So last October I spied a Tool A-class on a salvage auction site. Bought it online and went to go pick it up. Once we got there, it was apparent that it had been hit pretty hard. On the way home we spent much time pondering options to unload the boat minimizing losses.
After some good thought, I decided to pull the trigger on a bunch of carbon and epoxy and have at it. The first order of business was re-attaching the starboard hull. Which began by grinding back all of the damaged material.
After spending lots and lots of time lining up the hull (not many points to measure from) I place a temporary layer of carbon around it. This was simply to hold everything in place while I repaired from the inside. I had to cut out a section of deck to work in here.
Once it was held together well, I spread a solid layer of cabosil/epoxy to replace the missing core.
After that a 6" tape of 5oz carbon was put in.
Did not take any pictures here, but I built a shelf to re-attach the removed deck. Plenty of cabosil used to install it back.
At that point the original layer of carbon on the outside was ground off. Some touch up was required to the core, and I did some tapering. The new layer of carbon went in under vacuum and was faired.
At this point I turned my attention to the other hull, which had a sizable hole.
I had to cut another hole though the deck to access the backside of both areas. Because the damage was so extensive, I bought some core cell foam for the core.
I again started from the inside. I used some sheet metal to help give something to hold the shaping.
Carbon was then installed under vacuum again on the outside. It took quite a lot to fair this in (obviously not completed in this picture)
The entire boat was gone over with additional small repairs, at some point I had to draw the line and loaded it up to take to a friends house.
This was my wife's Christmas present (she had been out of town this entire time) so we decided to give it a wrap in purple. It had quite a bit of metal flake in it.
The wrap took the two of us a solid day to complete, but the results were worth it. I then started on the decking foam. I made a paperboard template and the foam was cut using that as a guide. Installing the foam itself was a little tricky as the glue is quite aggressive.
The repairs completed, it was looking good. Saved a boat from the dump!
I've since painted the rear beam as well as install the tramp and order new rigging for it. It should be on the water in may.
Nice work. Have you weighed it after the repair?
sm
Steve M.
Can anybody see Bacho's pictures? All I get is a minus sign in a circle.
____________
Damon Linkous
DamonLinkous wrote: Can anybody see Bacho's pictures? All I get is a minus sign in a circle.
No, all links are broken using Firefox, Chrome, and IE.
Philip
That's too bad, would really like to see this rebuild
see if this link works
That worked, wow, that was some damage. What was it hit by, a truck?
The images will show up here but you have to look at each one full size, then get the image url and put that between the [ img ] tags. Not sure it's worth the effort, the urls are crazy on Google Photos.
Here's an example.
____________
Damon Linkous
Damon,
Thats what I originally did.
BTW, On my screen there is a glitch. If I copy the URL to the screen and highlight and click the image button, it leaves an extra space between the end of the link and the tag. If I click the image button first and then paste the link in between the brackets, the last "[" is always missing.
I did not weigh this boat yet, before or after. It would be hard to tell what gains it might have made. In addition to the repairs, the C-boards, rudders, mast, standing rigging, running rigging and sail are also all new to the boat so its certificate is meaningless.
Wow, I am impressed with the work. Nice job finishing the hulls too.
Any idea how the boat was damaged in the first place? Storm damage or the like?
holy shnikeys - what a beat down boat
Pretty incredible restoration - well done!
MN3
I concur, what a mess of a wreck and you saved it, but why are your hulls turned upside down? Lol!!! π
bacho wrote: BTW, On my screen there is a glitch. If I copy the URL to the screen and highlight and click the image button, it leaves an extra space between the end of the link and the tag. If I click the image button first and then paste the link in between the brackets, the last "[" is always missing.
That's interesting, I just tried to reproduce both issues and they didn't happen on my desktop system, Windows 10 with Chrome. What are you using?
It may be that the Google photo links were just too much for the BBCODE and this forum to handle, or maybe the problem is because the url's you got were specific to you being logged in? Can you see the photos in your original post? Can you see the one I posted?
Anyway, great job on the A-Cat, will be great to see it living again. There should be a separate "recreational class for all the folks who will buy the old design A-Cats cheap as the rock stars move to foiling and all-carbon boats. ]
____________
Damon Linkous
Damon,
We all race together and then the floaters and foilers are scored seperatly and as a combined fleet. So while there isn't a rock star class, at least you are really only racing against similar boats. So far C board boats are still winning races against foilers, but as more and more of the rockstars are moving to foilers that is starting to ebb.
I doubt there has been a serious A-Cat built out of anything but carbon in at least 15 years. So the only question now is foiling or non.
Awsome job on the restoration btw. Can't wait to see it on the water.
Edited by stumble on Apr 11, 2017 - 05:34 PM.
Still working on this boat a little at a time, work has been rough and hardly have gotten to play with my sailing toys at all. π
Edited by bacho on May 28, 2018 - 09:53 AM.