Rescuing a Compac 16!!!

[jthatcher]

looks like you have been busy!  great job.. i bet that you are very anxious to get it into the water..   we are all looking forward to hearing about your first sail..   jt

[Smier]

I actually didn't choose the name, a bunch of my buddies at work started calling it that and it just kind of fit!  My wife didn't approve of my first choice... The S.S. Marital Bliss!   I'm so excited, it needs a lot of TLC, but it is well worth it and I look forward to many years of enjoyment out I this boat!  Being stuck on a tropical island can't be all that bad, can it?
Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfR7qxtgCgY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[fawsr]

Great Job on the boat so far!

[Smier]

The damaged area photo, the tabernacle has been pulled out of the cabin roof top, so I'm guessing that the 3/4" plywood backing is a tad rotted under the glass.
So this calls for a big bottle of some Marine-Tex two part Epoxy and finish drilling clean through the wood and through bolt with 1/4"-20 ss bolts, finishing washers, flat washers, and either nuts or acorn nuts, the missing tabernacle down on the cabin top with copious amounts of Marine-Tex, let her ooze out and wipe up as it starts to set up. It's not necessary to make it any more complex than that if you don't have to replace the backing plate wood.

Skip, I believe you're correct.  I've been doing a lot of research on how to repair this, and I believe I have a key bit of info on why it would be acceptable to thru bolt the tabernacle to the top of the cabin.   My boat was demasted/dismasted(not sure which is correct terminology) during a storm after one of the rigging lines broke during  severe wind while it was docked in its slip.  The weak point isn't the cabin roof, well it could be If the fiberglass enclosed wood block you mention is severely rotted.  However, when this one failed the tabernacle actually wasnt ripped off, it simply snapped the pin off and bent one side of the tabernacle over almost flat!  The screws never ripped out, yes they cracked the surrounding fiberglass, but the previous owner actually had to unscrew them to remove the tabernacle to repair the bent "ear", which was when he discovered the cracks.  So I feel pretty confident that in the event of a rigging failure, that the thin tabernacle our boats use would simply bend over again.  Like many of the posts discussing this on the board have said before, the tabernacle really isn't under much load or strain when rigged, which is one reason I think they can get away with such a light weight piece of metal.
  Providing that there isn't wide spread rot, I will be thru bolting and sealing the tabernacle back on like you mentioned above.

[Smier]

So I headed up tonight to my inlaws house where I currently have the boat stored to work on it.  I took some left over vinyl trim board scraps that I had left from at my house and made a two piece replacement companionway door.  I used the rotten plywood door as a template, traced it the best I could with a sharpie, and cut it with my cordless circular saw.  It came out surprisingly well!  It will require some sanding, and I still need to cut an angle where the two pieces meet to prevent water from entering along the seam where the top and bottom piece meet.  As others have posted before, it's not the fanciest looking thing, but it looks a lot better than the rotten plywood, and didn't cost me anything!!!   I failed to take any pictures because I was racing to get my tools and gear  cleaned up as a thunderstorm was approaching...  I'll take some pics of it when I head back up.  
 I really like the LED trailer lights, I got to try them out tonight, they are bright!  They will certainly help with visibility on the road, and they look pretty sweet as well!  Now I can start cleaning up the interior and get ready to paint if I don't find too much damage...

[Smier]

It's not finished, but here's a picture of my replacement boards I cut for my companionway:

I made it two piece for ease of stowing below deck.  I still need to finish the edges and cut the seem at a 45* overlap to prevent water from leaking.   Spent last Saturday assessing the situation, and trying to come up with a plan of attack.  I have several issues that need addressed:

1). Need to reseal the deck to hull joint behind the rub rail, it's dry, cracked, and falling out in places.

Do I need to seperate the hull and deck and clean out the old material completely, or can I just remove the loose material and recaulk with the 3M adhesive?  I want to do it right the first time, but don't want to make this too big of a project either...

2). Cabin sole has seperated from ballast.  Seems solid underneath with only a minor crunch when you step on it.  Keel seams to be in excellent shape.  Should I open it up and check for water under it?  Cabin paint is peeling and chipping, and at one point there was water in the boat...


3). I spent my day scraping and shop vacuuming the interior out.  Thankfully, the compression post is solid!
What is this access and area designed for?  Access to the compression post mounting bolts?

