I brought the boat last summer, as I have wanted to try to sail one since I was a kid,
to be honest, when I brought it I was a bit blinded by the possibility of owning it and ignored some tell tale signs of moth decay,
however at the time I really didn't know what I was looking at, the carbon bits were definitely exciting ,the boat was completely mad and the first few sails were absolute mayhem,
first time out I was on the water for about 30 minutes before the constant capsizing and exhaustion got the better of me,
falling of the wing onto the hull I punched a hole in the side and proceeded to sink a little.
To get myself back onto the water I splatted some carbon over the the hole and beefed up the sides a little,
this worked fairly well for a while and I proceeded to sail all summer, managing to get to the stage where I could sail for a few hours with only a couple of dips..... my god it is fun! The acceleration is extraordinary, I hate to think what the foiling ones are like, you must have to completely recalibrate your idea of boatspeed.
over the course of the summer the hull started taking on a little water every time I went out and I traced the leak to the very bodged looking daggerboard case.
this looked like a bit of a pig to repair, and I figured the best way to do it was to make a hole in the side to get myself access for bog......
The hole got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, with me taking rotten internal structure out, and most of both sides , and sections of the bottom at both the stern and bow of the poor boat, I started to get a bit obsessive about finding rot and damp and managed to find some pretty much everywhere,
I ended up cutting back the top laver of ply on the flares as this was rotten and water had got into the foam core, I removed the foredeck, , and the bracing for the bridle, and most of the front bulkhead, and then finally cut back some nasty looking repairs on the wing tubes,
when I removed the wooden skins from the sides I made sure to leave as much of the carbon forming the rolled edge at the bottom of the hull as possible to make my job of lining everthing back up again as easy as possible, this proved invaluable..
What a mess! sadly I don't have any photo's of the hull at its most deconstructed, I think I was a little depressed by this time so didn't really want the memories...
I figured I had removed enough, I’m definitely one for removing everything in anyway dodgy in a rebuild situation,
I brought one sheet of gorgeous 1.5 mm ply from robbins timber then got started
First thing was new internal structure, this was made up from offcut bits of western red cedar , bent, pinned and glued into position , it got a new carbon front bulkhead
I put in the new daggerboard casing, made with a glass clothe lining and 1.5 mm ply sides, bogged that into place then over a few days stressed new sides onto the hull,
The ply is absolutely incredible, it holds form and curve beautifully, and pulled into a great shape, i want to build a new moth with it in the not to distant......
I reinforced the tramp stringing holes with patches of carbon Kevlar cloth , then filled the void left from the removal of the flares foam core with expanding foam, cut it back then filled over with superlight filler, this I intend to top skin with carbon,
I replaced the foredeck with clearcoated 1.5mm ply,with a light glass cloth skin
God damn fairing..
I figured if I was going to all this trouble i should really do the job properly. So the fairing began.
There is an incredible amount of shape in the hull of a magnum 9.9, with lumps generated by the stressed ply floor, and the lowest part of the hull being wider than the corresponding waterline,
I sanded a huge amount of filler. Many late nights, finally getting to something that felt pretty good.
After this the next stage was to skin it with something,
I figured carbon Kevlar was a good bet, I really want the boat to be tough enough to sail in big waves off Falmouth so it has to be strong, I also want other people to be able to have a go without the risk of breaking it,
I had brought a broken vac pump a while ago and have been eager to try it out, it took me about 2 hrs to get the cloth on wetted and bagged up, the pump was superb, and I have the best consolidated skin I could hope for, can’t weigh more than a kilo, and it makes a huge difference to the strength of the hull,
I’m now onto the stage of filling and final fairing the hull, I have the flares to finish, and the wing tubes to sort out, but the water is getting closer...
I need another session to write a little more, and upload some more photo's of the later processes, fairing, bagging etc, but this is going to have to do for tonight..
More to come. Dan.
