sailboat restoration, trailer sailer, small cruiser, trailerable sailboats, pocket boats, budget sailing, boat repair, older boats, classic fiberglass yachts, microcruisers, macgregor, sail boat restoration, small sail boat, boat cruising small sail, boat build small sail, Fix It And Sail, sailboat restoration book
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There were lots of reasons that I took on this project- the biggest reason was money. Actually, that was the smallest reason, as in I had very little when I bought this sailboat. I had sold my Catalina 27 nearly ten years ago, and had been trying to get another boat ever since. Oh, sure... I'd like to have a big enough boat to go to the Bahamas, but the costs associated with a new (old) house, a then-five-year old son (he's eleven now... hard to believe sometimes) and given that we live in Tennessee, a larger boat just didn't make a lot of sense.
A trailerable boat, on the other hand, can be stored near the house while it gets fixed, and kept there over the winter months, making off-season improvements and upkeep easier. Our sailing time would be short anyway, so a boat that is small is an asset- it's quick to rig and launch, yet still big enough to spend the night on. Parts for it are relatively inexpensive, and overall it's a low-cost way to introduce people to the world of sailboat cruising.
My purpose for publishing this website (and the upcoming book, "Fix It And Sail" from International Marine) is to prove that sailing doesn't have to be the pastime of the idle rich. With time and a little money, nearly any small sailboat can be restored to an enjoyable vessel by anyone with average skills and means. You'll need to do some learning, but the knowledge to restore a boat is readily available. You'll need a genuine desire to go sailing... enough to keep you going when the inevitable problems crop up. But it can be done, and it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. (Well, maybe an arm... throw in a few fingers if you want the fancy stuff.) And there's no sense of satisfaction like taking your first sail in a boat that you rescued.
A photodocumentary collection of the restoration process can be seen here. More photos have been posted on the Magregor website by Bob White. The complete collection of photos is too big to post here... currently 552MB of raw data... and is documented in the book, Fix It And Sail, which will be available soon.
A few other good links: The Pocket Cruising website has some good articles for smaller boat owners. MicroCruising in the Bahamas is lots of fun when the winter chill starts getting you down. Small Craft Advisor has an active forum, and I have some articles that are appearing/have appeared in DIY Boatowner and Good Old Boat magazine. The MacGregor/Venture Webring and the Boatbuilding Webring were kind enough to list my site. And of course, The Trailer Sailor site has tons of info on trailerable sailboats.The Montgomery Sailboats Owners Group maintains a fine site about the Lyle Hess-designed little cruisers, which I currently sail, and there's a separate MSOG photo site here. FurledSails.com features sailing interviews that you can download to an MP2 player for free.
LATEST NEWS:(April 1 2009)
OK, so I need to apologize for not keeping the site more current. I had to "upgrade" my computer 'cause my internet access and browsers on my old Mac effectively stopped working.So I bought a fancy new one. Now the internet works great, but all my other software needs to be upgraded as well. Most of the new software I've bought doesn't work nearly as well as the old stuff. And I still don't have any good web software. (I'm on a Mac, so there really aren't many cheap or free options that I've found.) So I haven't been able to update very easily... this one is being done on the old system, then ported over to the new one. It's a PITA, but hopefully it'll at least work
NEW DRAWINGS: I've added six new drawings to the marine illustrations section... click tab at the top of the page, or you can jump straight to it by clicking here.
Several people have ordered my new book, The Complete Trailer Sailer, and they STILL haven't gotten it yet. Here's the story. International Marine closed it's offices and laid off most of the staff. This screwed up the marketing royally... the book had already been launched at Amazon and in retail catalogs. But with no staff, it took them forever to get to my book.
But here's the good news... they finally DID get to my book. I've just completed my last round of proofing yesterday. The layout is complete, and it just needs some corrections and indexing, and then it's off to the printers. This means that the finished book should be ready about June of '09. I really must apologize to those of you who have pre-ordered and waited so long for this to be completed, but given the state of the economy, I'm grateful they didn't decide to just give up the ship and go home. I wish there were someting I could do to make it up to you (even though it wasn't my fault), but I'm afraid there's little I can do.
In case you haven't heard already, this book focuses on trailerable sailboats with some form of cabin that can be hauled by an average car (We had to stop somewhere... you can theoretically haul almost anything with a GMC Dually diesel pickup and a BIG trailer.)
My latest drawing for Small Craft Advisor will be of the Hirondelle catamaran. I'll be adding that to the drawings page soon. Check out the latest issue, coming soon to a bookstore near you. If you like what you see, consider being a subscriber.
Also in the drawings department, I have recently completed a commissioned drawing of the Kent Ranger 26 for Jay Berube in Seattle. It finished beautifully. I'll be posting the image soon.
So what's new on Tiny Dancer? Right now, she's in the driveway for a little maintenance work. The tiller needs some re-gluing and a new coat of varnish, and a coat of wax is going on a little at a time. The weather here in Tennessee is rapidly approaching beautiful, so I'm hoping to get her finished up and back in the water shortly.
Check back soon, since I've got more material to add, and I'll try to get better with the updates.
Thanks to all of you who have sent emails. If you're restoring a boat, good luck, and keep at it! I know, it seems endless at times, but I remember the advice I got from Lee Lafon when I was beginning audio operator for the six o'clock news at WCBD. "Only concentrate on two things... what you're doing now, and what you're doing next." Don't worry about the rest, it'll come in time, but if you try to worry about it all at once, you'll just confuse yourself into inaction. Worry about two things... forget the rest.
I'll be happy to help and advise those of you who have the "Really-want-to-go-sailing-but-don't-have-much-money-wonder-if-I-should-buy-that-old-boat" disease whenever I can. Feel free to contact me with your questions, sailboat-related or otherwise. Suggestions for improving this site are welcome.
Should you like your sailing in audio form, check out FurledSails.com, where you can listen to podcast inerviews related to all things sailing. You can hear discussions with Lin and Larry Pardey, Good Old Boat founders Karen Larson and Jerry Powlas, and if you're REALLY starving for entertainment, Brian Gilbert talking about fixing up old boats. Search for podcast #67, Fix It And Sail. And speaking of Good Old Boat, they have been active in the podcasting arena as well. They've produced two complete audio books, with many others available at their new website, AudioSeaStories.com
I still manage to get out to Gold Point Marina every once and a while to work on the boat. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by D-dock... I'm the smallest boat in the marina.
Again, please note my new email address... hammerguy at bellsouth dot net.Click here for a look at past news items and miscellaneous stuff.
Thanks for stopping by!
This website was designed and produced by Marine Media Publishing, 3404 Hartford Dr., Chattanooga, TN. The Email (for now, it may change) is hammerguy at bellsouth dot net (NOTE: Replace the "at" with the @ symbol when typing the address. This is an anti-spam measure designed to prevent automated web crawlers from stealing e-mail addresses from this site... thanks for your understanding.)
Last update was October 24, 2007
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