The C-Disaster 22' C-Dory Refit in Alaska

[thataway]

Your 14 days off and 12 hour days help with the time frame.

I had not seen your post last night just prior to mine—and I might have responded a bit differently, knowing your plan.

I wonder how the “teak” runners are adhered to the bottom? I suspect it is just more than screws. When we were building a 38’ fiberglass sailboat I had to do sharp bends with teak rub rails over the hull to deck joint. I did destructive testing of teak laminates (1/8” pieces in a jig to get the contour. Two part resorcinol glue remained superior to epoxy. But to the fiberglass, epoxy was the only choice. Some boats have had teak decks set in epoxy when being re-done’ (Taiwan built, which all leak).

At 2 AM I forget to ask if there was any evidence of the teak rub strips separating from the hull.

The other question is if there is delaminating of the plywood core from either the bottom outer surface or the inner surface of the boat’s bottom. If the boat has gone thru several freeze thaw cycles in AK, delaminating is more likely.

Also we have not heard from any of the many members who have this vintage hull designs especially in AK, to see what they found as the plywood core was checked by drilling holes to check for moisture and delaminating. Looking at the “our C Dorys” there are about 80 22 classic or anglers built by the end of 1982, and several are or were in the Juneau area. A number more were in AK.
By 1987 there appear to have been at least 317 of the22’s built. Thus there is a goodly data base to look at for plywood core problems. I doubt if many of these boats had been abused to the extend this one has—-or had an owner who was skilled and fast enough a worker to bring it back in a few short menorahs.

A big thanks for sharing your thought process, plans and then the photos of the work as it progresses. So often we have folks who do not have the skills which you posses, and things go slowly.

 

[barrelroll]

I don't know if you intend to follow the list you made in some sort of order but I will strongly recommend you start by cloning yourself first. If successful, do it a couple more time and you might have a good summer on the new to you boat.

I will agree to get done whatever is needed to make the boat seaworthy first then use it some. You will have a whole winter to mess around with it and/or save some projects for the next owner. C-Dory are nice boat and worth the effort but you also have a very nice Tollman that you need to not set aside for too long.

Keep us posted of your progress.

Haha, I wish I could get the dog to help out as well, she loves the water though isn't much for scrubbing or sanding. We'll see where I get on the list. Transom, a rewire/ updated electronics, fuel tanks, eliminating the avenues for water to get into the pilot house along with some mold free cabinetry is the bare minimum to get it back on the water. Coming up with a plan and having most of the parts I intend to use on hand helps things go quicker. I'd put my money on it hitting the water with some unpainted/ gel coated work.

Your 14 days off and 12 hour days help with the time frame.

I had not seen your post last night just prior to mine—and I might have responded a bit differently, knowing your plan.

I wonder how the “teak” runners are adhered to the bottom? I suspect it is just more than screws. When we were building a 38’ fiberglass sailboat I had to do sharp bends with teak rub rails over the hull to deck joint. I did destructive testing of teak laminates (1/8” pieces in a jig to get the contour. Two part resorcinol glue remained superior to epoxy. But to the fiberglass, epoxy was the only choice. Some boats have had teak decks set in epoxy when being re-done’ (Taiwan built, which all leak).

At 2 AM I forget to ask if there was any evidence of the teak rub strips separating from the hull.

The other question is if there is delaminating of the plywood core from either the bottom outer surface or the inner surface of the boat’s bottom. If the boat has gone thru several freeze thaw cycles in AK, delaminating is more likely...

A big thanks for sharing your thought process, plans and then the photos of the work as it progresses. So often we have folks who do not have the skills which you posses, and things go slowly.

The teak runners are still attached. Today is the first time I got a good look at them though didn't have the nerve to poke at them very hard. I believe they are just screwed on though I had enough lying in puddles at that point to look further. There's 1 spot where there's a through hull transducer no longer in use I need to get up the nerve to poke at. I believe there's a crack all the way around it and was a super highway for water to get into the core.

All below waterline work will get done with epoxy and the final coats of epoxy will be a epoxy, cabosil (to help deify gravity) and graphite mixture. For now I'll just do the areas I do work to and eventually do the whole bottom. Epoxy graphite bottoms are pretty easy to make look decent and very popular with the Tolman crowd.

Thanks for your kind words. I'm just a guy with some tools who's dumb enough to take on project. I'll try and keep this updated, posts from others really help give me an idea of what's involved. I knew nothing about wood/ fiberglass work till I started my Tolman.



