Challenger 12 Restoration

[Tom Hoffman]

Hey all,

Just started restoration of a boat I traded for early this spring for free. It is a Challenger 12 by MFG one of the few sailboats that they made, I think they made less than 6 models.

Here is a pic from the Fiberglassics archive of when she was new.

Right now she is on the saw horses and looks a little better than when I got her. But not by much. She is kind of an ugly little boat. Should be fun to take the grand kids out to sail and in the event of capsize to swim. Ha!Ha!

I will take a few shots later and post as I go along. Should be interesting.

Tom...

 

[Tom Hoffman]

Here are current pics 1/2 the hull is cleaned up some. She must have spent most of her life laying in a Cat Tail Reed Bed in an Iowa farm pond. The hull has one punch out from inside toward the bow. The Dagger Board Box leaks and is cracked around quite a bit of it too. All are simple repairs.

Here's the pics.

That's it for now. Will be working on it more in the weeks to come.

Right now I am painting the inside of my American.

 

[shemandr]

Kind of an odd hull for a sailboat - isn't it? But the semi tri-hull features would probably provide lateral resistance and some drag. And the width would probably provide stability. The promotional pic looks like a john boat with a sail on it.
I had a MFG Bandit for many years which is completely different but was a blast to sail. It had a spinnaker tube into which and out of which you could launch the chute. It worked very well. The hull was something like what a modern racing boat looks like. I think mine was built in the 1960's.
Good luck with the restoration and send some pics of it sailing when you're done.

 

[Chris Burti]

Kind of an odd hull for a sailboat - isn't it?

One of the last projects that I completed before I left Seacrest Marine in 1974 was the development of a working prototype version of our 12-footer as a sail conversion.

Had it gone into production, it would have only required a simple tooling change that would not have degraded the performance or funtionality of the existing model, would have utilzed the existing inventory of sailboat hardware and sails from another of the company's lines and required the addition of only one new hardware casting.

That little bugger weighed under 200# rigged, was unsinkable, sailed like a screaming banshee, rowded easily, planed two adults easily with a 9.9 hp outboard and I suspect it might have proved to be a commercial success if Seacrest had not fallen victim to internal politics and the economics of the oil crisis of that day.

All to say; that it too looked like an unlikley candidate for a sailboat hull, but deceptively so.

Fair winds,