Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 51 Sun Stringers

Hi all,

very new to this, please be kind.

I'm looking at a sun odyssey 51 with some loose stringers and a creaky floor. Based on the design of all the production boats this would seem to be a not unusual event.

I'm familiar with tools and laying some fiberglass, so the work part doesn't scare me too much but, it does seem it could end up with a ludicrous amount of work on an older boat. I saw a video series where a couple stripped and overed with thick fiberglass about 1/2 the hulls length. It looked like literally zero fun.

Can anyone advice on how necessary this is? They had some definite leaking going on and some rot. Assuming (huge assumption) this boat isn't leaking, but has some loose stringer is this work necessary? Is a basic rebuild of the tabs good enough?

I don't mind removing the woodwork, or pulling the floor, or even laying the fiber. Sanding the entire interior down for full rebuild just isn't something I want to do right now.

Any advice, knowledge or wisdom gratefully accepted.

 

Pictures would help.
In some cases of failing stringers, it is more economical to simply add fiberglass to reinforce existing ,or sister alongside.
In the meantime, I’d certainly keep shopping, as a “bargain” can easily be nullified by the cost of necessary repairs.

 

If stringers are bad Even adding glass without removal is going to require some serious heart to heart time with a grinder.

 

+1 re the excellent advice above - please do add some photos if possible (I think that folk who have just joined need to have a few posts to their credit before they can post photos?)
And it is generally very much a buyers market out there, with so many old secondhand boats for sale - are you particularly attracted to the Sun Odyssey 51, or are you open to other 50 footers as well?

 

I am seriously fighting my desire to take a swing for a 50 ft boat over a similarly priced 40. If I was shopping for smaller I could easily skip the work.
I also feel sure I can get the boat cheaper than asked. That said......

I know you are 100% correct. I am expecting to be saying no, but I'm open to the work if the price is right and the boat is otherwise in good shape. Am I wrong in thinking most of these boast will have some separation by 25-30 years of life? Just seems like the construction style lends itself to this.

I will be visiting the boat next week, so I will post pics or a link to a google drive with pics in about 7-10 days.

My thoughts were that I would have to fully remove the salon and possibly some bulkheads and grind off tabs, then up 4-5 inches and out 4-5 inches. Then press the stringers down and make some epoxy with silica to bond on the bottom and then maybe 5 layers of glass.

 

Well, if you want to take up boat repair as a hobby, which many do, although they tend not to vocalise it, it sounds like an interesting project. But if your chief aim is to go sailing in the near future, look elsewhere. I have a rule of thumb that boat overhaul projects take twice as long and cost twice as much as a pessimistic estimate.

 

well, i hate the negativity... i appreciate the honesty

I really want a dual helm, the room n the cabin is just so much more than a single. So, I dont want a repair hobby but realistically any boat I buy will need work. With a major overhaul I can at least know some stuff is fixed... for a while.
I'm still looking though. It just is the literally the only dual-helm, 50 ftr in my price range on the west coast.

 

Stringer separation is a fairly significant thing to happen. Repair is quite literally at the core of the boat, very difficult to repair anything so integral without a fair bit of work. Not necessarily "negativity" just a harsh reality of the nature of a break in a component as critical as hull stringers. Nature of composites repair is some time spent dusty with a grinder in hand, while miserable it is just part of the gig. Has to be factored into the reality of any large composite repair.

 

didn't mean it like that. just me accepting, and being sad about, the truth.
20 years ago I wouldn't have thought twice. I have the skills. Unfortunately at this point, I no longer have the joints and muscles.

Still going to look and take pics, need to get on as many boats as I can at this point to really understand what my budget can get.

 

Understood, am in the early stages of admitting my shoulders back and associated joints are starting to win over my desire for cool projects....

Think there was a YouTube couple that did some kind of stringer repair on a boat about the size your talking about. Its been a few years and the memory is hazy, remember thinking it was work but not as brutal as my initial thoughts. Think it was expedition Evans or something like that.... was recovering from a pretty rough patch and found other folks doing miserable boat work strangely cathartic. Admittedly many of them blur together.

 

yes there is, i found the link on this site

I watched the whole thing and slowly sunk into the couch in fear, lol

But, I do believe they created a lot of unnecessary work for themselves. Came out beautiful. But I watched the whole thing. It is do-able, it is not easy. Watching all that youtube too, lots of fast forwarding through non repair portions. There is plenty of looking at what they started and realizing they have no choice but to go forward. They bought that boat for $92k for a 2007 Beneteau 49. Purchased 4 years ago in 2020. it was an absolutely beautiful boat. This one is a 94 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 51 and they want $80k. I believe saying no will get easier when I look inside.

After watching the video my thought is can I get the boat 700 miles including about 600 in the Pacific and then up[ the Columbia river to Portland. If that can happen, I have the tools and would probably hire some workers to do most of the grunt work.

I am thinking a 6-10 month project. But..... one of the above comments mentioning doubling your estimated cost and time to repair, yeah.

It would have to be beautiful everywhere else and I expect that is not the case.

 

Ive seen projects double, usually from length of time incurred cost and the big one of labor overruns. Ive nver had a personal project go over my estimation that much, but thats from really in depth pre project planing.

The familial joke with my first glass boat was "if I'd known this when we started it would be done by now". The meandering of a project that you see on youtube is all part of that learning process. With all the data we have, there is still and on the job learning process.

 

There's a big difference between the Evans people's boat and your proposed 94 Jeanneau, wich has deep implications for the future project. The Beneteau is a pan liner boat while the Jeanneau has wooden stringers glassed over. For the tabbing to separate there are two possible scenarios, severe impact breaking the wood, or rotten stringers. The repair isn't a case of glassing over existing structure, you have to cut out the bad wood and replace it. So besides the mandatory grinding orgy (the entire interior is flow coated) you have to cut, fit and scarf in new stringers out of a similar weight wood (the originals are some sort of "mahogany").

Sailing 700 miles mostly to windward in the Pacific with broken stringers is a huge gamble. The glass tabbing isn't structural it's just some csm holding down the wood.