Day #2 of the c-disaster in the books. The morning was spent ordering parts and supplies, with any luck everything will be here in a month. 2 Suppliers who I've had great luck with are Defender and Fiberglass Supply. Both had inventory and got parts shipped same day Priority mail to Alaska. I have tracking numbers for the fuel tanks so they must actually exist which is a relief. I was not looking forward to the plan B of 12 gallon topside tanks.

I got a motor stand built out of some crooked 2x4's that would make a politician jealous how crooked they were. I went to pull the motor, it came off pretty easily though I may have forgotten the steering cable was still in the motor as I started to pull the boat away. It's wrapped in a tarp to confuse any tweakers shopping in my yard.



Once the motor was secure, well partially secure on it's stand I diggered up (put on rain gear in my line of work) and busted out the pressure washer for round 1 of Southeast Alaska goo removal. My wife remarked "it looks slightly better" after I had been laying in the driveway for 2 hours in 40 degree weather depositing the Petersburg harbor vegetation into my driveway. So far half the bottom got 1 round of pressure washing and the whole topside got a bath.

I have nice sized shop and put baby (aka the tolman) in the corner so I'd have some more room to work. Having a shop is awesome, being built a foot above grade on floor joists with an 8' ceiling doesn't make it easy to get boats in or out. I'm going to try and not spend the half a day + of tetras and magic it would require to get the disaster into the shop. I evicted the alumaweld from it's boat tent and put the disaster in. The boat tent is only 20' long and water has been entering the disaster in many orifices of the C-Disaster so I really wanted to get it all out of the rain and give it a break from the rain. Have no fear, every Alaskan has at least 1 blue tarp at the ready for a boat tent extension.





I got out the shop vac again to help speed up the drying process and there was maybe a pint of water in the pilot house after my pressure washing antics. After leaving a space heater on last night and not seeing a mold outbreak I'll leave the heater on for a couple days to continue the drying process. A 4' China Freight LED makes for a nice interior light while it's in for surgery.

 

[barrelroll]

Day #3 and the first actual day of "work" is in the books. Bad news, I didn't do very good exploratory surgery, Good news it might be in better shape than I thought.

I sunck out during quiet time (post 8PM, pre 8AM) and spent some time in the pilot house. The roof headliner and all it's water holding parts are now in the trash along with the 2 water tanks that were under the V-berth. One thing I've noticed about the C-dory is it's built heavy compared to a Tolman. Renn Tolman was big on building things light and used very little 3/4" plywood in his boats, C-Dory built all the interior cabinetry out of 3/4". I'm thinking there's some opportunity to save some weight using 3/8" and 1/2" in the interior. Also C-dory mounted the cabinets with super small mild steel L-Brackets, I'm tempted to fillet and tape the new additions in though if the next owner wanted to change things they wouldn't be happy with the amount of demo required to remove them.







On to the good/ bad part of the day. I got the shapshwell out, it's junk, weighs a ton and had very obvious rot/ needs to be redone for a 25" transom and gas tank underneath anyways. The transom on the other hand had some life left in it and didn't need a complete removal/ replacement. After doing an initial exploratory surgery pulling the inner skin just past the edges of the spashwell the 2 main areas of rot were at the spashwell drain hole and drain plug along with some water intrusion at the bilge pump hose hole and a couple other holes, the motor bolts had pulled into the core at some point as well. It wasn't complete mush by any means.







Thinking the rest of the transom was in this shape I cut the rest of the inner glass off and only found a little water intrusion at the bolt holes.



Well great I'm in it this far and I need to raise the motor cut out anyways, pulling dry balsa core should be no big deal. WRONG, I have a new respect for that borderline spongy stuff. It did not want to come out and had a layer of CSM between 2 layers of 3/4" core. After an hour of swinging a hammer at a chisel, pry bar, bad words, and any other removal tool I could think of I needed reinforcements, I'd be out there for a week at this rate. In my YouTube education someone had used a roto hammer to remove semi solid transom material so off to Home depot I went for my saving grace. Get it home, attempt to blast out core, any core with glass still on it would just taunt me and not move.




It took a while to become one with the roto hammer, using an angled tile chisel I would first get under the glass and remove the layer of glass, then attack the core from multiple fronts till it flew off. Once the glass was out the balsa came out pretty easy. 7:54PM, just before "quiet time" the last chunk of core hit the deck. I still need to do a ton of grinding and a little more trimming, my knees were shot and I didn't need to be the reason my neighbors kids weren't sleeping so I called it a night.



