The
Rebuild Project
Photos by Professional Marine
Construction, text by Ray R. Collins
In 2002 my wife Frankie and I have decided to retire from our rental
business, and go cruising--at least part time. We've been
sailing
the Acrux sailboat around Prince William Sound for more than 10
years,
and we really liked the boat. However the boat was not in good
enough shape to take cruising, and so we had several options.
We
really liked the layout of the Acrux, how she handled, etc so the
first
option was to fix it up. Second was to build a whole new
sailboat
from the Acrux plans, and third was to buy a whole new boat.
After a great deal of looking for new boats we decided we weren't
going
to find one we liked as well as the Acrux in a length and layout we
could handle by ourselves (we did find some we liked, but they were
pretty big boats--50 feet and up).
In the summer of 2002 we went to Seattle and interviewed almost a
dozen
boatyards. We asked each yard a) how much they thought it
would
cost to rebuild the Acrux and b) how much it would cost to build a
whole new boat. The estimates we got for building a new Cross
42
ranged from $200,000 (+/- 40%!) to $600,000. The estimates for
rebuilding the Acrux were, necessarily, fuzzy--but sounded much
lower.
In the fall of 2002 I went through the entire boat, taking photos of
every little thing I thought was wrong with the boat, and wrote a
web
site detailing all the things we
wanted done to the boat. The boatyard in Seattle that we had
liked the best was Professional
Marine Construction,
so I had them take a look at the web site, and they said it didn't
look
too bad, so in the spring (March) of 2003 we asked them to come take
a
look at . Ollie flew up and looked the boat over, and said it
was
in better shape than he'd thought and to bring it on down to Seattle
and he'd rebuild it for us.
So we spent the spring and first half of the summer getting the
boat ready to sail to Seattle (as we could spare time from the
rental
business). We stripped out all the old junk, put a patch on
the
hull where the fiberglass had delaminated, bought a bunch of gear,
and
did several shakedown cruises (up to about 200 miles, from Valdez to
Cordova and back). Finally by the middle of July I felt the
boat
was as ready as we could get it, and all I needed was a weather
window.
About a week later the weather looked like it was going to be good
for
several days, so we drove to Valdez, and I took the Acrux to Seattle
(a
very nice journey
from Alaska), arriving in late August.
I left the Acrux with Professional Marine
Construction and headed back to Alaska. I'd told them we
didn't
need the boat back until early May, so there wasn't any real hurry
to
get started.
In early November they moved the boat
to Port Orchard (not too far from Seattle) where they stripped the
boat
down to the hull (removing the mast safety lines, etc), hauled it
out and put it inside. Then they proceeded to completely strip
the fiberglass off the boat. Photos
of the progress to date (warning:
all these photos load into a single
page, so it'll take awhile if you have a slow connection).
By the end of November the boat had been stripped of fiberglass and
most of the
wood that was in bad, poor or marginal shape had been removed.
The wood around the burn spot and on the starboard outrigger has
been
stripped back and feathered, ready for new wood to be added.
All
the remaining deck hardware was stripped off, including the
hatches. Only a small amount of old fiberglass remains (that
on
the keel), and will be removed shortly. As expected the
propeller
drive shaft needs to be replaced. A report from Professional
Marine Construction on 12/12/03:
"The boat is finally starting to dry
out. We have opened up all the
suspect areas and taken the transom off for the new
extension. I would
like your address so I can overnight the cd to you of all the
pictures. We have also removed all the rubrails around the boat
[port outrigger
photo - 677
K] and
sanded down a good portion of the interior. We are opening up the
keel
to facilitate drying as it keeps leaching water. The chart
table area
is cut out and we will start putting that hull section together
[looking through the burn - 677 K
photo].
Everything is still open as we have a few heaters inside to dry
things
out." Also a
photo of the
aft end of the boat [264 K].
12/20/03. Spoke with Ollie and he reports that the boat is now
virtually free of fiberglass; the inside has been mostly sanded; the
aft end has been prepared to add the sugar scoup; all the bad wood
has
been removed and the areas prepared/feathered to allow for putting
new
wood on; the boat is drying nicely and in general we get the
impression
the boat is now pretty well torn down and almost ready to begin
reconstruction.
12/30-12/31 Frankie and I flew to Seattle from Spokane (where
we'd spent a couple days with Frankie's Folks) to review the
progress
on the boat. We spent a good part of 2 days with Fred and
Dillon,
reviewing what had been done and what was planned. The boat is
looking great; the old glass is mostly stripped off (except for an
area
down by the keel, which did not need to be stripped--if you peeled
it
off it took some wood with it!); the wood was pretty much sanded and
nearly ready for the new FRP (fiberglass re-enforced plastic); the
sugar scoup was partly done; all the doors and windows were removed
and
mostly preped; the areas of damaged wood were all prepped and some
of
them already redone; the inside is more than half sanded and in
general
things are moving along. We took a bunch of photos, finishing
a roll, and then another full roll.
