South African "Catalina" 22

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
This past weekend was a really good "work" weekend. The weather was great and progress was made. Two items needed attention:
Item 1: The port side cockpit seat laminate was not finished during construction in that the seat had a layer of plywood stuck underneath but this was never covered over. The wood was showing some rot and weathering and I noticed when I stood on the cockpit seat before turning the boat upside down I could hear the faint stretch and cracking of glass fibers as it was subjected to bending under my weight. Logged this as an item to correct. The photos show up to prep stage, did not take after shots... yet.

Item 2: The port side water line fairing was done but I was not truly happy with my efforts and the results. To my uneducated hands the fairing job felt smooth and even but one day after raining I went to look at the glistening shiny hull in the daylight. Looked ugly as you could still clearly make out the depression running the length of the water line. This had to be seen to.

Job one required sanding the wood and surrounding fiberglass structure, acetone wipe down cleaning. I drill holes through the wood layer into the bonding layer in a grid pattern to fill the void with some thinned down resin. Hopefully the risn has soaked its way into the bonding layer and filled some voids that were present. Then it was a case of wetting out and laying up a layer of CSM over the newly prepared surface. Man, I had forgotten what fiberglass itch felt like!

Job two was a lot more taxing. I purchased some ready made fairing compound which has to mix up a pretty pink colour! I used it to fill the area of the waterline to make a more convex curve. Left it to harden for a couple of days and then spent a day in the Winter sun sanding it to acceptable shape.

I also completed the fiberglass tape around the portside hull deck joint to cover the bolts installed a while ago as well as filled and sanded the transom. So the hull now stands ready for the white epoxy SP115 resin to coat the port side to match the starboard side as well as the transom.

It's now raining outside so thats good for us but not for boat work!

Once the hull is fully epoxy coated it then gets sanded back with 120 grit to prep for the International Undercoat 2-part polyurethane primer.
 

Attachments

Last edited:

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
I am sitting with my own dilemma at the moment = what to do about the keel slot and the keel cable roller ball?

Early on in the restoration process I saw that the bubbles/pitting and cracking in the gel coat was fairly severe inside the keel slot and the keel box. I have tried various means to tackle this and if you look at previous pages you will see that eventually i resorted to a hole saw on a threaded rod in a drill machine to chow away the horrible gel coat. This worked well in the curves but not the flat surfaces. I then used a sanding disc to sand the sides of the slot that I could reach. I've tried to hand sand with paper stuck to a plank as well as a rough bastard rasp to gouge away gelcoat. I'm at the point where I am seriously thinking about cutting out the entire keel box and making a new one.... of course thats another years worth of work in itself!

So my original plan was same as the bottom - clear away the bad gelcoat and recover with new glass cloth and epoxy resin. That is still my desire.

How to remove the gelcoat ... or should I say enough is enough and just clean up and epoxy over the old gel coat?

On a side not it seems that the keel hanger fixing bolts are actually opposite to the American made boats. The bolts are set into the hull structure sticking down. I wrapped them with the grey duct tape you can see to protect the threads.
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
The other keel related issue is the keel cable turning ball. I have purchased the new ball kit from CD but looking at other threads again it looks like our boats in SA were built opposite... the tube is upside down in my boat compared to the American made boats. I suppose thats good to get the ball as close to the cable outlet as possible but now how to remove the old ball. I will have to make a hole through the side to the "volcano" box and try push the pin out through the hole in the fiberglass structure. Not planning on removing the whole tube for this job!

And yes the ball slot is very well worn down and not evenly either. Like the ball was jammed and the cable just rubbed away the slot on the one side. The pin through the ball is not even aligned with the center line of the boat.
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Ok , so following up on my previous posts it seems I have neglected to do a post on the work I did on the keel box during May of 2017!

As described above I did a lot! It was hard to do, difficult as well... initially it was just cleaning out the slot and keel box and having a look at replacing the turning ball.
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
May 2017 - So after tackling the easy to get to parts of the keel slot I made a MacGuyver move with a hole saw. This worked well in all the curve part of the slot... you are looking at various photos of the keel box and slot during and after the holesaw massacre!
 

