Hi,
I’m David in Ventura County, CA. I joined this forum a few years ago when I had an Islander 30. I’ve since sold the Islander and got a 1975 Cat 22 trailer sailor as partial payment for the bigger boat. It sat for a year in dry dock and now it’s in my driveway
The first thing I did was drain it from our recent rains and thoroughly clean the inside. I want to post my progress on different projects because of the immensely gratifying and useful feedback I see from other members. If you are new to Catalina 22 restoration like me, I would highly recommend reading posts from users like Clouddiver, Jackdaw, and Gene Neill, jacktar, among several others. Clouddiver’s restoration project should indeed be put into a novel. With Neill's one-liners, it would be a best seller to owners and non-owners alike. All of my restoration plans are based on Catalina Directs videos and projects I've seen here, but I am in no way skilled enough to reach the level of perfection of someone like Clouddiver. That said, watching the videos makes me confident that I can at least reach the Catalina Direct level of quality.
So enough for the ass kissing, my first project was - no surprise - the keel. Photos are below. It was actually in pretty good condition. I ground off the old rust and corrosion with an angle grinder with a course grinder wheel. It was fairly easy to get down to the bare metal, but I only knocked off the loose and flaky pieces. There were no major craters or deficiencies except for the tell-tale gouge from the locking-bolt along the top part of the port side. I followed the grinding with Permatex which turned all the rusty areas black and shiny. (You can see the black around the eye bolt and along the top edge.) I then washed it with soap and water, let it dry, and used West System’s epoxy with low density filler (peanut butter thickness) to fair it out. (In hindsight, I have read that I should have put on a layer of epoxy before the filler; hopefully, it won’t matter. It wasn’t sandblasted and as mentioned, wasn’t in bad shape.) I also only needed about 15 pumps of epoxy; a testament to how fair it already was. I did not reshape the keel like they do in the video because I am more interested in just getting the boat into the water for family sailing and whale watching, which is spectacular in the Santa Barbara Channel between my home port and the channel islands. After fairing, and sanding with 80 grit with a vibrating sander, I wiped it down with acetone and hoisted it on a sketchy lift in my garage using the old rusty winch. The idea was to get it to an angle like they do in the CD video. (Yes, that is a binder clip. It’s to remind me that I don’t have a nut on the bolt because I didn’t have a nut to fit it.) This helped to get the keel away from the 2x4 supports on the sled and gave me better access to the leading edge. At this point I replaced the eye bolt because the old one was eroding around the top of the eye. Fortunately, the old one came out with a few doses of PB Blaster, a screw driver and a hammer. It was also 1/2 inch) I proceeded to apply epoxy to the entire keel and covered the exposed, new eye bolt with epoxy as they did in the video. It is my understanding that this will just help create a water barrier, but if I ever have to remove the bolt in the future, I can just crack the seal and remove it-something I am hoping not to do again. At this point, I decided to put some glass along the leading edge like they did in the video, but only did a small amount with CSM around the top curved area. There was no real reason for doing this except for practice fiberglassing and “sh!ts and giggles” as Clouddiver sometimes says. While the epoxy was tacky (about a half hour later), I reapplied a second coat. The next day, I sanded down the fiberglass. I will sand down the whole keel again, wipe it down with acetone, and then plan to mix a batch of epoxy with some West 422 Barrier Coat additive, epoxy on the shims, then gel coat??? Not sure yet. The boat will be on the trailer for 98% of the time and I do not see a need for an antifouling bottom paint. Any recommendations are appreciated.
In terms of the future projects, I plan to do the following:
1. Use low density filler to curve out the keel hanger slots like Clouddiver did. He referred to “zipper wax” which I assume is something like this. I guess I could also use PVA? (I learned about PVA from the fiberglass guru at Boatworks Today.) Also, with respect to the hole in the keel where the brass pin fits, I plan to epoxy it into place. I did purchase the new hangers and had to grind them down quite a bit to fit over the keel. BTW, the old pin was tough to remove. I was able to move it a couple centimeters with a small sledge hammer, but ended up mushrooming the end and had to cut it off. I then pounded the other side until there was about an inch exposed, chiseled around the edge to reduce the diameter, more PB Blaster and pounded it through in the original direction.
