Up to Speed

Well it has been a while since I got my Albacore, almost 6 years. And it has been a long six years.

I will be using this blog to chronicle my adventures in restoring my Albacore and then my adventures in learning to sail this boat. But first I need to bring everyone up to speed on what has happened in the 6 years since I got the boat. Let the adventure begin...

To start the off the story I got the Albacore from a local yacht club that didn't even know that they had the boat. It was "stored" behind their boat shed on the side of a gravel lane buried in brush. I was tipped of the existence of the boat and approached the club commodore about the boat, I got the boat and the club got a website.

Now that I had the boat it was time to look it over, it was in really bad shape, it had been well used and then forgotten. I evaluated the boat, blistered paint and fiberglass, rotten hiking straps, nonexistent centreboard seals, broken rudder, missing tiller, no mast or boom
and a hole in the bow.

This boat was going to require a lot of work and I began to wonder if I could do it. But I was so hooked on sailing having spent the past 3 months crewing in club races, I knew I had to fix this boat that was mine! Well when school was done and the warm weather returned, I began my work. I sanded and sanded and finally got all the loose paint and fiberglass removed from the hull. I was advised to use a gel coat product to fill the divots in the hull, well this was a remarkable failure. So it was back to sanding and sanding.

While recovering from the Gel coat failure I decided to tackle the hole in the bow. Now the hole wasn't big and I felt this was a good place to rebuild my confidence. I think I missed my calling. Now I am not saying I loved the work but I must say the results were amazing. Today I am hard pressed to find the hole without peaking on the inside first.

I will continue the adventures of the restoration in my next post. Hopefully you will come back to read so more.