Soulmate as we found her
I guess we could consider ourselves lucky, Soulmate, our 30
year old Cal 25, had a firm deck, good standing rigging, and her
center bulkhead was fine. She had a new mainsail, stainless steel
sink and a #1 genoa and #2 genoa that may last this season. Her
boom and mast only required minor TLC. After several hours of
cleaning, Soulmates' windows open and the dings on the metal frames
shine and give her character. But the rest of her took lots of
heart and soul, lots of long weekends and lots of hours after
work.
We ran over our budget of $5,000.00 but Soulmate is happy and
proud to be back in the water. (It took 6 months for us to agree
on the name of our boat. One evening Randy called me his soul
mate. It touched my heart.) She recovered nicely from her face-lift.
All the agony and time we encountered with her, repairing, cleaning
and rebuilding, were worth it. We will enjoy her on the weekends
and I do rest at night knowing she is happy on "Cuddy Way"
rocking and swaying in the waters where she belongs.
The first time I saw her, Soulmate was nameless, up on a trailer
in the middle of the dusty desert. She ventured there so that
our neighbor could put his Sprinta Sport into the waters at Lake
Mead. Four months later Randy and Steve built her a new trailer,
hired a crane and proudly pulled her to our yard. She sat there
for almost a year being drilled on, sanded on, climbed on and
scrubbed on. What follows is our story, the tasks we tackled to
get our first sailboat from the land to the sea.
I lost track of the exact monies we spent a couple of weeks before
we launched (This is usually a good idea- ed) . Things
got a bit crazy and hectic with holidays, friends and anticipation
of putting our boat in the water, but I will give you a breakdown
of the major investments. Screws, nuts, bolts, washers, brushes,
rags and sandpaper are a must that you can never have too much
of. Our most valuable tool was a DeWault rotary sander, and by
the end of this project we had purchased a second one. One also
needs patience's and determination.
Soulmate as we found her
The first thing Randy got started on was the bottom. He chose to work with "The West System". It was by far the most intense and time-consuming repair of all. One could see hundreds of blisters, ranging in size from the bottom of a coke can to the end of a Bic pen. It took 6 weekends to sand the paint off the hull and keel. Smoothing and fairing out the bottom of a boat, that's not fair to begin with, is a thankless job and if we had sought perfection on the hull and keel of this Cal we'd still be working on her bottom today. However, you can get one into good shape with time and energy. Once the paint is off it's time to grid out the blisters, smooth them and get them ready for the process of epoxy, filling, sanding and repeating until the holes blended with the rest of the bottom.
Note the blisters on the keel and rudder
Much to our surprise while grinding out a blister at the front
of the keel a waterfall spouted. In shock Randy started drilling
below the hole. Some 9-12 inches later he found the bottom level
of the water and it drained from her the next 20-30-40 minutes.
Water came from the keel stub.
It was during this time I started reading through the open forum on the Cal 25 web site. The site is full of great information. Water seeping form the keel has occurred on other boats, but we still don't know where Soulmate's water came from. The Epoxy process began after a couple of weeks of letting the keel dry out.
The front and bottom edges of this keel that were worn, jagged or just gone were re-shaped with a layering and sanding process. After the prep work was completed on the hull and keel the seal coat, which is a 2-part epoxy system of resin and hardener, was applied, sanded, reapplied, re-sanded and applied for the 3rd time. By now it is summertime. Our neighbor had his 23 ft Sprinta Sport back out of the water and you could see where the water washed away the paint from the front edge of the keel back 24-30 inches on each side, and from the thickest part of the keel back about 12-18 inches. The wear edges on the front of the keel and the widest parts of the sides of the keel have 4 coats of sealer. Four coats of waterproof filler were put on the entire bottom and then 5-6 coats of barrier. We selected Micron Extra Paint by Interlux to finish the bottom of the boat, which provides for indefinite boat launch time and contains biolux. Micron paint is extremely thick and not a slick smooth paint for a racer to use. It is recommended to brush or roll on in temperatures under 95 degrees. I cannot stress enough the frustration that occurs when applying this paint when it is dry and hot outside. The final coats of bottom paint, 4 overall with 6 coats in the heavy wear areas, were applied in the fall and went on much easier than the first two. Two gallons of paint at $169.00 a gallon brought the bottom job, including the Dewault sander to between $850.00 and $900.00.
The new bottom looking good
We had the boat up on 6 12" x 12" carpeted pads attached
to jacks, 3 per side. You can work on the bottom in specific areas
and are able to get up into the boat. I got ambitious and began
to clean out the inside. The plush blue carpet left. The added
bench seat, forward the sink, was set aside and when her inside
was finally gutted I shook my head, pulled up my shirt -sleeves
and started scrapping. I then sponge painted her front sleeping
berth and put bright white interior semi gloss paint on her dingy
faded ceiling, bulkheads, bathroom and storage area. Several weeks
later she was clean to the stern and full of new life.
