The Blandford Rebuild - Initial Inspection

Ok.

Last night was the first real chance we had to thoroughly inspect the boat. After getting it off the trailer, I washed the whole thing down with a high-pressure hose loosening all the dust and bird crap off the deck. I also made sure to really blast the water along the joints between the boards to break off any old sealant that had become brittle and could potentially jeopardise the integrity of the hull. 

After letting it sit for a while, we identified two problem areas:

There’s a leak between the centre-board housing and the hull – not a massive one, but enough to be a bit of a concern. So the plan is to fibre glass this area (both on the inside of the boat and on the hull) to ensure there’s no chance of any leak. Fibre glassing the hull will also protect it from scratches and dings when we’re loading it on and off the trailer.

Centre-board housing as seen from inside the boat

The other problem we identified is the stern storage compartment – there seems to be a small amount of wood rot inside and the majority of the seals are failing. The fact that there’s no drainage hole or bung for this compartment is not helping the situation. Also, it’s quite a difficult space to get to as there’s only one small access hatch which is going to make sanding a bit fiddly. Seeing as this is just a storage hatch and nobody will really see it, there’s no need to spend too much time making it look good. I’m going to rather ensure that this area is as watertight as possible by installing a bung so that any water can easily be drained and then paint the inside with some sort of epoxy. This should sort out the rot – or at least prevent any more.

Stern storage compartment

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