Underwater 16

[Tjorve]

I stumbled, actually cruised by in the '73 Aristocraft ski boat, onto a Compac 16 sitting at a dock on Lake Tuscaloosa almost full of water and looks like it has had water in it for a while.  Is it possible to salvage it or may it be more trouble than it is worth?

[Tim Gardner]

Get it for free? yeah it's worth it - TG

[skip1930]

Grab a pail, pump, and sponge and de~water it.
It's for sure worth something as long as she's not holed too badly at or below the waterline.
Filled up with rain water maybe.
Scuppers plugged.
Is she sitting on the bottom or is there not enough water in her yet to pull her under?
Offer a $1 for the title and trailer. The boat's free.


My dad bought his STAR BOAT sight unseen off the bottom of Lake Michigan. The previous skipper capsized her and down it went.

skip.

[Tjorve]

Is she sitting on the bottom or is there not enough water in her yet to pull her under?

It has alot of water in it but not on the bottom. The cockpit was full and I suspect it went into the hatch at the rear or into the cubby.  The sails were floating in the cubby.  I leaned on the side to bail some and the boat listed and stayed listing.  I pulled out several pails of water.  Left a note for the owner who wasn't there, seems like a summer weekend kind of place.
Do Compac 16 have enough flotation to keep it from sinking?

[Pacman]

Salt water or fresh water?

[Bob23]

T:
   No, she will not float but will sink if filled. Most likely the hull is fine although you'd have to gut the interior...not to hard. If that boat were nearer to me, you'd have some competition.
bob23

[rwdsr]

My 16 went thru Hurricane Dennis, got slammed against the pier and knocked off the bow pulpit.  So I think with 4 holes where the pulpit feet were jerked out, the inside filled up with water.  It was sloshing around inside when we pulled the boat out of the water to bring her home.  I did have to gut the interior, but she fixed up real nice.  If you click on the pictures link below you will see the begore and after pictures with some of the interior repairs.

[Billy]

Doubt the owner will see the note anytime soon....... seeing how they have negelected the boat long enough to fill up with water.

Check this one out. it floats!
http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/boa/2806239662.html

[skip1930]

"Do Compac 16 have enough flotation to keep it from sinking?'

Nope she doesn't have enough 'floatation' to keep her from sinking.
She doesn't have any floatation. She has some foam sprayed in the hull to keep her from 'booming' so loudly when beating into the wind.
And it's not required by law to float when awash. Not with a keel filled with concrete and pig iron. That's an impossibility.

skip.

[don l]

My dad bought his STAR BOAT sight unseen off the bottom of Lake Michigan. The previous skipper capsized her and down it went.


Skip,    How did your dad, get the boat up?

[skip1930]

Well capt.

Dad always hung out at Belmont harbor in Chicago when he wasn't on duty and dad had heard through the grape vine that so and so had lost his Star in a race...dad called the skipper up and said he'd buy it sight unseen if the boat could be found.

So they took a guess as to where it had sunk...Dad called up Otto, the Harbor Master at Belmont and said, "Otto? This is O'Lee. You know that Start Boat that so and so capsized...we know about where it is. So find a diver, find a barge, find a crane and when you get the damn boat back on the trailer, I'll come down and look at my new boat. Thanks."Click.

And so a short time later we had our new Star Boat sitting in our driveway.

What we did was to unbolt the keel at The Spra-Con Company with the overhead traveling crane [3600 N. Elston, Chicago. Dad's company with his two partners] and bring the hull home to Glenview where dad and I replaced a few wood planks, and fiberglassed the whole thing and bolted the keel back on. I was maybe around 10 years old? Yea because we had a 1958 T~bird that was maybe two years old...makes me about 10 years old. My job was to sand the whole darn boat's fiberglass smooth with a jitter bug sander and endless amounts of sandpaper.

We sailed that boat from Chicago to Benton Harbor, MI. and back. Slept overnight on the floor boards in a boom tent and sleeping bags. Cooked dinner on a Coleman stove. What fun, camping out! Had a lot more fun with her for a few more years.

When dad finally sold it, this kid drives up in a Nash Metropolitan, black and pink convertable, top down and hooks up to the four wheeled trailer with 2000 lb? of boat on it and as the kid starts to drive away from our driveway I hear dad say, "Good luck stopping Junior." That was the last time I saw that boat.

skip.

[don l]

WOW!

[Billy]

Great story!

[dwkfym]

Doubt the owner will see the note anytime soon....... seeing how they have negelected the boat long enough to fill up with water.

Check this one out. it floats!
http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/boa/2806239662.html

Sorry to bring the thread back up, but do you know anything about this boat?  Owner sent me a bunch of pictures.  It looked okay, not that I'd know much about it anyways.  I wonder if these are one of the thicker fiberglassed early CP16s.

[skip1930]

[ I wonder if these are one of the thicker fiberglassed early CP16s. ]

Nope, all hand made the same way, same 20-1/2 oz woven glass cloth, resign impregnated, hand lay-up with over the years.

Interestingly one of the first commercial made fiberglass sailboats was the Triton and nobody was really sure about 'how good fiberglass was' and so in some places her hull is 3 plus inches thick, and very heavy, but so strong. Walter Cronkite owned a Triton. And in Sturgeon Bay there is a Triton sitting in some back yard. Been there for many years. The owner let me walk through it. Really trashed wood on the inside. But the outside looks perfect.

Remember those Berkley safety cars with the gull wing doors? The fiberglass was so bad and wavy that a restorer sanded off 113 lb of fiberglass dust off just to smooth her out. I read that in some car magizine.

Go get the boat. Toss her up on a flat bed trailer and drag it home.

skip.