There was some moisture in the bottom when I opened it up, not much, but water has obviously gotten in there.  I am assuming it has seeped under the cabin sole bunk area, the carpet that was in there was soaked from the rotten companionway door.   I'm hoping my new boards have corrected that issue.

4). The winch eye (Ubolt that mounts thru the bow) isn't loose, but the wood it bolts thru is damp and seemed soft.

Advice for replacement?  I have left over pressure treated pine but was afraid it would be too soft?

5). Is this just a vent or does it have another purpose?  Am I missing a cover or something?  Because its wide open and the bees love it...


That's all for now, I'd appreciate any help and advice!!! Thanks in advance, Scott.

[Cevin c Taylor]

Here's a link to a writeup I did on fixing my bow eye.  It's now strong enough to bear the full weight of the boat as I drag it up on the trailer (though I try to avoid doing this). 
http://cpyoa.geekworkshosting.com/forum/index.php?topic=4578.msg31824#msg31824

[Smier]

It's been a while since I updated, I'm still working away on the boat and trailer.  I finally got to put a good solid day of work on the boat today!  First I replaced my worn out winch post, mount, winch, and winch strap.  The 32 year old magic tilt trailer has taken a beating from being out in the weather all these years, and the winch post had taken the worst of it...




I always strap my boats to their trailers anyway, but I am actually Kicking myself for towing this thing home like this!  If I had hit the brakes hard, or been in an accident this thing probably would have ended up in the back of my truck...  I actually broke it off by hand.  Please everybody, check your winch stands, mine was galvanized, but rotted from the inside out apparently from moisture getting inside.

New gear installed, still need to tweak the mounting adjustments, but it's solid!



Next, I removed the rub rails and cleaned out all the failed caulking in the deck to hull joint.  I used the overkill 3M 5200 sealant.  First I used a razor knife to help loosen the junk material, followed by a wire brush attachment on my drill to clean out the remaining gunk, as well as to rough it up a bit to give the 5200 something to bite into...



Then after cleaning any loose Dust and debris out of the joint I applied the 5200 with a caulk gun, wiped it with a latex surgical glove to smooth it out and make sure I got it in there good...



Worked well, I will follow up by doing the same thing on the inside of the boat soon.  If I didn't have a fast approaching deadline, I would have just seperated the deck and the hull.  It would have actually made many of my future projects much easier!  Next, I reinstalled the mast step by thru drilling the mounting holes.  I used new stainless steel hardware to screw and bolt it back onto the top of the cabin.  I also bedded it in a heavy coating of 3M 5200.  I failed to take pictures of this part of the job, but I'll add some ASAP!  Going to reinstall the rub rail trim after it all sets up, and replace all the rope lines on the mast, it looks old and I question if it will hold up for long, so I figure now is the time to do it right!  The good news is, all the stainless steel lines for the rigging were replaced after the equipment failure that damaged the mast step, so everything looks good there.  I raised the mast for the first time this afternoon, and I was amazed at how easy it was to setup and take down.  I'm going to build a crutch to hold the mast for transport, and make a mount for the bow railing to hold it just above the cabin roof.  I might do the PVC pipe mod mounted to the trailer to store and haul the boom.  I'm going to take a day off work this week and hopefully take its maiden voyage to either Lake Nockamixon or Lake Wallenpaupack later this week!!!  I'll keep everyone posted!

[Smier]

It's official!!!  July 12th will be the S.S. Minnow's maiden voyage!!!  A good friend of mine and I are taking the day off work to head down to Lake Nockamixon for the day.  She's not the prettiest boat just yet, but she should be seaworthy after tonight's work session.  I want to go midweek in hopes that it won't be too crowded, I'm sure we will be making a few mistakes, and I don't want to be a hindrance to others...

On tonight's schedule:
1. Reinstall rub rails and stainless trim
2. Practice setup and teardown in the yard
3. Make sure the motor still runs
4. Get all the necessary safety gear back on the boat
5. Install license plate on trailer and boat registration sticker
6. Figure out if any other last minute repairs are needed

Hopefully we will be there mid morning thru the late afternoon if the weather cooperates.  I'm pretty excited to finally test the old girl out!   Hoping we don't provide too much entertainment for others while we are there...

[Smier]

Success!!!  We took the SS Minnow out yesterday afternoon to Lake Nockamixon for its triumphant return from retirement!  I spent the morning buttoning up some of the last minute details, built a temporary crutch for the cockpit to support the mast while trailering, then towed her to the pressure wash bay at my work, where I spent the next hour cleaning her up for the big adventure:




She's come a long way in the past couple of months!

