South African "Catalina" 22

greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
I then had to fill the gap between the inner lining and the deck coachroof with waterproof plywood, epoxy adhesive and PU filler foam. It was during this stage I realised how flexible the deck was and that there may actually be issues with the deck laminate.

I used the old window plexglass secured to the outside of the coachroof as a "template backing" to support the new fibreglass CSM that I applied from the inside to seal the new woodwork, build up the thickness of the flange as well as hopefully add strength to the entire structure. Did this to both port and stbrd sides.
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Looking good. The newer C22's also did away with the aluminium frame deadlight design. :)
I was thinking though it would be nice to have opening portholes towards the rear sides of the coach roof.
 
Mar 20, 2015
3,094
C&C 30 Mk1 Winnipeg
I was thinking though it would be nice to have opening portholes towards the rear sides of the coach roof.
Might be a cool idea since you are already redoing them.

FWIW: On every keel boat I've sailed, with both forward and stern hatch open, I've always had enough air flow because that is the direction of air flow, when underway or at anchor.
Tied to a dock is, of course, different, but I avoid that. Docks and rafting = more people. I much prefer anchoring :)
 
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May 23, 2016
1,024
Catalina 22 #12502 BSC
I was thinking though it would be nice to have opening portholes towards the rear sides of the coach roof.
I like it! as LR sez, would provide good air flow, front to rear for overnites, screens on all, companionway closed if necessary, keeps the bugs out or intruders, yet comfortable sleeping....I see no downside, and with all you're doing, you are essentially building a new boat YOUR way, good thought add a couple cabin fans too...
 

greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Ok... time for some updates.

I had completed the work I wanted to do on the window apertures so now I moved on to the outside of the hull. The PO told me he had sent the boat to an Auto Body Repair Shop to have the boat resprayed. In the online advert photos it looked ok-ish. In real life it looked completely crap. When I collected the boat I knew that I would have to sand down the hull and repaint. I also saw that the under water part of the hull had been very badly sanded with a seriously course grit paper on a belt sander by a complete idiot (read... not my boat so I don't care attitude). I did see lots of evidence of osmosis bubbles having been sanded away and then just painted over with blue paint which then seemed to have been painted over with an epoxy resin! You could actually see unfilled holes from osmotic bubbles and coarse grit sanding marks.

So... sand down to remove the cracked top coat, apply primer and fresh coats of paint = job done in a weekend. NOT!

I sanded away a section till I removed the top coat which was white. Under that white topcoat I found that there was a pale yellow/mustard colour layer. Unfortunately the cracks went through that layer as well. "Oh well, sand though that layer and see how bad it is."

The pale mustard colour layered turned out to be about 3mm thick and was identified by my panel beater friend as "High Build Polyester Spray Filler" as used by auto body shops to cover large areas. The whole job took on a different proportion now. "Oh well, sand through the pale mustard layer and see what is under that."

Turns out that under the filler spray layer was the original gelcoat of the hull. It was a dark red colour! It too was cracked through! So the body shop was of the opinion to just hide the cracked gelcoat under a thick layer of filler would solve the problem... well it did not!

I won't bore you with the details but it took me many hours of work, three sanding machines, umteen sanding belts and sanding discs stretched over about three months to get to the point where I had removed the top coat and spray filler down to the gelcoat layer and then I started to sand away the gelcoat from the deck down to the waterline. This was after full work days before the sun went down, weekends when I had free time and the odd public holiday or "sick day"...
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
I also found the original "cove stripe" which turns out to be a yellow/cream colour as well as the original "water line" turned out to be the same yellow cream colour.

Initially I was trying all sorts of methods to get the old paint and spray filler primer off... here I was using a heat gun and scraper. Not so successful so went back to sanding with my RA sander and 80 grit paper, which became 60 grit paper a week later, which became 40 grit paper a week later!

Edited: 24/08/2017: added link to youtube video of me sanding!
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Still trying to figure it out... why would you drill great big holes through the hull of the boat at the lower part of the transom and why would you find osmosis inside the boat storage area that was just prayed over with white paint????? That last picture is me removing the motor mounts and the old screws were lying on the "tank tray"... take a close look at the tank tray.

I was beigining to formulate that this boat spent some time at the bottom of a lake!!! How do you get blisters inside a boat? The PO denied any knowledge. Big holes into the storage cargo area = lets lots of water drain out? Anyone share my thoughts?
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
I started the sanding operation around the middle of September 2016... heres the final picture of the transom dully sanded back to original gelcoat taken on 26 October 2016... I had been very freaking busy with this boat project. In Summer the sun sets around 21h30 so lots of work hours after work hours!

What I did not mention before was I had removed the old rub railing as it was corroded, had the plastic/rubber insert missing and was actually drilled so full of holes that it looked like it was removed and put back several times!

Also what you can see is I had started to clean away the hull to deck joint back to original fibre glass with intention of resealing it. Even the gelcoat along the entire length of the rub rail was full of osmosis holes, cracking and in really bad shape.
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Unfortunately I seem to have lost about two months worth of photo's = November and December 2016. Very upset and sad about that because I like to keep a track of what comes off where so it can go back to the same place using the photo's as reference.

These photos are from January 2017... I was working on the hull deck joint as well as cleaning away the gelcoat along the same area. By now my idea was to completely bond the deck to the hull using epoxy adhesive and then wrap the entire joint outside from deck level down to cove stripe with glass cloth tape and epoxy resin.