1/13/04: From Fred. "We started glassing some of the repaired
areas today and fairing
(filling) others. All the first wood layers are in and we resin
coated
the outer wood areas today. The outer layers are going in tomorrow
and
fill thoughs area seams. We will be glass tapping the hull seams
tomorrow also.
Things are
going
very well, and she is starting to look like a boat again as you
will
see from the photos."
1/21/04: Phone conversation with Keith: the fiberglassing is
progressing. The engine (a Westerbeke
44B four) has been ordered; it should arrive in a week. The
boat
should be ready to start building the engine mounts & etc by the
time it arrives.
3/4/04: Received a letter from Fred: "We put the last primer
coat on the hulls and wings yesterday. we
are sanding out the deck basis primer coat today so we can finish
prime
it tomorrow.
We want to get all sanded out
and top coated by
wendsday.After the top coat goes on we can't touch the outside for
48
hours.
Ollie brought the engine over
yesterday, so while paint is
drying that will give us something to do. Ollie also picked up the
old
shaft and the fuel tank temp. to get thoughts things rolling.
Pretty
cool stuff. I think your going to really like how things are
coming
along. It does look like a real boat."
3/12/04: Frankie and I spent the last week down in Seattle,
finalizing the work contracts. The Acrux now has a new coat of
paint (just the primer) on the outside, and the final coat of paint
will be on the outside of the boat within a week. The engine
is
in the boat, though it is just sitting there right now; it still
needs
to be mounted. The interior of the boat is pretty well sanded
and
nearly ready for paint. We signed a contract for some
additional
money to cover items that weren't covered in the original contract;
it
still leaves a number of things unfinished (eg self-steering), but
we
have pretty much spent all the available money so we'll have to wait
to
do the additional items after we accumulate more money. We
will
still end up with a boat we can use. The completion deadline
is
April 28th; PMC is fairly confident they will succeed in completing
it
by then. We took some photos (roll1)
(roll2) of the boat; enjoy (warning: all these photos load
into a single
page, so it'll take awhile if you have a slow connection).
3/14/04: Received a letter from Fred; the hull is
painted!
We can't wait to see it...Now they move on to the hatches, windows,
doors and then interior and engine.
4/3/04: Received a letter from Fred; the cabins are mostly
painted, the exterior hatches are painted, and bottom paint &
waterline are on. Engine work is progressing.
4/9/04: Vickie sent more photos
(warning: all these photos
load into a single
page, so it'll take awhile if you have a slow connection).
4/11-4/18/04: I flew into Spokane, arriving at 9 am on the
18th. I stopped at Bob's to leave a little more junk and to
take
a nap. He fed me a very nice lunch, and then I headed to
Seattle. In spite of the nap I didn't make it all the way over
there before I got too tired to drive, so I stopped about 30 miles
short and got a hotel room for the night. The next morning I
got
up early, and by 10 I was in Port Orchard looking the boat
over.
The boat is really coming along. I spent the day there
working,
kept going until about 9 pm. I spent the night on the boat,
and
was up early for another very long day (started about 7 am, and
didn't
stop until 9 pm). That night I drove over to the Sea Tac area
and
spent the night and all of Wednesday over there. I returned to
the boat late Wednesday night, but there was fresh paint so I went
to a
hotel in Bremerton. I was over to the boat early Thursday
morning, and worked until 10 pm. Had a comfortable night on
the
boat. Vickie (PMC) had asked me to develope a problem list so
when I got up at 6 am I started going over the boat and came up with
a
list, which I reviewed with her when she came later in the
morning. Worked until about 8 pm, but there was fresh paint
again
so I went to the Bremerton hotel again. Friday was another
early
morning, but we knocked off at 6 because everyone was getting burnt
out. I headed to Seattle, returning on Saturday to try take a
bunch of photos (roll a; roll b--warning:
if you have a slow connection they may be a little slow to load)
(and
show Morgan (= friend) the boat. The rebuild of the Acrux is
very
nearly done; it looks pretty promising for meeting the deadline of
4/28.
4/23/04: Vickie (PMC) sent a couple of photos: The binacle and the new hatches on the aft cabin.
p.s. I'm writing this mostly so interested friends and family can
keep up with the progress on the boat.
© by Ray R. Collins
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