Advice on repairing or abandoning old sailboat

Sorry it's been so long, I took a 4 day weekend to make some progress on the boat. I've received a lot of info from other Tartan 34C owners so I'm gearing up to take care of the centerboard first at home, then the next time I go down to the boat, work on repairing the keel. I've also started working on refitting the interior. I'm pretty committed to putting an electric motor in to replace the Westerbeke so I've stripped anything related to the engine out. At the same time I'm rebuilding the engine with my free time at work in order to sell it to pay for the electric motor setup. I've completely removed all the leftover barnacles on the hull. I've also cleaned the inside of the keel cavity. Realized that what I thought was a hole at the top was actually rubber meant to act as a stopper for the centerboard when closed. Going to bring a long handled pole scraper to clean the centerboard trunk completely and paint it before reinstalling. The rudder shaft is slightly bent, so I removed it in order to straighten or replace it, it's not much, maybe 2 degrees. I took advantage of a calm day and took down the jib sail to inspect and store it, and I believe the roller furler needs a little work. Lastly I removed the floorboards in order to replace them, and to secure the joists to the hull. while removing those, I found the freshwater tank in the starboard settee was covered in salt buildup, so I pulled all that up in order to clean it out and rebuild the settee. Going to take advantage of it being out and re fiberglass the bulkheads to the hull and insulate any bare hull. Many more things planned but I don't want to overwhelm myself with projects halfway done.

Starboard hull clean of barnacles
Port side clean

View of keel cavity with barnacles removed

Different angle

Rudder removed

Engine fuel tank, lines, wiring harness removed

Freshwater tank removed

Starboard settee removed for insulation and repairs

Floorboards removed, bilge area cleaned

 

Thanks for the photos Ron - however they would be even better if you click on 'edit' at the bottom of your post, and add some notes or description by some of the photos to explain a bit more what you are doing (or planning on doing).

 

That's weird, I wrote a whole description of everything above and it didn't show up and the pictures double posted. Ok I rewrote my original description and added some notes for each photo

 

Wondering how it's going, I can relate to you and what you're doing as what Id've probably done 20-25 years ago if my boating obsession wasn't fulfilled by fishing southwestern Lake Michigan to the tune of 350-400 hrs per year.

I hope you're doing well and that life hasn't gotten completely in the way of enjoyable pursuits....

 

So I decided to try to fix the centerboard as practice and if it all goes terribly I can just make a whole new one. The first pictures show me adding on about 22". I've fixed a couple other things, but then I decided to move the boat to my house so that I can work more frequently. Once it got here, I decided to start from the toe rail and work down, so I'd feel more comfortable by the time I got to the missing keel portion. I've also started dealing with a few core rot problems and lots of other small stuff. Currently getting ready to lay glass on the starboard hull deck joint to match the port side I've already done. Sorry my pictures are a little disorganized.

 

keep us posted.

 

Small update, first time using fairing compound, but no stranger to bondo on cars. Smoothing the fiberglass applied to the hull to deck joint and filling in the decorative line that runs the length of the hull.

 

Before I get too crazy here, it looks like the more I sand down, the more cracks I find. Should I sand all the way to fiberglass or is there a better way to handle this.

 

Not to be punny here, but what you show is called "crazing". Crazing has several reasons, and often multiple ones. Unless you suspect damage, and see radial/linear spider cracks, most likely that tiny random pattern like that that is due to age, exposure, and shrinkage of the gel coat and laminate. Maybe you don't know it, but fiberglass laminates (especially of your boat era) are not forever. One of the problem is that the matrix (polyester or epoxy and especially older resin heavy gelcoat) continues to cure over time and is damaged by UV light and flexure. This causes small discontinuities to form in the matrix. If left unchecked (ok, wooden boat joke), these cracks can start to grow until the laminate is compromised. The crazing you show does not look that bad and there are many years of life left in the hull. I would sand off all the old damaged/oxidized gelcoat and then re-coat with a modern more flexible epoxy and surface coating.
Note that some people use the term crazing when they should use the term spider cracks. Spider cracks are caused in the gelcoat/matrix when it is over stressed or over flexed. Spider cracks tend to be long and obviously linear features. I wouldn't call the tiny random pattern you have stress or flex damage to the laminate.

 

Rereading this, I just want to be clear here. I don't mean you need to sand all the gelcoat off, just down past the chalky UV damaged upper layer that isn't working anymore.

 

Dude, where have you gone?