Attachments

  • Like
Likes: pateco
Apr 11, 2017
571
Catalina C22 Solomon's Island, MD
This might possibly be the most re-habbed C22 I have ever seen. My hat is off to you sir. Great work.
 
  • Like
Likes: greg_m

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
This might possibly be the most re-habbed C22 I have ever seen. My hat is off to you sir. Great work.
All I can say is that payback time will be the sweetest feeling when she takes me and mine smoothly over the water on a beaut day outing!
 
  • Like
Likes: Gene Neill

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Trailer time! ... of my own :dancing:

So it has come time for Winter and rains in my part of the world. Rains we need because the city has been in the grip of a prolonged drought... rain good for Cape town, not good for boat work.

So my neighbour across the road has graciously said that not only can I use his big garage for prepping and painting the boat but that he will actually help me do it... double bonus!

So it has come time to prepare the trailer that i bought some time last year. It was a vee-hull motor boat trailer which has now been put to much better use = a sail boat trailer!!!;):laugh:

So cut away all the Vee-hull support brackets, cleared away the heavy and already half broken off wheel mud gaurds and side walks... all I am really interested in is the actual main frame. I also had to enlarge the jockeywheel bracket hole for the larger sized tube and actually shorted the trailer tounge length by about half a meter. I only installed one of the old axles for just transporting the boat across the road. I also only made VERY makeshift boat supports until such time as the hull is painted and we flip it back over "CloudDiver" style. Then I will need to fabricate the bunks.
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Then it was time to actually get very creative... remove all the "stuff" from under the boat, the wooden frame and then rig the boat up to get trailer underneath. Eventually she was on the trailer and tied down for the long trip across the road!
 

Attachments

  • Like
Likes: pateco

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Why is it that a white coating attracts all the frikkin insects in the world to the freshly painted surface???????:mad::cuss:

Spent a lot of time preparing: sanding, washing down, drying and then acetome washing... eventually the time to roll on the epoxy coating arrived and my neighbour was on hand to help. The resin is applied using the roll and tip method... bugs are then applied using the buzz and crash method... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 

Attachments

Last edited:
  • Like
Likes: pateco

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Law of the Sea..
Completely sucks! Law makers completely out of touch with reality... as usual!

Anyways... as another sailboat restoration guy on Yootoob says: "glorious, glorious sanding!" I did a bout a 3 feet of sanding in an hour and a half last night... dunno what so glorious about sanding :wahwah:
 

Attachments

  • Like
Likes: pateco

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Oops... time for an update - nearly off the first page!

So while waiting for epoxy filler coat to harden I tackled the forward hatch thinking that it's small and easy to handle = quick job! Boy was I sorely mistaken - again! And the really sad part is that the whole deck looks just the same condition... :banghead:

So I got "heavy" right from the get go - 36 grit on a belt sander. Idea was remove the molded in grip to smooth out the surface and go from there. Unfortunately as with every other surface nothing is flat, even or level! What is most concerning is that the gel coat is completely cracked through to the fiberglass laminate. And then the laminate is pock marked with holes... this is what I can expect for the entire deck area...
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Then I tackled the underside of the forward deck hatch... just a quick wisk around with a wire brush to knock off the loose paint.... yeah right!

As I cleaned away the loose flaky paint I uncovered the ends of the "strengthening beam" running across the hatch underside. As I cleared away the gunk auto body filler I noted that the wooden bean was pulling away from the surface. So no more finesse... out with the angle grinder, hammer and chisel. Then a sanding disc on the angle grinder and hey presto... a nice clean deck hatch to start rebuilding! Luverly stuff I tell you!

But what to do about the gel coat side... my thoughts are to just sand smooth with a finer grit, clean well with acetone and then roll on the epoxy filler coat like I did with the hull. Really not in the mood for fiberglass cloth and such on the deck... and comments?
 

Attachments

greg_m

.
May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
A boat used to stand there!

Wow, after two years I have an empty yard again... not because the boats gone or floating in a marina... it's wet rainy Winter season now and so far the weather has brought us the much needed rain = no good for painting hulls. My very kind and patient and accommodating neighbour has allowed me to move into his garage to work on the boat hull to get it painted!

So this is temporary while the grass tries to revive itself!

Can anybody spot the hint at what type of boat was standing here?
 

Attachments