Moral of the story, drill more exploratory holes before attempting to completely remove the transom core. This transom could have been fixed properly with a couple small spot repairs, oversize drilling and epoxying holes, and a new layer of glass tying everything together. I'm in it this far, no turning back now.

 

[thataway]

I converted the "L" brackets to tabs of 1708 and white tinted epoxy in several of the C Dorys I owned. Just do it where the "L" bracket was, not necessary to do the entire piece of Decaboard plywood. Of. course drill out the screw hole and explore the core there--fill the exploration hole with epoxy.

Normally one would drill some test holes in inner glass of the bottom to assess the state of moisture in the plywood. It is entirely possible that there are only small areas with water intrusion into the plywood. The plywood is different than the short cell balsa wood (a hardwood by classification). If you are going to rebuild and change the cabinetry, then you probably would be best off doing the fillet and full tape--after you have done the exploration and made any corrections to the core of the bottom.

Actually you are better off having pulled the full glass covering off the inner transom. You are going to scarf in the new core on the 5 or so inches you are adding to the center of the transom, since this takes a lot of the load of the outboard. An entirely new skin over a properly tied in new core will be stronger than just the patches.

Thanks for the great documentation. It also gives us some appreciation of the strengths of the earliest C Dory 22's.

 

[smckean (Tosca)]

WOW.....I'm going to follow your posts all the way thru. I admire your courage and "just-do-it"-ness. But what I love the most is your ironic sense of humor. What a great attitude!

 

[barrelroll]

Day #4 in the books, 2 steps backwards, 1 step forward. I got up this morning and the tarp covering the bow had vanished, some rain was coming in the stern as well, it was blowing like crazy. There was water on the rear deck within 1/4" of the newly exposed core. Uth oh, that would have been no good. I had a roll up door kit for the boat tent that I never put on and picked up a heavy duty tarp to replace the missing blue tarp. After dragging the door kit out in the rain it was going to require disassembling some of the tent in the rain while it was blowing like crazy. A quick check of the weather, high of 42 degrees and rain for the next week. Hmmm, paint and poly aren't going to want to cure and it's going to be wet, maybe time to reevaluate this working outside plan, I'll just put the boat in the shop.

Not so fast, it's not just back it in with my wonderful shop, I have a 7' tall door, 8' ceiling, and the loading dock in front of my shop is a foot above my driveway. Not to mention the transom isn't really up to pulling currently. Ok, time to move stuff around, I knew I kept the tolman jig around for something, I disassembled half of it, move the casters, and added some reinforcement, one of the few preks of the flat bottom is the jig turned dolly just needed to be flat.







This boat isn't light and is going to be fun to somehow will off the trailer and into the shop. Giving it a diet should help. I proceeded to finish gutting the interior and remove the rear bulkhead, lots of moldy swelled plywood, 80's erra carpet, factory wiring, and waterlogged foam headliner. The rear bulkhead had leaked/ swelled and been siliconed in place though very little evidence of upgrades or repairs. I did find a spot on the port side where the rear bulkhead wasn't bonded to the roof any more. Not sure it helped though it was a couple hundred pounds of old junk into the trash pile. This thing was top of the line back in it's day with 110 volt power, sink, stove, 12 volt/ 110 volt fridge, heater, and I believe it even had cable TV though no evidence of the TV.










After the small diet it somehow needed to get in the shop. The wooden bottom strakes came in handy. I back up to the shop, dragged the boat off the trailer sitting on the bottom, lifted it up, slid the dolly under and called it a day. Well it might have been a little more complex though no photographic evidence was taken of the operation though it's in the shop. The heated shop should help dry out the disaster, it probably hasn't been warm and dry since it migrated to Alaska from California. Some rearranging necessary, that's a 22' and a 23'6" boat in a 24'x40' shop.





Now that it's out of the moisture I'm going to pull all hardware and avenues for water to get into the core to check and see what's wet vs. rotten and hopefully some of the wet spots will dry out.

