to be.... compounded of course, by neglect. Also... you will need to have a good method of painting weathered steel to save the bits that don't require replacement. Very important for peace of mind and ease of care after relaunch. Don't know if you have considered that yet. It's not near as easy as some paint reps would tell you. But it can be done... I know i did it.

I hope you find the candidate that is worthy of your enthusiasm. Saving a good boat is very good karma... even if it isn't finacially wise (sometimes).

here is a glance at my project...

cheers

I had a look at your site, and I must say I am impressed what you did. That boat looked pretty hopeless. Just out of interest, what did you finally use as insulation material?
I understood that the original material was PU foam. Was that the closed cell type? That is supposed to keep water out, which does not exactly match what you found on the inside. Again, I think you did a great job!

[longliner45]

nice boat tc,,,,,,gives me a little encouragement,,,thanks,longliner

[tcpbob]

Greetings buckknekked
Corrosion, osmosis, dry rot, they are all stinking nightmares in need of a fool or hopeless romantic to save em.

To Stranded Mariner
The foam was of a type I believe is called closed cell but not of a type you would use in foam sandwitch construction. Incredably, books on steel boat building were advising people that the foam would replace a good paint system, only needing a primer and the foam! Really stupid. All the stuff did was hold the water against the steel to make sure it could do the most damage.

I always meant to install sheets of styrofoam under the interiour skin but never got roundtoit. When taking off panels to install electics or just inspection, I sometimes found condensation but the paint system wasn't affected, the ply wasn't harmed and the boat wasn't over hot. (white decks, good ventilation) so was low on my 'to-do' list.

And thanks all for your positive comments on the result. The site actually didn't show the worst of it. Just when we thought we had won, I found one of the 1000 litre fuel tanks was a rotten mess and it had about 7-800 hundred litres in it at the time. I did 14 feet of welding to repair it with the fuel in place..... now that was a story and another thread perhaps but this one deals with the search for a steel boat for repair and the feasability.

cheers

[Wynand N]

Originally Posted by tcpbob

The foam was of a type I believe is called closed cell but not of a type you would use in foam sandwitch construction. Incredably, books on steel boat building were advising people that the foam would replace a good paint system, only needing a primer and the foam! Really stupid. All the stuff did was hold the water against the steel to make sure it could do the most damage.

tcpbob,

If I may chime in.
I had a good look at your blog and from the pictures I will give my opinions for whats it's worth and I beg to be corrected.
First of all, the boat shouts home built project and this is usually where steel boats gets their bad "rust" reputation from...

Paint is only as good as it's preparation and the same holds true for closed cell polyurethane foam. The only way to get a good surface to put on paint, one has to shot / grit blast the steel to about spec SA2.5. Then use a quality and compatible epoxy paint system for primer, under and top coats and one has to stay within overcoat times. And herein lies the crunch.

I have yet to see a home builder shot blasting a hull. The home builder do it himself because he is on a tight budget and professional shot blasting is just to expensive to use, and then there is the issue of noise and dust with the neighbours for a few days.
Ive seen them use all kinds of "miracle" cures such as rust removers, rust converters and the likes and believe me, these crap is no substitute for shot blasting. And of course one needs the "Velcro like" surface the blasting creates for the paint to bond properly.
Same with paints, most home builders cannot afford expensive epoxies and go for the simple stuff like zinc chromite or lead oxide primers that is a general primer for steel and rusts easily.

If the hull is properly shot blasted and epoxy primed and then sprayed with closed cell polyurethane foam, believe me, you will have decent protection for your hull.

In your blog you showed how thick rust can be and steel can "grows" to about 25 times its thickness in the right conditions. My guess is that the hull was poorly prepared for painting and foam sprayed and this was amplified by the fact that the foam was not sprayed over the frames and stringers, but in botches / panels that can easily let moisture in. This started the rusting behind the foam on the plates and the rest is history.
It is my opinion the original builder tried to prevent rusting by poorly applying foam over the hull as an alternative method to shot blasting. Big mistake...

Another blunder, the foam was also applied below the waterline as can clearly being seen in the photos. Foam NEVER get applied below waterline, period.