There are many very good posts here on rebuilding J30's. I have been reading through all of them and using that information as the basis for the work I intend to do over the next several months. For the most part I will use video to show what I am seeing, how I worked through the problem and then hopefully the results and I will post links to updates here. These will be very simple and quick productions to minimize the time it takes to put them together and get them uploaded.

I have no problem with any comments on my solutions and processes, so feel free to add them here or on YouTube.

This is a new to me boat and I have not even sailed it at this point. After moving the boat from Hood River, OR to St. Helens, OR about a 95 mile trip my friends and I had the boat hauled out and put on a trailer I located so that I could put the boat next to my shop. While I have never rebuilt a monohull of any sort I have done many large projects in the past so it not overwhelming to take on the many issues this boat has. I am confident that between the information available here and elsewhere on the web that I can work through each issue successfully. I am in no rush to get this work done and am currently shooting for late next spring to relaunch.

I have a survey scheduled in a little over a weeks time and that will form the basis for several parts of this project, but certainly not all of it. The highest priority will be for anything related to reliability and preserving the boat itself.

This boat was not in "bad" condition or would even have been considered a "project" boat when I started. But there was a lot of deferred maintenance items owing in part to lack of access to yard to do work where the previous owner lived in Hood River. From what I can tell this boat started out on the right coast and sailed in Boston then went to San Diego before going to Hood River. So it has been around a bit and hopefully I can extend the life of this boat by a good many years.

Here is the link for the first installment:
Majic Carpet Rebuild

I cringed when I first saw the images of the chunk taken out of the front of the keel, anticipating damage aft at the hull to keel joint. After viewing the progress in the video it doesn't look too bad--that small crack is typical. Good luck we will following along!

Thank you for this excellent video. We are rebuilding the inside floor this winter. It is nice to see the details ahead of project.

Does anyone have images of new cabin soles. I have ideas about how I would do it, but I really like seeing someone else's solution first and what did and didn't work. For sure there is going to be much more ventilation underneath the sole. I haven't checked the level of the cabin for reference points yet, but even if this area in front of the engine and between the sink and cooler are slightly low, so what? Sooner or later water laying in this area will either migrate to the bilge, or should get wiped up if the marina you are docking in is so tame as to not ever rock/tilt the boat very much. It is the dam that the vermiculite makes that is the problem by retaining the water in this area IMHO.

I was all into going down the quartersawn white oak path when I heard from the 1st in command that mahogany might be preferred. I think either would work well. I also looked at Ipe, but it doesn't like being worked or glued.

Making headway getting this thing out cleanly, but it is not easy.

coastie,

I did the same project, should be on an older thread. I used an oscillating saw all along the edge of the existing sole, pulled it out as one piece and refinished it. Once i had all the vermiculite chipped away and cleaned up, I used wood which I glassed in to hold the redone sole at the correct height and orientation. A few stainless buttonhead screws through the sole and into the wooden stringers keep it secure and allow me to remove it again anytime I need access in the future.

keep the pieces you've removed and use them as a template for the new one

I have saved the floor bits to use as a template for replacement, but do not intend to do the removable piece the same and will also add an inspection hatch between the cooler and the sink. It sounds like you made a monolithic sole, or is it in sections?

I left the "wings" of the floor sole (areas just next to the engine compartment running to the swinging cupboard area) attached. The rest comes out as a unit if any inspecting is required. Held in place by eight screws.

I have had discussions with my engineer friends and we are of a mind that all that fairing compound actually served a valuable purpose in that it provided a crush zone to absorb and dissipate a lot of the energy that was directed at the keel. I will be building that area back up with what might be a bit stronger material that has some fibers in it.

The other part of this is that in my part of the Columbia River we have sandbars, wing dams and various kinds of junk in the river that would be relatively soft to hit. Whereas I think the Hood River section has hidden rock outcroppings that were likely responsible for the nasty hit this keel took.

That might be giving a lot of credit to the Pearson yard rats of the late seventies and early eighties. The first J/24 was built in 76 right? Three years later there is a production line for another design, I doubt they were calculating for kinetic dampening effect of vermiculite. I'm likely wrong.


She's a tough craft, even the old ones. Have found my way onto something harder than water a few times in the last few years. CYC has a shallow bar off the port side end of the floats and several unmarked mooring blocks that sit in 5' of water on a super-moon low. That's just what I've found in the mooring field..., Maine's got a lot of shoal-y topography it turn out. She'll survive, even without the verm. '79 fastnet anyone?

I've been told there are three types of sailor. Those who've run aground, those that will, and liars.

Even better than that, every now and again you can coax her into moving pretty quickly too. We took 3rd in our beer can division this year and even took a 3rd overall in the larger Gulf of Maine Racing Association standings. Believe me, if we can get her moving competitively, you can too.

Glad you're breathing some new life into one of em', she hasn't let me down yet and most everyone here, who mostly have far more experience than I, I think would claim the same.

Good luck with the rebuild

Nope - never run aground when I had Rhapsody. This just appeared when I hauled the boat....


I can tell you where almost every rock is on Narragansett Bay!