 

[barrelroll]

Day #5 started out with shopping, at least it was at manly stores like the lumber yard though I still hate shopping. My usual place for marine plywood had 2 sheets of 3/8" and nothing else in stock. I grabbed the 2 sheets they had for cabinets/ the rear bulkhead (unless some one has a good reason to remake it out of 3/4" it's going to be 3/8") along with some mildewy 5/8" ACX for a possible v berth rebuild. Luckily the other lumber yard had the last 2 sheets of 3/4" marine plywood in town, the transom repairs may go on. $460 for 2 sheets of 3/4", holy cow prices have gone through the roof since the last time I bought some, hopefully I won't need any more. Then off to Harri Plumbing which is actually a plumbing and marine supply under 1 roof for some ploy laminating resin, gelcoat, poly filler and other poly assorted stuff since I've been an epoxy guy along with a gallon of pettit white and a quart of Hatteras off white. I'm hoping the off white is close enough/ I can mix it with some white and get a little closer.



After the dog and I survived the shopping spree the shop needed some reorganization so I could actually work on the c-disaster. I opened up every entrance into her soul pulling all the hardware screwed into the core along with the windlass and cuddy hatch. The exploration results were mediocre. The bow deck is going to need some recoring from the point of the bow to the anchor cleat if not further back, 0 sealer on the windlass was a great idea for core longevity. Instead of just cutting off all the inner core I'm going to pull chunks at a time this time to avoid a repeat of the transom.







The cuddy roof of course had water in the core at the hatch which i got most wet stuff dug out. The boat had a combo bow nav in the cuddy deck and side nav lights, the combo allowed water in though I haven't figured out the extent of it or why the boat needed 2 sets of nav lights. The moisture meter is showing some wet areas on the starboard side though drilling in from the under side isn't revealing mush. The cuddy hatch hole was 19 15/16" x 19 15/16" which isn't a very common size, Lewmar and Vetus both make hatches that size. I ordered a Vetus Magnus MAG5151SL from Defender for $429.99 + shipping, not cheap though ocean rated, I couldn't find anything bad about them, and it was $100 cheaper than a Lewmar so I rolled the dice on one.



The gunnels are leaking water out most holes in the rear cockpit area, there's old holes that were left open to channel water into her soul and some rod holders with 0 filler also great ideas to help a boat last. The down rigger mounts were heavily bedded with different color silicones on each side though they weren't colors related to nav lights. An exploration hole reveled wet though solid plywood. More exploration is going to be necessary.







If anyone is looking for small amounts of balsa core fiberglass supply sells 2x4 sheets, the bow deck was 1/2", the cuddy deck was 3/4".

Also I got 1 of the 2 22 gallon Moeller tanks in and grabbed a picture. They are going to stick out a little bit past where the factory splashwell ended though will give a good spot for some storage and benches at the transom.



I need to figure out what I'm going to do about nonskid. Every section of non skid needs some sort of glass work/ hole filling. I'm planning on doing the core work from the bottom though need to glass over the windlass hole. I'm tempted to do the work with epoxy/ epoxy fillers, sand down the gelcoat off the non skid, use either sand or a nonskid additive, and just paint over the top instead of trying to match gelcoat and nonskid.

 

[thataway]

The Hatteras off white is a very close match for most of the C Dory "white".

One way to do "non skid" is to use thickened Gel Coat (cabosil) and a texture roller. Mix just stiff enough to make the non skid you want. This match the factory finish in my 2003 C Dory 25.

As for other non skids there are many--and some have gone to bed liners inside the hull. Should be plenty of time (although at the speed you are going, it won't take long!) to decide about the non skid.

Not used here, but with teak stairs, I used ground walnut shells (used by jet air planes to polish the turbine blades) bedding in epoxy, then another coat of epoxy and finally several coats of UV blocking polyurethane varnish. Looks great on the teak if you have any...

 

[barrelroll]

Day #6 of the disaster complete. I started with the hardest to get to core for repair first, the bow deck and attacked it form the inside. The roto hammer and I are becoming one. I slice the fiberglass with a circular saw and oscillating tool and then attack it with the roto hammer, it can peel glass, pop core, the whole 9 yards, no more almost hitting myself in the head with a hammer. It was raining fiberglass and core right into my eyeballs even with safety glasses on. My wife was working in the ER today and would not have been impressed if I made an appearance to have core removed from my eyeballs. I had been wearing a half face respirator and decided to buy a full face to hopefully avoid surprising my wife. It was a game changer, no more junk in the eyeballs though it could use a windshield wiper to clean glass dust off. I also have a really expensive snapon hooded long sleeve t-shirt that came with a free tool box that's great for keeping boat parts out of my lovely locks and is pretty thin.



