hello all
lst year I purchased a 1967 Kittiwake 23 sailboat.... and for 10 years it sat on a farm next to a barn... the owner never sailed it or worked on it... he moved it only to mow the grass under it when it got too high.... 10 years of neglect took its tole on it.... but it is a sound boat....
I bought it for very little and spend 4 months working on it when I was at home.... no sails, ropes all rotted off, cushion had been eaten on by an animal, wiring non existant.... I cleaned it up, went to work on it.... the deck was an icky faded sky blue, and it looked horrible.... the keel was faded, chipped, and peeling med blue bottom paint..... and there was a bulge in the keel on both sides about 1/2 way back..... I sanded and ground out the bulges..... 2 big holes appeared from the cracks.... there was a crack in the front of the keel, and water had gotten inside it... over the course of the years sitting the winter had frozen the water and cracked the keel on both sides... I ground out the bulges and fiberglassed the holes I made, then sanded the keel and bottom of the hull.... I then painted it with 2 coats of undercoating white paint, then painted 3 coats of copper coat ablative paint in black....
then I took off as much hardware as I could, sanded the main deck and cockpit area.... then wiped it down with acetone, and painted it with topcoat paint in white.... it looks great now.... I have been told it looks like a new sailboat....
also the teak had deteriorated to the point it had to be replaced.... I bought, cut, and shaped mohagany wood to replace the teak.... the grab handles on the cabin top and the toe rail are the only teak left... the mohagany , I used a clear coat sealer to penetrate the wood and seal it against water damage, then coated 5 coats of marine grade varnish....
here are some pictures of when I got the boat and later how it looks after I was done... sorry if the pictures are not in order, but it shows how it looked before and after all the work I did...
sincerely
Jess