I had purchased an oscillating machine to help clean out the joint along with half round shape flat tile grout removing blades... fantastic tool but helluva noisy! Yep. my selection of power tools and selection of grits got much more aggressive as the project was progressing :waycool:
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
So I got all the topsides sanded, the hull deck joint cleaned out and sanded and had decided to investigate the below water line part of the hull. I started sanding the front section using my RA sander but the blue coating was just laughing at me! Out with the belt sander and the 36 grit belts... yep I had down graded my level of finesse even further by this time. I was however a helluva task to hold the sander up against the hull. I started at the easy to get to bow section but soon realised there was no ways I wanted to lay under the boat and grind away obnoxious paint and resin which would cover me up as well as I'm not really a power lifter so my arms were getting tired!

I decided to roll the hull upside down in my yard. No heavy lifting gear available to me so I built a wooden roll cage as it were. This took me some time to plan and buy the stuff and then put it together. Seemed to take forever but at the end of the building time I was well happy with my structure!

See for yourself... the boat actually stood like this for a few weeks as I was just to scared to go ahead.
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
So finally I could find no reason to delay turning the boat over. My neighbour came to help me operate the chain blocks and guide ropes. The process was roll over to the first angle then pull whole frame/boat back towards the wall, roll over to the next angle and pull backwards to the wall again. My front yard is fairly small so I could not just pull it over all the way. Again I'm missing the photos of the old trailer which I cut up into scrap anyways as it was totally "frot". South African for completely rusted to crap!

Eventually she was upside safely upside down. Celebrated with a "lekker braai and beers". That's South African for a BBQ and beers! This was on 05 February 2017.
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
And so the bottom sanding began... It was way more comfortable standing up and leaning over the boat sanding than laying underneath and pushing the sander up! This was four hours of sanding... first the "resin coating" came off, follwed by the blue paint coating, followed but a second really tough hard resin layer, then the original gelcoat which was up to at least 4mm thick in places! My local hardware store made plenty off profit out of me in terms of sanding consumables...

Initial plan... sand down to gel coat as with the sides... unfortunately this was only scratching the surface as it were...
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
Let me explain scratching the surface and then realising that I have to take it all the way down to the original fiber glass...

Even the waterline stripe showed signs of osmosis bubbles. The original waterline gelcoat stripe was applied to the mould and then the red gelcoat was applied on top of that and then the fiber glass of the hull was laid down on top of the red. So I will have to fill in the water line area to bring it back to fair...

Pictures will tell the story... they are random shots but the reality is the whole below waterline part of the hull was much worse than I ever imagined :banghead:
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
While sanding the bottom of the boat, starboard side, 2/3rd of the way aft I uncovered a rather starnge "patch". It was also not very fair. It turns out the trailer support leg must have pushed a gaping hole through the hull some time in its previous life... shoddy repair. Inside the boat I could peel away layers of pure resin.... GGGrrrrrrrr... I was peeved o_O+
 

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greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
As the days get shorter in Autumn here my daylight starts to fade way earlier. So rushing home after work to do some sanding was always on the agenda, but not always on the "managements" agenda at home... I did what I could when I could. Amazing how hours roll away into days which then turn into weeks and progress into months!

One side down and started on the other side... this was until 16 February 2017... ten days since roll over.
 

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Jan 23, 2015
92
catalina catalina22 Trailer
Great job Greg your interior paint looks fantastic. We all appreaciate your photos shows alot detail.My ports need work also this has helped alot.Good luck hope to see ya sailing soon.
 

greg_m

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May 23, 2017
692
Catalina Jaguar 22 Simons Town
I finished sanding the bottom of the boat down to the fiber glass. I decided to start on the transom. At least half of the time spent working on the boat thus far has been to undo the crap that was done previously :banghead:

When I removed the big plugs out the transom I noted zero in the way of laminating wood. There was a significant empty space between the lining and the hull. When I removed the old engine mount there was a shuffling noise and a thunk from inside... It was the laminating wood/structural wood support - not sure which - that fell down inside the gap. Same thing happened when I removed the gudgeons for the rudder. They were attached with galvanised bolts which had rusted so bad I had to cut them off. The supporting wood was also loose in side but I could also see it was badly rotted.

Gave this some thought... cut out the inner lining of the transom and install new plywood laminate and cover with new glass chop strand mat. Oh well, out with then oscilating tool and the half round flat saw blade. I must say it cuts through the fiber glass like a hot knife through butter! Less dust than using the angle grinder...

When I pulled out the old lining mushy wet caked mud fell away from the space opened up! Remeber my previous comment about evidence of a sunken boat? How does mud end up inside the space between the lining and the hull?

Remember the boat is upside down in these pictures and all I did was cut away the bare minimum lining from the transom area inside the boat and the rear wall of the cockpit.

The first picture is the starboard side rear stay eyepad mounting. Also visible is the wood planks and screws used to keep the hull and deck together during turn over...
Second picture is the hull bottom/transom where the mud was falling from. The inner lining is gone in this picture.
The rest of the pictures is looking at exposed wood under the deck... you can see evidence of what is lurking under the deck = rotten wood laminate. What really bugs me is that there is nothing sealing the wood under the deck or cockpit seats. My boat also does not have cockpit coaming storage cubbies.

This ended week of 19 February 2017
 

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