Bottom Paint on the Mariner

Another great day of work on the Mariner with a special visit from Mariner Class Association member John Davies, #3337. John drove up from Traverse City with his wife to take a look at my boat and offer his extensive knowledge of the Mariner and personal recommendations on the condition of the boat and the repairs I am undertaking. I am very grateful for his generosity.

John told me the repairs thus far look good and made a great list of the next steps. His first recommendation was that I get the trailer rollers in proper contact with the hull so that I can prevent the same issues coming back. Next, scraping or grinding out the interior of the hull/deck joint and adding 3M 5200 to prevent water getting in at that point.

He confirmed my observation that there does not appear to be any lead ballast in the typical area along the CB trunk in my boat. Our thought is that this was a Spindrift-only variation. Perhaps because of this the CB trunk does look like it needs reinforcing as I noticed with the cracks around the opening, John recommended reinforcing this area all around the trunk with several layers of glass.

The biggest structural repair that needs to be attended to eventually is that the rear crossmember of the hull liner is delaminating from the hull. In fact most of the hull liner around the cabin sole, quarter berths and at the support member are delaminating from the outer hull. Perhaps this was a result of the Spindrift manufacturing process? I will post pictures when I have a chance to take some more in the cabin and under the cockpit. John recommended fixing the tabing and adding new glass over the the joints when I have the time.

After John left, I sanded down yesterday's glassing and put on the first coat of bottom paint. The bottom paint I am using is West Marine's Bottom Shield which should work well for the limited time my boat spends in the water. My short term plan is to add a few more coats of bottom paint, finish removing the old beat up stickers from the hull, re-bed the deck hardware, and thoroughly clean the topsides, and then go sailing! Other projects that I hope to get to this summer are sealing the hull/deck joint, reinforcing the CB trunk, and fixing the joint between the hull liner and outer hull.

Fiberglassing the Mariner

I spent the day grinding out a bit more in the target areas and then laying glass. The cracked area on the starboard side where a bunk had pressed in turned out to be much larger than I realized. The area had multiple weak points, damaged areas, and was completely waterlogged. I ground out all the bad glass tapering the edges back and dried it out as best as I could before glassing over the hole. I ended up with 7 layers of thick glass matting which I estimated to be about the thickness of the original hull.

I was not able to add glass on the inside at this time as I have not cut into the berths yet. It also looked like the cracked area was directly beneath the corner of one of the berths because I was able to see the vertical end of a piece of plywood right behind it. The plywood, though waterlogged, appeared to be in good condition. My hope is that this will eventually dry out? I have drilled through the hull and will be adding a bronze garboard drain so even if I do get more water in the winter, at least it will not collect. Perhaps I will be able to add more glass from the inside when I start exploring the insides of the quarter berths.

As soon as I took a grinder to the damaged area at the front of the CB trunk (where I thought it had been hit) the fiberglass turned out to be extremely weak and I noticed signs of a previous repair with a hard white substance. I ground out everything and added glass matting and then biaxial on top. I did not get to building it up to the original shape and perhaps will come back to that. I then glass along the very corner of the CB trunk all the way round. I am not sure this really added all that much strength as I only added one layer of fabric, but I figure it's better than nothing. My hope is that with epoxy paint, the boat will at the least be considerably more watertight than before.

My next task will be removing the deck fittings and rebedding everything in an attempt to keep out rainwater. I'd love to paint the deck as well, but am not sure about what to do with the hairline cracking. Maybe I will leave that for another time.

Last but not least, I believe that the majority of the water that got into the boat over the winter got in at the low points of the hull/deck joint as the boat was fairly well covered over the winter and still took on a couple of inches of water. My thinking is that those areas would be where any ingress of water would collect. I wonder if there is a recommended way of sealing these that doesn't involve removing the riveted section. I am considering caulking the inside with something like 3M 5200.

I am really looking forward to sanding, painting, and getting this thing back in the water.

Centerboard Trunk Cracks

I spent 4 hours sanding to the bottom yesterday and got the majority of the existing paint off and established an even roughed up surface. I focused a bit more on the damaged areas and tried to get them down to bare glass.

One thing I noticed during my prolonged time on my back under the boat was that there were quite a few hairline stress cracks all the way around the CB trunk right at the corner of the opening through the hull. I do remember the CB trunk moving side to side a good bit when I had her out sailing last year. At the time I thought it could be normal, but now I am wondering if this could be the cause of the cracks.

I also noticed a good bit of cracking and gelcoat chipping around the front of the CB trunk slot. This looks like it was caused by the CB being dropped and hitting the front of the trunk. My hope is to grind these areas down a bit more and lay fresh glass over them, sand and fair, and then paint with an epoxy barrier coat.

Mariner 19 "Grebe" 2018 Season

It’s been a busy year and I am finally getting around to thinking about putting “Grebe” back in the water. I bought my ’81 Spindrift Mariner last spring. She was in pretty rough shape. Luckily I didn’t pay much for the boat and trailer as the previous owner had let it sit uncovered for a year or two and the boat had filled with water (and probably frozen). One of the side effects of this was that (because the trailer wasn’t fitted properly to the boat) I have some hull deformation where the trailer bunks pressed into the hull and a crack at one of those points which I have temporarily fixed with epoxy. Apart from that, the boat cleaned up really well. I sailed her quite a bit last summer and thoroughly enjoyed the Mariner’s handling and ease of sailing. I am getting ready to put her back in the water and in anticipation of that I have a few questions.

Hull damage 
First off, I’m really more interested in having fun with the boat and actually sailing it than making this thing look perfect. The hull deformations don’t really bother me as much as the leak… I’d like to be able to leave it on our mooring for a week or two without worrying that it’s going to take on enough water to sink. (I also have a couple of bilge pumps and solar panels, so I can rig those up as well, but I would prefer to figure out the leaks on their own. When I first put the boat in the water it would take on about 2-4 inches of water per hour. That was when I found the crack in the hull where one of the bunks had actually pressed in enough to create a crack in the hull. I did a quick fix on that last summer and got the boat to the point where it would only take on a couple of inches of water over night. The location of the two deformations and the crack is right under the quarter berths (where I can't see it). My tentative plan is to sand the hull, re-epoxy/fiberglass the cracked area, and then paint the hull. A more involved idea I had was to cut large access holes in the quarter berth, build some reinforcing structure in there to repair the hull shape, repair the leak from the inside with fiberglass, fill with fresh floatation foam, and re-fiberglass the quarter berths. Sounds like a lot of work that might be a later project!

Hull and deck paint 
As far as hull paint, I have been reading everything I can on the Mariner forums and on Nate B's Orion website. I do think that I am going to repaint the hull and deck this summer. It sounds there are a lot of options for paints. I am thinking I will try the roll and tip method of application. For the deck, I have a lot of the usual spider cracks. I am not sure if a thorough sanding and painting will take care of that for a couple of years, or should I consider a more involved approach with grinding out the cracks and filling them.