A sailboat restoration project I'm proud of

A friend of mine tried restoring a pretty beat-up two-man sailboat (almost twice the size of what you were working on), but gave up and sold the thing after not having the time (daughter is in ice-skating) and started lacking on the funds.  He really wanted to do the restoration, too.

I like the kids' reaction picture!

Looks like you did a pretty good job!  Happy sailing!!

Iowaman - 2011-08-29 10:17 AM Your a great dad. Very cool project and nothing beats time shared with your kids. Can I be Giligan and go with you Skipper? Enjoy the sailing and thanks for sharing.

Sure, except for a couple of things...

I may be fat, but I'm not Skipper-fat!
I don't wear the stupid Skipper captain's hat.
I actually keep track of the weather, so if the weather started getting rough...  I knew it was coming.
My tours are typically longer than 3 hours.
I purposely like to toss my tiny ship.
I don't like Giligan crew.  I'm more of a pirate.  You act like Giligan, I make you walk the plank.

And besides - the Sunfish (Mini Treat) is for the kiddies.  You comin' sailing with me and you go out on the speed machine, the catamaran (Special Treat). 

Prindle 18, nice!

Love the story, I can't get my wife to get to go out sailing with me after she watched my pitchpole my International 14 skiff....

That looks like one of those projects that could have stayed in the garage forever and never gotten finished (like it would at my house).  I am so impressed you got it done while the kids are still quite small.  The stripes and the sail really make the boat special.  It is perfect.  Post pictures of the maiden voyage which I hope is next weekend.

You make me want to get a simple sailboat.  We have a lake house and ski boat but I know next to nothing about sailboats.  Our lake house is in the mountains so good sailing wind does not happen very often.  On Sunday, it was great wind.  I saw people out taking advantage of the day.  Whatever sailboat, I get will need a  small motor to putt home when the wind quits on me.  Something small and simple to sail other than that.

TW 

Skiffs are cool.  I crewed on a friend's 49'er once - THAT was intense!  And I once tried the ultimate sailing/balancing act - a Moth!  Trying to keep that thing balanced on the foils.  Whoa!  I have windsurfers and done some kite boarding, but that Moth is an actual boat and it feels like sailing on  a knife!

I've done some fun pitch-poles myself.  I used to have a Hobie-16 which might as well been a submarine.  Any water that gets over the bows and it's DIVE!  DIVE!  DIVE!  The Prindle 18-2 has some pretty good knife-edge bows and lots of floatation up front so unless you're doing the wild thing on a downwind run and lose it, she's pretty hard to pitch-pole forward.

Jordan Lake ain't that far away! 

Wow Big Fuzz that is nice. I used to teach kids how to sail on sunfish for my Yacht Club years ago and have never seen a sunfish that nice looking. GREAT JOB!!!

Thanks but slow down there sport!

She's only seen the backyard grass and the wagon I'm using as a dolly (pretty slick way of moving it around).  She just came off the saw horses.  Of course it's going to look nice now.  This is about as nice as she'll ever look in 41 years from the day she came off the factory line.  Big difference between the before and after - thank you.  But we're certainly not going to keep her under glas.  It's time she got SAILED!

Ask me to post pics in a year after she's been sailed, run onto the sand, bumped into the dock, knocked over and sat out in the sun.  We'll get her "sailing camp looking" in no time!

I don't like Giligan crew.  I'm more of a pirate.  You act like Giligan, I make you walk the plank.

(Special Treat).