Alcort Sunfish ANNA

 29 Apr 2023:

We were procrastinating on the Catfish repairs and wooden Sunfish build, so what better way to get over that than to buy a sunburnt 1964 ALCORT Sunfish off of fb Marketplace? Threw a dolly on the ole picker trailer and off we went to Waverly, VA.

They were asking $700 and had a sad medical story, so we humbly paid $700. They didn't know how to sail and had traded services for the boat, never got around to sailing, so her history is cloaked. All the period correct parts are mostly there, the hull was light, spars semi straight, factory blades with only a little flaking bondo. Sail...yes, there is a factory sail. Loading was easy peasy.

The deck was a dark red/maroon, and other than the burnt gelcoat it is pristine. It will be interesting to see if wet sanding produces an acceptable return to glory. And yes, the hole is supposed to be there in the Serial No. plate, that's the hull vent for early 60s boats. Original hull color visible through the vent hole.

ANNA wedged herself into the Carriage House and is chatting with EXCUSE ME.

The sail has seen better days, but we will clean it as best we can and use it for something.

04 May 23:

 05 May 23:

ANNA's gelcoat is very oxidized. Red is one of hardest colors to bring back, but we'll give it a shot. We wet sanded a small spot with 1200 grit and then buffed with 3M Fiberglass Restorer and Wax, using our new DeWALT 20V 7" variable speed rotary polisher and a soft bonnet. The results were fair, the question is can we do the whole deck without sanding through the gelcoat?

09 May 23:

We did an air leak test on ANNA to find leaks. For that we blow low pressure air into the hull through the deck drain and spray the entire hull with soapy water. Look for bubbles. We like using a cordless shop vac for the air supply, in today's adventure a DeWALT 20V wet/dry vac. The vac is also handy to suck water out of the cockpit bilge after the test. We found one obvious leak area on the port chine and another tiny spot on the starboard bow, just under the deck/hull seam.

We also scrubbed the ANNA with Comet and water, to get rid of as much dirt as possible and to act as the first fine grit towards bringing the gelcoat back to life. 

Air Leak Test VIdeo: https://youtu.be/2GZjwmV_sQw

After the washdown and air leak test, ANNA did an aileron roll to reposition on the finishing dolly.

We'd like to thank whoever designed this articulating bunk system at Laser Performance, we got the finishing dolly idea from them about a decade ago. The bunks position to fit either the hull V shape or the sligh camber on the deck. 

The bunks have bungees to pull the bunk horizontal when not in use. Those bungees are overdue for replacement!

 23 May 23:

We used a heat gun set on low and a razor blade to remove the old vinyl letters on ANNA's bow. The gelcoat underneath the old letters was protected from UV and is in better shape, the exposed gelcoat has absorbed dirt as well. We sanded with 220 grit on a DeWALT 20 cordless random orbital sander to see if we could remove a thin layer of sunburnt gelcoat and get a better match. No can do good buddy, we got close in a few areas but we could see where the good gelcoat was beginning to thin out and we'd be sanding into the good fiberglass underneath if we continued. Perhaps we'll try TILEX on the brown spots...

Next we turned out attention to the brown spot amidships, whether a light grit sanding (220 or up) will help.

Upon closer inspection we see the effects of moisture, gelcoat aging and shrinking (cracks) and dirt. Gelcoat is much like skin, it shrinks and wrinkles over time, and can be sun damaged. This patch looks like the boat was left in moist dirt for years and experienced decades of freeze/thaw cycles. If left in this state the fiberglass underneath will eventually absorb moisture at a slow rate and be broken down as well. 

So we pause on this project for a bit and looked for yaks to shave. "Yak shaving" is an official NASA term for when you start one project but other projects distract while pondering the first. If you remember, ANNA was our yak to shave while we pondered repairs to the Catfish SMEDLEY. Howard Chapelle recommends sitting in "The Moaning Chair" whilst pondering, but we have too many fun projects to sit for too long.

to be continued...