New member looking for some advice on a project Sailfish

FishFlyer, I’ve got a similar wooden Sailfish in my garage. You’re inspiring me to pull it out and freshen it up. The green and white sail is my favorite color combo, too. The early Sailfish sail may have been 65 sf? Not positive on that- but the Sunfish sail definitely works at 75 sf and will give you a faster, wetter ride!
 
1. If you still want to do an inspection port aft, put it just forward of the rudder assembly horizontal hinge plate. The Super Sailfish MKII deck is a little flatter than the Sunfish deck so a 5 inch port will work, good access if the wooden backer blocks ever need replacing on the rudder assembly or bridle eyestraps.

2. I was surprised to learn, Alan told me, that those pontoon hulls can make water during the day. If the foam is wet and the hull heats up, that water can and will come out of the 2 kinds of foam that are in there. Warm dry air and circulation will help dry out wet blocks over time, most likely the extra weight in your boat is in the expanding foam that holds the flotation blocks in place. We had this posted months ago from someone wanting to get rid of wet foam and do something else with the hull, never heard if the owner of this boat finished the project or not. There are several ways to dry the boat out without cutting the deck off.

Sailfish foam blocks copy.jpeg


BreezeB, get that wooden Sailfish fixed up! The Standard Sailfish was 11'7" and had a 65 sf sail and shorter spars. The wooden Super Sailfish and fiberglass Super Sailfish MKII were 13'7" and had the same sizes spars and sail as the Sunfish, 75 sf. Fishflyer's boat is the fiberglass MKII, one way to tell the longer Super Sailfish boats is the handrail, the Supers have 3 loops whereas the Standard has 2 loops.

Here's a 65 sf Standard Sailfish sail laying over a 75 sf Super Sailfish sail. On another note, the Minifish sail is also 65 sf, the Catfish bermuda rig is 105 sf.

IMG_0513.jpg
 
Maiden voyage update..

She floats! Unfortunately there was absolutely no wind yesterday at camp.. It sits fairly high in the water, but right side low.

I was noticing a small amount of water that got in the hull after about 3 hours in the water, then I thought the wind was going to pick up, so I rigged the boat and paddled out of the cove only to find, still, absolutely no wind.. On my way paddling back to the dock I noticed the rudder felt a little bit loose. Closer inspection reveled my rudder mounting plate was slowly pulling out of the hull with every rudder movement..

So I guess I'm going to install another inspection port on the back of the boat and try to replace the blocks back there.
 
You can probe the screw holes for the rudder assembly with a paper clip and see if there is solid wood there, maybe you can get by with filling the holes with thickened epoxy and toothpicks/shims or gorilla glue. Then drill a pilot hole for new screws.

If the wood is gone then inspection port is easiest way to get in there. Capn Jack found this in one of our boats...

HPIM5369.JPG
 
You can probe the screw holes for the rudder assembly with a paper clip and see if there is solid wood there, maybe you can get by with filling the holes with thickened epoxy and toothpicks/shims or gorilla glue. Then drill a pilot hole for new screws.

If the wood is gone then inspection port is easiest way to get in there. Capn Jack found this in one of our boats...

View attachment 32890

The plan for now it to try putting some filler material in the holes and possibly go to a bigger screw. If that doesn't work I've got some 3M 5200.. I figure there is really no reason it would ever need to come off again..

In other news. I will be switching to a smaller diameter line for at least the halyard, as the cleat on the boat nd the cleat I put on the mast ar too small for the 5/16" Sta-Set line I have on it now..
 

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