Quote:
Originally Posted by tevake
Ah Drcoastline, you really are living the wooden boat dream there.
Nice old cruiser. Is it a 50s Mathews?
Good series of pics, going deep on the refinish.
The real gem I see there is your Queen of Gleam! Was she stripping with a heat gun?
Big job taking all the paint off an old girl like that, is Robin doing that job on her own, caulking and all? Keep her around.
I cracked up at your comment about "your three girls"
Notfarnow, just wondering how far you have to back your truck in to get that sailboat off the trailer?
Use a good length of chain?
Cheers Richard
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Hi Richard,
Yes we are living the wood boat dream. She is quite a piece of historical art. She is a 1958 Trumpy Cruiser. Each yacht was custom built to the owners specifications and took upwards of a year to complete. Mathis/Trumpy built approximately 400 yachts from about 1900 through 1974. This is contract #385. Of the 400 yachts less than 40 still exist.
The Presidential yacht Sequoia is probably the most famous Mathis/Trumpy. Some others are Freedom, Innisfail and Enticer. Tireless, Roger Firestones boat, Eleanor, Howard Hughes. My boat belonged to Alfred V. Dupont Grandson to Alfred I. Dupont. Alfred V. was the founder of US airways.
The previous owner did a lot of work himself on the boat and not very good work at that. He was a property manager for small rental properties. Much of his work on the boat followed the, use what you have, and make it work and that's good enough philosophy. I have no doubt he used all the left over materials from the rental properties. When he decided to sell the boat he thought he would spruce up the paint job so he took a grinder to the hull and went at it. It appears he used something in the neighbor hood of 80 grit as all the swirl marks were still in her sides and house. He then proceeded to paint the entire boat with latex. Fortunately there were previous layers of paint as you can see in the photos so the grinder marks did not go into the wood. I made the decision to have the entire hull stripped, repair any rot and damage and start new. If I'm going to do it I may as well do it once and do it right. Over all the hull was in decent shape. I have the log books back to the early 1970's. The owner before the knuckle head was an attorney out of Houston, he spent a small fortune maintain the boat including $85,000.00 for an entirely new bottom in 2005. Everything from the dark blue stripe down including the ribs and two layers of one inch thick Mahogany planking is all brand new.
For the most part Robin is working with her daughter Pam and yes she is using a heat gun. The boat is in a small family yard on the upper Chesapeake Bay. The family has owned it since the 1940's. At that time it was a tobacco port for the surrounding farms. In the 1950's they turned it into a marina. The yard is run by Robins brother JR, he is the shipwright. JR manufactured by hand all new splash rails and as you can see in the photos replaced some planks. Robin runs the paint and varnish part of the yard with her daughter Pam. Robins sister Chris comes and helps out as needed. They tried various methods to remove the paint including chemicals and sanders. The chemicals were worthless. They removed the latex but did nothing to the other layers and the sanders were clogging every few minutes. So they went to heat guns. They burnt out something in the neighborhood of 10 guns.
At the same time the Heads (toilets) are being upgraded from the knuckle heads contraptions and the HVAC systems are being replaced as well.
We purchased her on the 4th of July in 2013 with a five year plan of refitting and bringing her to Bristol condition. We are a little behind that schedule due to a bad winter in 2014 but she's coming along. It is not a full restoration because as I said the attorney spent a fortune in maintenance and upgrades. He truly cared for the boat. Mostly we are undoing the last guys bad work and upgrading some aging systems.