Alcort Super Sailfish Drain

 16 Aug 21:

Alcort built the wooden Sailfish 14 Deluxe in the 1950s, 13' 9" long, to sell along with Super Sailfish that were no Deluxe and also the 11' 9" Sailfish, called the Sailfish 12 at the time . We had stored ours outside, under a Sunbrella cover for the last month or so, and found that rain had seeped into the hull. Water left inside the wooden Alcorts is what prevented them from becoming old, so we flipped our boat and drained about a cup of water out of the hull. We are not sure how the water got in, most likely it seeped in over time through a seam and once that area got wet it swelled and sealed, so only a little water got inside.

Through the years the drain plugs showed up in various spots, this boat had a plug on the stern and one on the forward side plank. The drain plug was originally bronze but at some point in this boat's life someone changed the stern plug over to a nylon style. Rather than fill in the enlarged hole we chose to just put in a new nylon plug. We are not fans of drain plugs that close to the water, but the water has to have a path to get out somewhere, and who knows, maybe it got in that way.

We gave TRACKER a bath and then I held up the bow while Skipper put some lumber and chocks under the forward section, to give the water more incentive to drain towards the stern. What water didn't drain out I sucked out with a Porter Cable cordless wet/dry vac, a handy piece of gear to have around.

Log of TRACKER.