Restoration of hull #1 – Art & Scott Melendres (Part 2 of 3)
Many of you know that we have found Hull #1 here in Long Beach and are in the process of restoring it. Upon first setting eyes on it the boat didn’t look to be too bad. However, as most of us know, “looks can be deceiving.” Once we started digging into it we found a lot of unanticipated problems just under the surface. There were soft spots on the deck, the mast step was thoroughly waterlogged, the transom had live termites actively munching away, the front hatch was useless and a myriad of other issues that couldn’t be seen but had to be dealt with.
A major issue in the restoration process was the abundance of holes that had to be filled. It appears the previous owners put winches and other equipment in a variety of places and each installation created holes. Holes that needed to be filled. I guess their philosophy on deck layout was when in doubt put something in. Our philosophy is “Less is More.” To make matters worse, we ourselves, broke one of the windows while moving the boat around via a trailer. Aggravating, but not pivotal since all the windows need to be replaced anyway.
Our recent trip to Detroit gave us a lot of ideas, some of which will be included in the restoration. There’s a lot of well appointed boats in Detroit. A particular favorite of mine is the LED backlit wine rack that Mark Pinney had in his boat Chickenhawk. I can certainly visualize the functionality of that little item. Don’t know if we’ll include it but it’s getting a lot of thought. Hope he doesn’t have a patent on it.
At any rate the restoration is coming along steadily, albeit a bit slower than I and the marina management would like. The boat sports a brand new bottom so I will guess it’s not going to sink anytime soon. Target date for completion is May 1st. That’s because our Wet Wednesday racing starts in May and I refuse to go out in a trashy boat.
— Art Melendres
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