2. Install the new keel winch after repairing the wood rot where it bolts uunder the hatch entry. Fortunately, the rot is pretty superficial and I was able to scrape out most of it with a screwdriver. (See photo.) It definitely needs more sanding but it seems structurally sound. I also want to drill out the holes for larger screws as well. Also, when I removed the trim at the bottom of the hatch entryway, the PO seems to have used a much larger screw in the middle to hold it down which caused the entire section to crack. I think it looks worse than it is, but I will add some epoxy and glass just in case. (See photo.)
3. Repair the large cracks in the cockpit sole. I started reading the recent post on this by Milton.Audas and will follow it for tips. You can see in the photo how bad and lumpy it is. The good thing is that from underneath, the plywood is sound with no cracks, etc.
4. Replace the standing rigging eye bolts with the larger, non-rotational ones.
5. Replace the old wire-to-line halyards with all line, and convert external to internal halyards. I have done a lot of irrigation work with pvc pipe and still don’t see why I have to use so many rivets along the mast to hold it in place. It seems like three would be plenty, but I could be missing something. I might do five to be safe.
6. Fix a couple of holes in the sliding hatch cover. One hole was my fault because when I dropped the mast for the first time (using my roof as the mastup mast helper with a loud THUD) the hatch was open and a fitting on the bottom of the mast crushed through it. I am going to try to emulate the amazing fix that the guy at Boatworks made look easy, but not optimistic. As long as it holds up when I stand on it, and still opens and closes, it will be a success.
7. Wash, buff and wax everything.
8. Do maintenance on the winches.
9. Replace the motor mount. ( I have an upgraded one, just needs to be attached.)
9. Refinish the tiller - minor issues, just sand, barrier coat, paint and reattach pintles. (Gudgeons are fine, but pintles were removed and I haven’t found them.)
10. Buy a 6hp Tohatsu after I convince wife that we need it..."then why do you have sails?" I expect her to ask.
11. Go sailing.
12. Add the “double” main sheet setup
13. Add life lines
14. Take the kids sailing.
Thanks for reading. Here’s some shots of the early progress: Unfortunately, I did not take any “before” shots of the keel..
I’m David in Ventura County, CA. I joined this forum a few years ago when I had an Islander 30. I’ve since sold the Islander and got a 1975 Cat 22 trailer sailor as partial payment for the bigger boat. It sat for a year in dry dock and now it’s in my driveway
The first thing I did was drain it from our recent rains and thoroughly clean the inside. I want to post my progress on different projects because of the immensely gratifying and useful feedback I see from other members. If you are new to Catalina 22 restoration like me, I would highly recommend reading posts from users like Clouddiver, Jackdaw, and Gene Neill, jacktar, among several others. Clouddiver’s restoration project should indeed be put into a novel. With Neill's one-liners, it would be a best seller to owners and non-owners alike. All of my restoration plans are based on Catalina Directs videos and projects I've seen here, but I am in no way skilled enough to reach the level of perfection of someone like Clouddiver. That said, watching the videos makes me confident that I can at least reach the Catalina Direct level of quality.So enough for the ass kissing, my first project was - no surprise - the keel. Photos are below. It was actually in pretty good condition. I ground off the old rust and corrosion with an angle grinder with a course grinder wheel. It was fairly easy to get down to the bare metal, but I only knocked off the loose and flaky pieces. There were no major craters or deficiencies except for the tell-tale gouge from the locking-bolt along the top part of the port side. I followed the grinding with Permatex which turned all the rusty areas black and shiny. (You can see the black around the eye bolt and along the top edge.) I then washed it with soap and water, let it dry, and used West System’s epoxy with low density filler (peanut butter thickness) to fair it out. (In hindsight, I have read that I should have put on a layer of epoxy before the filler; hopefully, it won’t matter. It wasn’t sandblasted and as mentioned, wasn’t in bad shape.) I also only needed about 15 pumps of epoxy; a testament to how fair it already was. I did not reshape the keel like they do in the video because I am more interested in just getting the boat into the water for family sailing and whale watching, which is spectacular in the Santa Barbara Channel between my home port and the channel islands. After fairing, and sanding with 80 grit with a vibrating sander, I wiped it down with acetone and hoisted it on a sketchy lift in my garage using the old rusty winch. The idea was to get it to an angle like they do in the CD video. (Yes, that is a binder clip. It’s to remind me that I don’t have a nut on the bolt because I didn’t have a nut to fit it.) This helped to get the keel away from the 2x4 supports on the sled and gave me better access to the leading edge. At this point I replaced the eye bolt because the old one was eroding around the top of the eye. Fortunately, the old one came out with a few doses of PB Blaster, a screw driver and a hammer. It was also 1/2 inch
