Restoring 52019

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Hi All,
I've just began restoration on 52019, built in '76. Looking forward to a fun project and a break from working on & sailing bigger boats. Started out with an old El Toro over 50 years ago, so this will be a "return to the roots" of sorts.

PuffinInTegel's picture

It's a pleasure to hear that people are remaining true to the real art and sport of sailing. That means staying upright and afloat without 20 feet or more of boat under your behind and without a trusty diesel to keep you out of trouble.
I hope that the restoration goes well. It sounds as if you are experienced, but if you do have questions, there are always people who are prepared to provide at least verbal assistance here on the forum.
52019 is not on the roll call file yet. In fact, the only two 52k numbers on record are in the Netherlands and New Zealand!
Would you like the boat put on the roll call?

Thanks Gernot and yes, I'd love to be in the roll call. My understanding is that the boat was built from a kit in the late '70s here in the US, but the one design never took off in this area so it was used as a day sailer by by the family I bought it from. The varnish had not been kept up so the epoxy tape had degraded pretty badly and a layer of glass was applied over the bottom. I haven't rolled her over yet to determine the extent of any damage there. but what I've seen from the top is encouraging. After many years of racing keelboats (yes...20 feet + of boat under me, but doing so in mid-Pacific sometimes) it feels good to have something with instant responses again :)

With the improved weather I've finally been motivated to go finish stripping varnish and epoxy from the interior. I'm glad I did, as I found a few spots of mild rot and some damage to the bottom plies right under the storage cubby bulkhead. It looks like someone stood int he boat while on the trailer, pushing a support roller up through the plies. The forward deck has some rotten spots right around the butt blocks for the side panels, so I;ll probably end up replacing those. With that off I'll pull the side and stern floatation tank covers off so I can see what's happening in there. That way i can epoxy coat ALL of the wood on the boat and she should last another couple of generations. If I can find some instructions on posting photos to the website I'll add some in.

62816inBerlin's picture

Unfortunately you cannot post photos directly by uploading them to this site, as we have to control the limited memory available carefully. If you do have an account to a place where you can upload pictures (Facebook, Google photos, Instagram, your own blog etc.), then you can link the pictures to display them here, using a bit of html code <img src ..... > as described in http://mirrordiscussforum.org/Drupal_02/node/35 . This does involve a bit of typing at least once to get the full code string. To speed things up, I've made a *.txt file to use as a template into which I copy + paste the picture URL, then copy and paste the whole string into my forum comment.
If you are not able to upload the pictures anywhere on the whole WWW, then feel free to send me the files by e-mail (see "contact" link on the front page) and I can load them onto our server so that they can be shown here.