Hey all! I am fairly new to everything sailing, but I figured I would share my project sunfish. I am learning as I go, so all suggestions, critique, and advice is welcome!
Two summers ago I tool a summer sailing class at a local county community lake and had a blast. Then a few months later when someone offered me a sunfish for $125, I jumped on it!
Here are some photos of the little work I have done so far. My goal is to get it looking nice and get it on the water this summer (by late june-ish).
Here is the boat right before some disassembly. (I did figure out the date with the serial number, but have since forgotten the year. The year coming to mind is 74ish, but I could be misremembering that.)
I took nearly much all the hardware off and gave it all a bath with some normal dish soap. It did clean up a fair amount. There is a little damage to the bow that I would like to repair.
First larger task was to refinish the dagger board, tiller, and rudder. Then also clean up all the hardware and replace what needed to be replaced.
The dagger board had some decent damage to the edge, but I just tried to smooth it out instead of replacing, so It has a slightly odd profile. (it appears I don't have a photo of it after sanding, but there is a photo after its refinished.)
The only hardware that was replaced was one bolt and the brass screws. Everything else was just cleaned. I don't have a polishing wheel or else I would have shinned everything up a little. (Just for fun.)
Oh, I also remade the longer tiller shaft. When I was sanding it I found that it was cracked most the way though. I tried to make the replacement identical to the previous one though.
The only other thing done so far was to buy replacement mast hoops for the sail.
My planned next steps I have in mind are:
1) Give the top of the hull a nice wet sand, working to 2000-3000 grit to see if it will take out the remaining scuffs and shine it up.
2) I would like to patch the bow and then sand and maybe re gel-coat the bottom of the hull.
3) Try to clean up the aluminum trim.
4) Reassemble all the hardware attached to the hull.
And I think that's about it really. ...But here are a couple questions:
Do the short and long tiller shafts have different names? What is the best way to attach them at the pivot point (just a bolt and locking nut, as that was what was there when I got it, but not sure if that was original.)
That's it. Shoot me any advice or anything helpful to this project! Thanks!
Two summers ago I tool a summer sailing class at a local county community lake and had a blast. Then a few months later when someone offered me a sunfish for $125, I jumped on it!
Here are some photos of the little work I have done so far. My goal is to get it looking nice and get it on the water this summer (by late june-ish).
Here is the boat right before some disassembly. (I did figure out the date with the serial number, but have since forgotten the year. The year coming to mind is 74ish, but I could be misremembering that.)
I took nearly much all the hardware off and gave it all a bath with some normal dish soap. It did clean up a fair amount. There is a little damage to the bow that I would like to repair.
First larger task was to refinish the dagger board, tiller, and rudder. Then also clean up all the hardware and replace what needed to be replaced.
The dagger board had some decent damage to the edge, but I just tried to smooth it out instead of replacing, so It has a slightly odd profile. (it appears I don't have a photo of it after sanding, but there is a photo after its refinished.)
The only hardware that was replaced was one bolt and the brass screws. Everything else was just cleaned. I don't have a polishing wheel or else I would have shinned everything up a little. (Just for fun.)
Oh, I also remade the longer tiller shaft. When I was sanding it I found that it was cracked most the way though. I tried to make the replacement identical to the previous one though.
The only other thing done so far was to buy replacement mast hoops for the sail.
My planned next steps I have in mind are:
1) Give the top of the hull a nice wet sand, working to 2000-3000 grit to see if it will take out the remaining scuffs and shine it up.
2) I would like to patch the bow and then sand and maybe re gel-coat the bottom of the hull.
3) Try to clean up the aluminum trim.
4) Reassemble all the hardware attached to the hull.
And I think that's about it really. ...But here are a couple questions:
Do the short and long tiller shafts have different names? What is the best way to attach them at the pivot point (just a bolt and locking nut, as that was what was there when I got it, but not sure if that was original.)
That's it. Shoot me any advice or anything helpful to this project! Thanks!