The Sailboat

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It's done... well, kinda!
...but dark blue of coarse!

A little history on the design	The MacGregor Cutter Rig	A little history on the Skippers
This Sailboat is a modern replica of the famous English and American pilot cutters of the late 1800's. Fleets of these swift little ships sailed from their seaports to meet incoming transatlantic sailing ships. On the outgoing trip, the fastest cutters carried the pilots that would guide the square riggers into the crowded harbors. On the return trip, the cutters carried "priority" passengers and light cargo to avoid the many hours, & often days, required to bring the big ships the last miles into port.		The skippers of the pilot cutters were among the most competitive men ever to earn their living from the sea. Their fortunes depended on the speed and seaworthiness of their sailboats. That was back in the days when the men were made out of iron and the ships were made out of wood. This one's made out of fiberglass, a lot of teak, mahogany and oak. Over the decades, the designs of the the pilot cutters were perfected to the point where they have no equal, even among today's most modern sailing crafts.

It weighs in right at a ton and has an overall length of about 26 feet.

Here's the sailboat after I took it completely apart. I didn't separate the hull from the top of the boat but everything else came off for rework or replacement.

All of the wet sanding was a lot of work. I used a wet & dry air sander for all of the flat surfaces but the curves had to be done by hand. Here's a before paint shot...

This is just after the white paint was shot on. Three coats of Marine polyurethane. I didn't mask off the hull, just the rub rail because I'll have to sand and paint it next.

The boat was panted at least twice in the past and had runs in the paint everywhere. It had to be sanded almost completely down to the original gel coat to get them out.

...and here's an after of the cockpit area. The floorboards will be painted towards the end of the process with a white non-skid surface.

Instead of following up with painting the hull, I got carried away refinishing the hardwood for the boat. It has a lot of teak, Mahogany and oak.

The cockpit rails were made from red oak stained to look close to teak. I used the old pieces as templates. The window frames are teak.

The hull work is complete. I used six mil construction plastic as the barrier material and did all of the masking on 30 Oct. after work...

...and shot the paint on 31 Oct. using a single stage polyurethane with Teflon. I finished up just before all the ghosts and goblin's came out that Halloween night!.

The masking is off and the bottom paint in on. The cabin hatch is in place It's starting to look more and more like a sailboat.

The Rigging isn't complete in this photo and not long after this, A gust of wind caught the sails and ripped the main sail in half.
The sails are probably the originals and needed to be replaced anyway so I decided to put it back in the hanger and have new sails made in the spring.