Katie-J´s refit

Hello to all
This is Katie-J a Pioneer 9 built in 1962.
She lives in Macau (near Hong Kong) and i just bough her. I got in touch with a former onwer who told me she was originally named Zeeschal (sea shell) and built in Zandhoven.
Until now i thought she was built in the UK by Southern Ocean Shipyards, and I'm thinking that the fact the she was built in Holland might make her one of the initial hulls ever produced.

The refit started in 202o, so all is this is in the past, do comment but have that in mind.




Gutting theV berth

This molded floor piece was also removed, gained a lot of space by removing it

 

old water tank removal

 

locker lid install
2 years later and this was a mistake as you will see in future posts. the cockpit now has a different arrangements and solutions in place

 

Chainplates redesign
The original ones are those U shape, thru deck, bolts. which bolt on the wooden sheerclamp. so, obviously this leads to water ingress and rot. its a neat solution but not that maintenance and inspection friendly.


so i got to redesign them on Cad
this is the first iteration
Chainplates superimposed to G10 board area ( yellow) and biaxial cloth (green)

not that bad for a first though, but i didnt like the shape. structurally this would have worked but then there are aesthetics considerations one should think about (not that i place looks above function, that will kill you actually) (in more than one way hahahahaha)


here i had altered the mid chainplate (bigger one, staying the main, 6mm, shrouds), in green you have the main bulkhead position and thickness (18 mm ply)

but i stil wasnt happy with it
so i ended up with this design

The circles you see are:
yellow= M10 bolt hole
green= M10 bolt head diameter
red= M10 washer diameter

i chose this option because it allows me to streamline everything along the sheerline, avoiding ugly down angled tangs coming out of it., plus all of this will be hidden with the rubstrake

 

sheerclamp spot rot removal and rebuild
the thing about Pioniers 9 is that everything bolts on the sheerclamp: the toerail, the rubrail, the rig anchor points, the sail track. again, an elegant solution but a long term potential nightmare
this boat has been repainted several times, so the only to really see what happening is to sand all that paint away

the dark spots tells of water intrusion.
you can also see what ive done: i drilled out everything, enlarged the holes and filled with thickened epoxy



after removing a section of original sheerclamp. the amount of holes!

G10 insertion
i replaced all the removed wooden sections with 3 x 6mm G10 boards, laminated over with, then glued up a 30mm thick G10 as a backplate for the chainplates, and then laminated 4 layers of biax on top of everything, we dont want that going anywhere.


here you see the main bulk head insertions, plus the sheerclamp ones


port aft babystay chainplate inside reinforcement

 

peeling the gelcoat


first try with the peeler


regelcoated twice from new


peeling the stb hull


took me 3 days to fully peel the hull, including all the spots i couldnt reach with the peeler. fantastic tool, expensive, but it delivers, can only recommend.
but beware: its shoulder and back day at the gym. its heavy and you are working against Newton.

 

keel bolts replacement
the bolts were corroded from the inside, they had to come out.
i simply used a sawzall to cut them flush at the hull-keel joint. took me 90 min.



keel before


keel after
job done with a 60 grit flap disk on a grinder (well, several of them!)

 

improving the bilge area
with the bolts now removed i had unrestricted acess
so the idea was to reinforce with glass, do a self levelling epoxy pour and top it up with a 6mm long G10 piece.





holes bored from the outside and painted with an epoxy tank lining, cures very hard


new bolts in and trimmed to size




thats what 5 tubes of 4200 look like


back on. i was inside the boat tightening the nuts and had a couple of friends dealing with the squeeze out. left some it as fairing as there is discontinuities between the hull and keel, due to metal shrinkage upon casting (i wasnt too fussy about this, im not going to compete after all, what matter is that the keel stays there)

before i got the keel back, i gave a coat of primocon and then i laminated biaxial cloth over it, 2 layers. after some research i ended concluding that was simple the best course of action, any products are nothing but diluted epoxy paints, better the real stuff.
in another forum i post (with more detailed info) one perso suggested i encapsulate the keel. at the time i thought that would have been pretty intensive, but in hindsight i should have done that, maybe next time if i feel like it, i get some serious unidirectional glass and just do it.

aniway i did glass over the joint with a very generous 2 feet ish (no, not those "feetish".....) wide, single wrap around piece of cloth of biaxial.


bolts from the inside

as washers i used a 6 mm G10 and a 8mm thick powdercoated steel one. feels solid and at least gives you a few mm before the metal is submerged in water
you can also see the partition i glassed in separating the only part of the bilge which will be wet

 

bilge tank skin
before i installed the keel i took the time to mould a tank skin fitting from the bilge shape
got some shitty duct tape, and laminated over it. came out easy
this skin will be converted into smaller tanks for water and diesel.

 

painting the hull
after peeling i gave it a first fairing pass with 407

sanded that and primed after it
all products are Alexseal onwards


more fairing
just overfaired the whole hull then knocked it down to desired level, why waste time.


sanded


final show coat. alexseal with rolling additive

everyone thought it was a spray job. nah.
was really happy with the result but had a few good runs on it. never painted a hull in my life before. a more experience person will avoid having to polish the hull in the end.
i had to wet sand to 1500 grit then polish. i lost glare but i gained definition. i am happy with the paint but not the final end result after polishing. this photo is before all that

this one shows 3 stages: polished, 1500 grit and bottom barrier coat


and this one shows AF and final polish
you can see i went thru the paint in some spots....have to live with that for a few years untill i forget about all the sanding and redo the paint job

 

bilge tanks

 

back on the water


prepped for rainy season

 

building the fridge/freezer box

i designed in on cad, and loft it to 7 cubic feet of volume as per CoolBlue recommendations


got it into individual pieces, print it 1:1 on a plotter, and transfer it to the G10 sheets


duct tape was enough to confer some integrity do decided to laminate the inside


then went strip planking on the molded side


stealer plank as they call it


whiskey plank as they call it hehehe
no whiskey was around at the time though


laminations




in its future place

 

cabinetry and storage solutions
i had finally made a final decision about the port and stb cabinets units


building the foundations for it








after tge complete demolition of the boat inside i kept only this big piece knowing it would serve as a template for the new to be integral water tank wall/separation between engine room, water tank and future stb cockpit lockers


initial dry fit


by then i knew i had a conflict between the wall and the massive marelon ball valves. i had to go around them so that, in the future i had the best access possible for maintenance or replacement
i got a 6 inch diameter PVC pipe, wrapped 6 turns of cloth and wet it out with epoxy


cut it in half and demoulded (which is pretty easy if you use packing tape)


did a couple more measurements
found the appropriate spot and epoxied and glassed it to the wall



2nd dry fit


and there should be enough space now

 

anchor locker
6 mm G10 sheet


had to cut a bit out to go thru V berth opening


cutting the access hatch into it


laminating it


closing the bulkhead


bulkhead hatch


some extra storage
i built that box by laminating over a plastic box and demoulding it after.
then cut it to shape and epoxied it to the hull