Hello Everyone. I've spent many hours reading this forum and there are a lot of good people and information here. Thought I'd join in and introduce me and my boat and the work I'm doing.
About me.
I've sailed a small catamaran a little as a teen. A very little. So I'm a beginner. I had done a ton of power boating and water skiing so not unfamiliar with boating. My wife and I think cruising the Caribbean in a sailboat some years in the future could be a lot of fun. Looked into what it takes to charter a boat and surprise they don't charter to beginners. So we decided to buy a boat and try out sailing and in the process get some experience. Together we've already learned a ton about sailing and passed a bunch of knowledge tests which has been fun. Now that we have the boat we are learning more about how things on the boat function.
About boat.
We were looking for a 25 ft.+ trailerable boat. We don't live near big water so we will have to drive to sail and so won't be doing it frequently. A trailer sailor make sense to me. Had been considering an older Macgregor 26 but really like the larger cabin interior and layout of the hunter 26 cabin. However the hunters were going for a lot more than I wanted to spend on my first sailboat. But we saw a 1995 Hunter 26 forsale about 5 hours away at about 1/2 what seemed the going rate for a hunter 26. Of course that meant it needed a lot of elbow grease (something I'm not afraid of). So Saturday the 12th we bought it recognizing it needed a lot of love to get it ready to sail. The boat is in the driveway now and we are doing a bunch of cleaning, repairs and maintenance in hopes to take it on a sailing vacation in the warmer areas in the next few weeks.
The boat best we can tell was kept in the Virginia beach area for most of it's life. And from the size of the barnacles on the hull it may have been in the water quite awhile without a cleaning. The barnacles, while big can easily be popped off by lightly pressing with a finger. Expect they will be easy to clean up. By amount of the lichen on the lines it appears it was stored with the mast down (probably on the trailer) for quite awhile too. The last time the trailer was registered was 2003. The registration sticker on the boat says 1999 but expect that there was a more recent one on it that has fallen off. It has Johnson 9.9 hp motor 4 stroke on it that is the same vintage as the boat (1996). Running condition is yet unknown. The interior is appears all there but was musty and had mildew apparently from rain getting into the boat while it was forsale (was told it was accidently left open during the rain).
Once home we emptied the interior so the cleaning could begin. The flares found onboard had expired in 1997 and the charts onboard were from a similar year :-(. Then we stepped the mast to ensure all the rigging was there and sort out what we have. Stepping the mast was quite exciting to do but was uneventful. Well other than getting the last couple of inches to get the forstay to attach seems to be quite difficult. Is this normal? Could be I was being timid and not putting enough pressure on to pull it down.
We needed to change the main and jib halyard. They are quite old and needed replacing. Stepping the mast with that old halyard wasn't probably the best idea. With the mast standing we used the old halyards as messenger lines. The main went flawlessly. So we attempted the jib and our joint where the new to old halyard met, while the same as we did with the main, apparently couldn't easily make it through the pulley near the top of the mast easily. After trying to work it trough a few times the old halyard broke off. No problem I'll just lower the mast. Oh yah that requires using the jib halyard. Oops, that was dumb. So I tied the main halyard to the middle of another new line and fished the new rope ends over the spreaders, one end on each side of the mast, to make a bridal to support the mast similarly to how the jib halyard did. That worked and we lowered the mast with no drama. Then used fishing tape as a messenger to run a new jib halyard. Then stepped the mast again. Took longer than it should have if we had done it right the first time but the halyards are now replaced and only loss was some time. More to come.
Attached Pictures:
Towing it home. Stopped at a rest area as the sun goes down.
At home raising the main sail to check it's condition.
Thaniel
About me.
I've sailed a small catamaran a little as a teen. A very little. So I'm a beginner. I had done a ton of power boating and water skiing so not unfamiliar with boating. My wife and I think cruising the Caribbean in a sailboat some years in the future could be a lot of fun. Looked into what it takes to charter a boat and surprise they don't charter to beginners. So we decided to buy a boat and try out sailing and in the process get some experience. Together we've already learned a ton about sailing and passed a bunch of knowledge tests which has been fun. Now that we have the boat we are learning more about how things on the boat function.
About boat.
We were looking for a 25 ft.+ trailerable boat. We don't live near big water so we will have to drive to sail and so won't be doing it frequently. A trailer sailor make sense to me. Had been considering an older Macgregor 26 but really like the larger cabin interior and layout of the hunter 26 cabin. However the hunters were going for a lot more than I wanted to spend on my first sailboat. But we saw a 1995 Hunter 26 forsale about 5 hours away at about 1/2 what seemed the going rate for a hunter 26. Of course that meant it needed a lot of elbow grease (something I'm not afraid of). So Saturday the 12th we bought it recognizing it needed a lot of love to get it ready to sail. The boat is in the driveway now and we are doing a bunch of cleaning, repairs and maintenance in hopes to take it on a sailing vacation in the warmer areas in the next few weeks.
The boat best we can tell was kept in the Virginia beach area for most of it's life. And from the size of the barnacles on the hull it may have been in the water quite awhile without a cleaning. The barnacles, while big can easily be popped off by lightly pressing with a finger. Expect they will be easy to clean up. By amount of the lichen on the lines it appears it was stored with the mast down (probably on the trailer) for quite awhile too. The last time the trailer was registered was 2003. The registration sticker on the boat says 1999 but expect that there was a more recent one on it that has fallen off. It has Johnson 9.9 hp motor 4 stroke on it that is the same vintage as the boat (1996). Running condition is yet unknown. The interior is appears all there but was musty and had mildew apparently from rain getting into the boat while it was forsale (was told it was accidently left open during the rain).
Once home we emptied the interior so the cleaning could begin. The flares found onboard had expired in 1997 and the charts onboard were from a similar year :-(. Then we stepped the mast to ensure all the rigging was there and sort out what we have. Stepping the mast was quite exciting to do but was uneventful. Well other than getting the last couple of inches to get the forstay to attach seems to be quite difficult. Is this normal? Could be I was being timid and not putting enough pressure on to pull it down.
We needed to change the main and jib halyard. They are quite old and needed replacing. Stepping the mast with that old halyard wasn't probably the best idea. With the mast standing we used the old halyards as messenger lines. The main went flawlessly. So we attempted the jib and our joint where the new to old halyard met, while the same as we did with the main, apparently couldn't easily make it through the pulley near the top of the mast easily. After trying to work it trough a few times the old halyard broke off. No problem I'll just lower the mast. Oh yah that requires using the jib halyard. Oops, that was dumb. So I tied the main halyard to the middle of another new line and fished the new rope ends over the spreaders, one end on each side of the mast, to make a bridal to support the mast similarly to how the jib halyard did. That worked and we lowered the mast with no drama. Then used fishing tape as a messenger to run a new jib halyard. Then stepped the mast again. Took longer than it should have if we had done it right the first time but the halyards are now replaced and only loss was some time. More to come.
Attached Pictures:
Towing it home. Stopped at a rest area as the sun goes down.
At home raising the main sail to check it's condition.
Thaniel
Attachments
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