The new beam is back form the metal shop

Time to do some fitting and banging  and start putting the boat back together BUT its 20" of snow OR 2" of rain and 28 deg on a warm day making everything go really SLOW :)

WINTERS FULL ON NOW

Well this sure slowed down boat repairs what a difference 24 hours makes

The next big challange the broken motor

Despite its :) perfect look the motor was overheated and at the least needs a head gasket and its such a mess it was best to remove the motor which turns out to be a
PITA




We needed a way to lift the motor so down to the lumber yard for a load of 2 x 8 x 16 as its better to be a bit big than small It was really freaking hard to
put the lift up SOLO :(



But out she came after fighting with some bolts for 7 hours



I had to adjust the length of the chain to make it to the ground




Into the back of the truck and off to my nice heated workshop



A bit of a mess to cleanup


And a Bunch of gaskets new valves and hoses and its pretty healthy again

Despite being in the water Sea Fever was in about as bad a shape as a boat could be and still float.

Why did i buy a Cal in bad shape?

In my research i found Cal 29s between 8000 and 20000 dollars and the ones
i looked at on the east coast of the USA all had the Cal rusty Beam
issue.

Thanks to people like Wilkie i was able to learn about the
beam and felt is was and issue i could repair

http://www.mariposasailing.com/

The
beam supports the mast and was made of steel and in 1970 Stainless
Steel cost to much money for the price they were selling the Cal for.

In general the other boats also had marginal sails and it would have been costly to have them moved to NY


Cutting out floor in head area



The rusted beam reveled



Cutting the three mounting tabs to save the bulkhead




I saw many people
on web sights struggle getting the beam out at this point and realized
i only needed to drill a small hole and it was out in 5 minutes




I do metal work and So its off to the fab shop to be copied



And of course why we want to save the bulkhead its in such nice condition

I picked a CAL 29 because they sail well and coming from owning a J24 it is one thing that i will not give up in my quest for a bit more comfort and the ability to share the joy of sailing with friends who cant craw around a deck in seconds

Sea Fever was broken down in NYC and had to be moved without its inboard motor which was the first challenge. I took my best guess and bolted on my trusty outboard and got it to the boatyard and loaded onto a truck and moved to my driveway

So its it home and the work begins and i already spent 3k that was fast :)

If you have issues with spelling and gramer DONT read this blog IF you want to see what it took to bring a dead boat back to life then read on