We were too busy figuring things out, and trying different things to take pictures while sailing, so this is the only picture I have from at the lake...  That's my friend Evan who thankfully came along to help out!



I picked up an 40lb thrust Minn Kota electric trolling motor to make life simpler, it had no problem pushing the CP16 in an out of the launch.  I got this cool app for my phone, called Navionics, that uses the GPS capabilities of the phone to track our course.

Start Time: 7/12/12 4:00 PM
End Time: 7/12/12 5:25 PM

Active track info:

Distance: 1.6 NM
Total time: 1h 24'
Average Speed: 1.2 kts
Max Speed: 4.6 kts

It also shows a map of where we sailed in circles trying to figure out what we were doing.  Here's a screen capture, it's pretty cool!



We found a few things that need worked on, and now I can move on to the interior, but at least we can start enjoying the old girl!!!

[jthatcher]

great pics.. congrats on the successful sail!    how did you like nockamixon?    are you ready to join us on barnegat bay  at eh end of the month?   you are certainly invited..      jt

[Smier]

Thanks for the invite!  I would love to join you guys, but I am actually on vacation and out of town that entire week... I would definitely love to come and check out the bay at some point though, maybe late summer/early fall?  The good news is, it only took one trip out to hook my friend Evan on sailing!!!  He's already asking me when we can go out again. 
   Lake Nockamixon is nice, very quiet and peaceful with lots of kayakers and fisherman.  We saw 3 other sailboats off in the distance.  There is a 20hp limit to gas powered motors, and since we went out on a Thursday afternoon, there wasn't a whole lot of activity going on, which I enjoyed.  I really didn't want too big of an audience the first time out!  I look forward to getting to know Nockamixon better, I don't really know that much about it just yet to give a good review...

I took another screen capture to show a slightly better view of Nockamixon, as you can see by the little yellow line representing our track, we really didn't cover much of the lake...  It's not a very large lake in my opinion, but nice nonetheless. 


  I will be heading over to Spruce Run Reservoir near Clinton, NJ, and I will probably take a day off and go on a mid-week sail on Lake Wallenpaupack in Pa soon(Wallenpaupack is an unrestricted HP lake, and fairly large).  There are quite a few other local lakes relatively close to me!

[jthatcher]

sounds good..  we camped on wallenpaupack earlier in the summer, we were there during the week - lots of powerboats!    it must be absolutely crazy there on a weekend - but i did see a number of sailboats tied up at the marina where we camped ( ironwood point)  , and i talked with the fellow in the store, and he told me that that have a racing series on weekends for sailboats..    it certainly is a lot larger than nockamixon. however, so  i imagine that you will have a great time there. 

that is a neat ap that you have - it is nice to be able to see where you have been!    sorry you can't make it to bbb2012..     the bay is a great place to sail.    good luck with your next outing.  jt

[Smier]

We just got back from our vacation in Ontario!  I spent all day Saturday installing new axle bearings, seals and bearing buddies.  By the time I got the boat and trailer home, it was dark out, I spent the next couple of hours loading my wife's Durango and the boat up with all our gear for a week on the lake.



I was so glad that I did the bearings and seals, the drivers side actually had some lake water from my recent trip to Lake Nockamixon that ran out when I popped the bearing cover off the axle.  The hubs stayed much cooler on the 330 mile trip up to Canada.  I'm not liking the 8" wheels though, they seemed to run a little hotter than I would like, so I had to keep the cruising speed a little slower than I like...

I had to use the tilt function of the trailer to launch and retrieve the Minnow... This photo shows the beach style boat ramp at the lake, I had to back the entire Durango into the lake to get it in deep enough to launch.



This is my son and I preparing to motor across the lake to my in-laws dock for the week! 





It was so nice to be able to just walk out the door of the cottage and hop on the boat!  And here's a shot of some of my crew in training!!!



It was a great week, I learned a lot about sailing, our boat, and found a few more things to fix and modify before our next trip.  The kids all enjoyed sailing, and my wife and I took a star lit cruise via the motor to the center of the lake one night and watched the moon set, and marveled at how many stars you can see when your an hour away from the nearest city and there's no light pollution!!!

[jthatcher]

What a great opportunity for you!   We it sounds like a great trip... Very nice photos.   So,  you just might be ready for the rescheduled Barnegat bay bash.   How cool would that be!