) I proceeded to apply epoxy to the entire keel and covered the exposed, new eye bolt with epoxy as they did in the video. It is my understanding that this will just help create a water barrier, but if I ever have to remove the bolt in the future, I can just crack the seal and remove it-something I am hoping not to do again. At this point, I decided to put some glass along the leading edge like they did in the video, but only did a small amount with CSM around the top curved area. There was no real reason for doing this except for practice fiberglassing and “sh!ts and giggles” as Clouddiver sometimes says. While the epoxy was tacky (about a half hour later), I reapplied a second coat. The next day, I sanded down the fiberglass. I will sand down the whole keel again, wipe it down with acetone, and then plan to mix a batch of epoxy with some West 422 Barrier Coat additive, epoxy on the shims, then gel coat??? Not sure yet. The boat will be on the trailer for 98% of the time and I do not see a need for an antifouling bottom paint. Any recommendations are appreciated.In terms of the future projects, I plan to do the following:
1. Use low density filler to curve out the keel hanger slots like Clouddiver did. He referred to “zipper wax” which I assume is something like this. I guess I could also use PVA? (I learned about PVA from the fiberglass guru at Boatworks Today.) Also, with respect to the hole in the keel where the brass pin fits, I plan to epoxy it into place. I did purchase the new hangers and had to grind them down quite a bit to fit over the keel. BTW, the old pin was tough to remove. I was able to move it a couple centimeters with a small sledge hammer, but ended up mushrooming the end and had to cut it off. I then pounded the other side until there was about an inch exposed, chiseled around the edge to reduce the diameter, more PB Blaster and pounded it through in the original direction.
2. Install the new keel winch after repairing the wood rot where it bolts uunder the hatch entry. Fortunately, the rot is pretty superficial and I was able to scrape out most of it with a screwdriver. (See photo.) It definitely needs more sanding but it seems structurally sound. I also want to drill out the holes for larger screws as well. Also, when I removed the trim at the bottom of the hatch entryway, the PO seems to have used a much larger screw in the middle to hold it down which caused the entire section to crack. I think it looks worse than it is, but I will add some epoxy and glass just in case. (See photo.)
3. Repair the large cracks in the cockpit sole. I started reading the recent post on this by Milton.Audas and will follow it for tips. You can see in the photo how bad and lumpy it is. The good thing is that from underneath, the plywood is sound with no cracks, etc.
4. Replace the standing rigging eye bolts with the larger, non-rotational ones.
5. Replace the old wire-to-line halyards with all line, and convert external to internal halyards. I have done a lot of irrigation work with pvc pipe and still don’t see why I have to use so many rivets along the mast to hold it in place. It seems like three would be plenty, but I could be missing something. I might do five to be safe.
6. Fix a couple of holes in the sliding hatch cover. One hole was my fault because when I dropped the mast for the first time (using my roof as the mastup mast helper with a loud THUD) the hatch was open and a fitting on the bottom of the mast crushed through it. I am going to try to emulate the amazing fix that the guy at Boatworks made look easy, but not optimistic. As long as it holds up when I stand on it, and still opens and closes, it will be a success.
7. Wash, buff and wax everything.
8. Do maintenance on the winches.
9. Replace the motor mount. ( I have an upgraded one, just needs to be attached.)
9. Refinish the tiller - minor issues, just sand, barrier coat, paint and reattach pintles. (Gudgeons are fine, but pintles were removed and I haven’t found them.)
10. Buy a 6hp Tohatsu after I convince wife that we need it..."then why do you have sails?" I expect her to ask.
11. Go sailing.
12. Add the “double” main sheet setup
13. Add life lines
14. Take the kids sailing.
Thanks for reading. Here’s some shots of the early progress: Unfortunately, I did not take any “before” shots of the keel..
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