I didn't succeed getting all the bow deck core out though got the hardest to access stuff out, I'll call it a victory. EZ-Anchor puller wants minimum of a 5/8" thick deck and it originally had 1/2" core. I'm tempted to see if 1/2" marine plywood will conform enough to the deck, glass it in, and then come back with a backer of 1/2" or 3/8". It's probably not a good idea to try and pull on a blasa deck.



This battle currently has 2 fronts, the bow and the transom. After my headlamp batteries died and I had enough laying on my back I switched to my knees for some more exploratory surgery. The starboard side had some cleats screwed in probably for a battery and and through hull transducer, it was slightly rotten and had a film of water running out from under it. A test hole mid boat about a foot from the transom reveled more really wet though still frimish wood. The 3rd test hole about 3' back form the transom had moisture in the outer layers though the core was decently dry. I found 1 screw for the bottom strakes, they are screwed right into the core, it was hard to tell if it was bedded or not after I had pulverized most of the wood around it. I'lll have to check above a screw hole in a dryish area and see if there's moisture/ rot above the screw hole. It appears the bottom core runs under the transom and may have been glassed before the transom was put in. The plan is to make a cut exactly 4' from the transom, do 4 feet of new bottom core with an epoxy "dam" between the new and old bottom cores, install the transom and go from there. The other unknown is if the factory just butt jointed bottom coring or if they scarfed it.

Wet hole



Dryish hole





Semi good news is the inside of the v-berth is starting to dry out and looks solid. I left the heat turned up and a box fan blowing into it to aid in drying. Knowing my luck the v-berth will dry out though I'll end up having to pull it to replace core. The tolman builder in me is cringing at plywood not coated in epoxy inside the berth. It shouldn't be an issue if the boat doesn't have leaks though that's a big if.

 

[thataway]

Most built builders butt joint plywood when using it as a core material (vs using as structural as in your ‘Tolman”.

 

[C-Wolfe]

. I also have a really expensive snapon hooded long sleeve t-shirt that came with a free tool box that's great for keeping boat parts out of my lovely locks and is pretty thin.

Darn, Snap-On is giving free tool box now, although i have a small idea how much you paid for that fancy hoody.


I didn't succeed getting all the bow deck core out though got the hardest to access stuff out, I'll call it a victory. EZ-Anchor puller wants minimum of a 5/8" thick deck and it originally had 1/2" core. I'm tempted to see if 1/2" marine plywood will conform enough to the deck, glass it in, and then come back with a backer of 1/2" or 3/8". It's probably not a good idea to try and pull on a blasa deck.

I did a similar repair on my previous sailboat, marine plywood does not bend easily so I ended up scoring the plywood every few inches about 1/3 of it deep. I made sure to fill all the groove with thicken epoxy and covered it with a layer of mat before clamping it to the top skin.


]

Pretty impressive how much you have gotten done in just a few days, If you ever come to Anchorage and get bored let me know, I'll keep you busy :lol:

 

[barrelroll]

I tired updating this thread the other day with no luck. Now it looks like it will let me post on it. I haven't given up though it's still in the shop.

I did update my thread on the hull truth, it's a lot quicker/ easier to put pictures up over there.

https://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-forum/1212606-c-disaster-22-c-dory-angler-refit-alaska.html

 

[thataway]

I have been following the thread on THT. I have found that adding photos here works best if you put them in your album, and then link the IMG from there....

Thank you for the updates!

 

[clayhubler]

barrelroll,

I remember when you first posted here. I read your post and thought you were crazy for thinking you were going to get that boat ready for summer. I was really rooting for you, and I thought you might make it when I saw your pics of the tolman. Many times while chiseling out rotten core, I thought, man, I should have just built a boat from scratch.

The boat is really looking good. I have to commend all the hard work. Don't sell it as is, you wont get anything for it. You're so close, and you can definitely make it this summer, and you will be able to use it until you finish the tolman.

I really like the sliding door you have put on the boat, and the drum winch is really cool, too.

Keep up the good work. You will find it much more satisfying working in your newly organized shop.

I find it very tedious to upload photos to the c-brats. It was easy enough once I had help, but I have very slow internet, so it really takes some time.

 

[colbysmith]

Doing great on those boats. But I love the shop. So wish I had one here in Wisconsin, especially this time of year. Like now. I've got some work I need to do replacing a vent in C-Traveler. I have the webasto heater that keeps the cabin warm, but working on the roof in below freezing weather, and this coming week, highs in the teens, isn't any fun....I think we'll get some low 30 days in another week, that will probably be the warmest I get for a while... Best of luck with finishing up both boats. And great work on the shop!