Hi everyone,

I have been talking about my restoration of a 1977 H16. The hulls had some holes, gouges, badly worn keels and some sort of huge/weird chemical burn on one side of a hull. I used epoxies and vinly esters to repair and fair her out nicely. ...Believe me when I say this was much more involved than my description implies. Once they were perfect, I used a true 2hp compressor and a $40 dollar paint gun to apply a two-part polyurethane finish. Specifically, three coats of epoxy primer with the third coat thinned %15. And three topcoats of super-gloss white and canary yellow - with the third coat thinned %15. I also stripped the original mustard tramp of contaminants and re-dyed it black. New gromets are on order. All aluminum castings were acid stripped and all anodized aluminum was polished. Presently, I have just completed a two step acid strip and refinish of the old (galvanized) trailer using the same coating system and colour scheme. I will provide photos and specifics on that at a later date. I am now assembling the boat and trailer while awaiting some small parts and new sails.

I hope you enjoy the photos (although I am a poor photographer). I hope it gives you some idea, and confidence, of what can be done with an old boat - and this old boat was in pretty rough shape. While photographing, it was difficult to accurately show the shine/finish of the topsides (yellow) because of the overhead sunshine, so some photos were taken in different light to show the best of each colour. Unfortunately, this makes the canary/banana yellow look like mustard in most of the photos. However, when you look close at the white bottoms in the last few photos, I can tell you that the topsides turned out even finer.


Dave