Thistle1040's blog

I finished sanding the epoxy and cloth on one side of the boat and have one more side to do. This is tedious work and it seems to take forever to finish. The now smooth layer of epoxy and fiberglass cloth will get one more coating of epoxy but it will be Progressive's Low-V epoxy which flows and levels easily. This will be then covered with varnish or some other clear coat with UV inhibitor.

To make things more interesting, I started fitting one of the rails. The Thistle has some tumblehome in the starn and the hull flares out in the bow. That means quite a bit of shaping to get things to fit. Larry Ligget has a nice set of videos on Youtube showing how this is done. I'll embed part 1 below.

I really like Progressive No-Blush epoxy and no, I'm not paid by them for this endorsement. I've worked with different brands of epoxy over the last 30 years and have developed a sensitivty to several of them. Not so with No-Blush. I also like the way it sands. Epoxy gets harder as it cures. Try to sand it too early and your paper will gum up and the epoxy will heat up and turn to gunk on your sand paper. Wait too long after the cure and it will be hard and difficult to sand. If you time it right, you'll have easy sanding without clogging and No-Blush seems to have a good two-week window where it's easy to sand.

Last week I sheathed the inside of my Thistle with 3.7 oz fiberglass cloth and epoxy. Before this can be varnished, it must be sanded smooth, first with 80 grit and then eventally up to 150 or 220. Areas in the boat that will get epoxy paint (right next to the keelson where the crew's feet go) will be painted and the rest of the boat will be left natural. The cloth will be transparent under epoxy and varnish.

Some general sanding tips:

The first step in strengthening the hull was to lay up some fiberglass tape under the seat supports. These have now been sanded and the edges feathered. Next we'll sheath the inside of the hull with fiberglass cloth and epoxy. The purpose in doing this is twofold. Once finished with new wood and lighter mahogany rails, this Thistle will be underweight. My last wooden Thistle (1014) was 30 pounds light and could not be raced until I added six 5-pound dive belt weights distributed around the hull. Thistles must weigh 515 pounds when racing. Class rules allow for the application of fiberglass cloth inside the hull to add weight. You can't just add it in key areas to stiffen selected parts of the hull. It has to be added over the entire inner surface to be legal. That's fine for us because we need the extra weight and we want the other positives fiberglass and epoxy give us, that being a totally sealed hull with added abrasion resistance. The inside of a Thistle is a busy place when racing.

This is a great video of the making of a laminated Firefly hull. Thistle hulls were made using the same technique. CLICK to play...

Now that the hull is sanded clean and all the old wooden parts removed, it's time to start rebuilding. The glue used to laminate in these 1950s era Thistles can become brittle and fail after all those years. This is even more true in areas of high stress in the hull. You'll often find stress cracks in the laminate (5 layers of 1/16" mahogany) around the seat supports.  If the boat has been sitting on a trailer with inadequate support you'll find stress cracks or delamination in that part of the hull. All of these areas need to be repaired and strengthened to meet our goal of a boat with another 50 years of competitive sailing.

Today I did the final fitting of the transom, squared up the hull and glued it in. The 2x6 and clamps you see are there holding the hull in the correct position. Thistles must measure in at the transom. The boat should be 4 ft. in width measured at the top of the sheer and the height of the transom should be 15 3/8" from the keelson to a line connecting the top of the sheer on each side. It's important to have the hull adjusted and set to these measurements before you start gluing.

For readers who've not done this kind of thing, here are a few tips.

I finished sanding most of the inside of the hull and before sealing the interior with epoxy, needed to replace the cracked transom with a new one. So, after gluing up a few nice pieces of mahogany, I now have a new transom. I used the old one as a template and have a good fit with the new one. I'll glue it in this weekend.

I used this project as an excuse to buy a thickness planer and it did a great job of getting the planks ready for gluing. I've always wanted one of these and I found a good used one on Craigslist.

I have almost half of the Thistle sanded, removing the old finish and lots of barn dust. I removed the gratings and seats with supports on the port side and will continue with the starboard side. It's interesting that the seats and gratings were not glued in. Or, if they were, the glue had long since stopped adhering to the hull. I could have left the seats in but had to consider my goal in restoration.

I want to create the lightest, stiffest legal Thistle possible. I want it to last another 50 years with minimum work required to keep it in excellent racing condition.

This is the way she looked on her way home after spending 25 years nice and dry in the barn. Owned by Roger S., this is a nice Thistle and my task is to bring her back into sailing form. The boat has no rot or holes. The rails and gratings are in good shape and that just shows how well Roger cared for her over the years. It turns out his father sailed Thistles too.

So far my plans include replacing the oak rails and perhaps the gratings too with lighter wood. I'll also add a bow tank to make the boat self-rescuing. I could leave the sides natural but there are several places on the bottom, under the waterline that will need small repairs and fairing. That means that the bottom will be repaired, faired and painted. For some reason I'm wanting to paint the hull a nice bright neon blue and think that would look great with new mahogany rails. We'll throw in some purple heart in there too for good measure. We'll also use all new rigging, blades and sails. The boat was never rigged or sailed with a spinnaker.  Let's see if we can get it ready in time for the Thistle 2012 Nationals in San Diego next summer.

Below are a YouTube walk-around and a short Picasa slide show with more photos.