What is the best way to remove the paint from the deck?Deck had been painted. You’ll have to get it off there. Hopefully you can restore the original gelcoat. Rest of the boat sure is original. Block on mast seems preferable to the current setup.
The bow handle appears to be a replacement—with slightly oversized screws. (Check for "pull-strength").The 1960s boats had a hook in the cockpit forward lip for the sheet, that's all you need. Add a swivel cam cleat or ratchet block as you like. I'd sand the chippy paint with 120 grit on a random orbital sander to smooth, then fair, prime and paint. The color looks close to Interlux Brightside Medium Blue. Put a fun pant job on there.Or get it smooth and cut out a big Sunfish logo to stick over the spot from adhesive backed sailcloth. Grab a white sail from Intensity and cut out some cool graphics from adhesive backed sailcloth. The mast cap can be replaced with a newer cap with integral fairlead. Or use the old style block, keep an eye on the eye, sometimes the eyebolts were made from soft brass chrome plated and the eye can pull open under load. The nut can also vibrate loose during car rides and bye bye mast block. A piece of tape can help prevent that. The drain plugs are fine. Not sure the history of the halyard cleat, but Wilcox and Crittenden sold those as well as all of the other Alcort hardware, so maybe a previous owner liked that style better. And nice looking bow handle, those are usually shot. That's a really clean looking boat!
The bow handle appears to be a replacement—with slightly oversized screws. (Check for "pull-strength").
The halyard cleat is chrome-plated zinc, so, like the old bow handle, is on its way out. (Giving preference to Sunfish' bronze alternate).
Check out the "chippy" paint on the foredeck.That's an old repair under there. (Press down to check its integrity). If the rest of the deck is nice, sail cloth looks like the best and easiest solution.
Patch and sell the sail, and put that $50 towards a new one.This is the "season" to start looking for sails (sales).
That halyard block is a lot better Wilcox & Crittendon model than what usually came from W&C for "board boats". I'd keep using it, and put the unspent money towards sails (sales). Maybe opt for a window?
Those two drains are important right now, so start a squirt of PB Blaster "working" on them. When you've managed to remove them successfully, wrap them with [plumber's] Teflon tape or use an "anti-seize" paste on them.
Getting a trailer with it, too!
Congratulations on a superb purchase.
.
You did so well with the last resto you decided to do it again... that’s how it starts! Looks like you got a nice deal on a worthy project. Nothing wrong with those deck drains- they’re hard to come by. I think there were only two years that had drains on both port and starboard. Very cool that the original rudder pin and chain haven’t been lost over all these years. How’s the weight? I’d do a leak test- might have some issues under the aluminum trim. I picked up a Fish with the deck in similar shape. I was going to fair and patch paint, but once I found the leaks and removed the trim to seal the seam I decided to paint the whole boat.
Have fun bringing another old Sunfish back to life and stop looking at craigslist or you’ll end up with a garage full of boats (and a few in the yard, too!)
I'll defer to Beldar on the earlier fiberglass boats, the earliest we have seen is our 1965 and it has a sheet hook. Could have been added too, we added a swivel cam cleat. And I was thinking about guessing that those cleats were put on some factory boats, but stopped short of that.
I was too stunned to mention the hinge pin, that's a $50 part, if you can find it. We have a stash of them that are our kid's inheritance. It appears that the keeper chain is attached to the rudder versus the boat, that is a good modification. Check around the rudder assembly horizontal hinge plate (deck plate), you might see a tiny hole on the starboard side of the plate where the keeper chain eye used to be screwed down. Or could have been sealed and painted over.
Also check over that rudder hinge plate for a stamped 4 digit number, she might be a 4 digit boat. Definitely her characteristics line up with the early 60s period. Our 1965 has a serial number plate, but so does our wooden 1963. The data plates were placed between the daggerboard trunk and coaming, oval, with the Alcort emblem and a 5 digit number.
View attachment 30888
Last, check those trailer tires for their MMYY code. Anyhting over 6 years needs to be replaced. No code? I'd replace them.
WHat's her name, she's yar!
Using sail repair tape, the larger holes should be repaired with the sticky tape applied to both sides. One repair side can be a colored Sunfish and the other side white (and alternately, in your case, blue).
One of the few times I wished there was a ‘Love’ tab on this forum- like isn’t enough! Sweet pic!I find extra fish laying around...flipped upside down, make comfortable beds.