When you put stuff off it eventually still needs doing

Two of the systems I've left until now are the keel and the rudder.  My plan was to simply drop the keel and re-seal the surface.  ... sigh ...  not the case.  I know when I got the boat that it had one broken bolt.  Now, after closer examination it has at least 4 broken bolts.  Sistering up the bolts is totally impossible, besides, it's just plan bad engineering.  With a little research on google I've found the only two places in North America that even work on keels.  Both quote me over $10K for replacing the bolts.  This of course included shipping.
So, plan be.  Do what I'm good at.  Do it myself.  I've decided to wrap the keel with unidirectional fiberglass and epoxy.  First step after measure off the area ...  slow grind to remove the gelcoat on the overlap area and the lead keel.  Next, pre-cut all the unidirectional strips.  Then talk your friend into helping you.  He worked on one side while I worked on the other.

Ok, ya, I said two systems.  The rudder ... well, at least I don't have to send it anywhere but I still have to figure out how to get the dumb thing off.  It needs a total rebuild.  Maybe I'll just take a chainsaw to it, cut a gaping hole in the stern and start over.  Hey, now that's not a bad idea.
I ran across this article about another Spencer 42 owner who did a major rudder modification.  I can just copy what they did.

WOW, where's my boat really been all her life?

Before I even set up this blog a few years ago I established an email with the boat's name.  All the were all suppose to be forwarded to my main account.  OOPS ... either I forgot to set up mail forwarding or ... who knows or at this point even cares.  Anyway, today I was looking into setting up a new blog account and needed to verify the chasingsummer.s42 email account.  Hmmmm ... I can't get into it ... oh oops, I was trying chasingsummer without the s42.  Anyway, long story short I finally got into the account and found 6 wonderful emails that blog viewers, like you, had written to me from the "Contact Me" page link.

One of these emails was from the original owner of the boat, Lt Martin.  That's all that was listed on the Spencer Owner's website.  He had followed for a while but since the current owner hadn't kept up on the Spencer site he'd lost touch with the boat.  The following is the email that he sent me.  It fills in all the gaps from: oh, some one bought a boat to 30 years later when I found her abandon in a boat yard in Oceanside, CA.

Portlights are finally set in place

Way back, almost a year ago August I went about glassing in place the double thick backerboards for the later to be installed portlights from Newfound Metal.  I hadn't even purchased them yet.  They sent me a template drawing, which I used to lay out and accurately place the backer boards.

In January I recieved the portlights ... 10 of them ... six 7 x 15 inch and four 5 x 12 inch.  So, they just sat in the boxes until this week.

After watching their installation video several times and reading the installation instructions, I developed the best way to lay out and set mine in place.  Not having the metal template, which for a rental fee you can borrow from them, I developed my own way to use the beauty ring as a template by making points on bolts, drilling one index hole, then BANGING the other points to make drill marks.

After drilling small holes I set the ring on the cabin side and traced out the pattern.  Next, using a die grinder with a burr for the corners and 4-1/2 inch angle grinder with a diamond blade for the straight sections.

After I had cut a smooth surface on the fiberglass I used a router bit ... a very long router bit, with bearings at both ends of the cutting blades, to route out the wood from the backer boards.

Next, I fit in the Portlights.  Aren't they purrrrdy ???