Alacrity 19 – The mission begins
Well this is what the cockpit looked like when I bought this boat. Forty two years of age and it showed. I’ve been climbing up in there and sanding and priming pretty much every chance I got for the past few weeks. An hour here, an hour there. A few more hours more. The weather was shitty yesterday so I didn’t bother going up to camp. I just stayed home and got some stuff done around the house that I’ve been neglecting. Today was a nice day so I thought I’d devote it to the land yacht.
I’d put a lot of grunt work into her over the past few weeks and wasn’t seeing any progress. Everything so far had been sanding, priming and filling cracks. Today I decided to slap some paint in there and get a glimpse of some glory. Well, there you have it. A nice clean, freshly painted satin white cockpit and two dark mahogany stained hatch covers. All that prep work didn’t show up as well as I’d hoped but it still looks ten times better than it did. Now that I can see what the finished paintwork is going to look like, I think I’ll spend a little less time prepping and a little more time painting.
After all, I’m not restoring this boat. I’m just trying to spruce her up a bit to be a functional sailer that I’m not embarrassed to be seen on the lake in. As I stood there and took this picture I was happy with what I saw. Then I turned around and this is what I saw, and my exuberance was short lived. Well, the cockpit is done except for maybe another coat of white, but look at that ugly deck. It’s as ugly as the cockpit was when I started. Oh well, that’s another chapter in this project. I’ll start on that tomorrow or the next day maybe.
I was about tired of sanding and painting for the day so I decided to bust out the leftover lumber from the Compac mast and start on that project. I intend to build a mast for this boat so I can use the same sail rig that I put together for the Compac. The difference is that this mast will step into the original tabernacle and I’ll also fly a jib or a genny.
So the fun begins again. Cut it to a workable size, knock the corners off with a circular saw, break out the draw knife and whittle while I work.
Hey Ron:
There might be a little inspiration here – alacrity19.blogspot.com
Regards,
Carroll
got an alacrity 19 lined up that is going to take a bit of sweat and tears. Sound but tlc needed. Good to see the results that can be got. Helping a friend with a 9m. M.V. at present who is sanding down and preparing decks, so I can appreciate the effort. Great also to see somebody not afraid to take on a mast. While I am a qualified shipbuilder and appreciate the need for work by professionals where necessary, a dedicated ‘layman’ ( or indeed woman ) often can provide far more time and attention and get an equally good if not better result than skilled boatyard workers working to deadlines and strict budgets. Seems you know what you are doing, thanks for sharing the project, others will certainly be encouraged as to what they can take on and do from your example. Keep up the good work, Donal