J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment New J30 Owner

Perhaps a more appropriate title would be "woefully under experienced and underprepared sailors impulsively purchase a j30 desperately in need of a lot of love".

Hi all,

My fiancé and I have just upgraded from our sunfish. Well, maybe the situation is not quite that desperate. After returning to Portland after a cruise to Bar Harbor in our borrowed Pearson 26, we decided that we wanted more and faster (the Pearson got very small very quickly after 11 days at sea) and our "new" J30 just happened to drop into our laps. Let's clear that up too, new she is not; she's a 79' probably best described as a "project" boat. She has a winters worth of projects to keep me busy but I have a few immediate ones necessary before I can launch and sail her back to Portland, I am writing in the hopes that experienced J30 owners might save me some time and effort in this process.

Short list of immediate projects prior to launch:

* 3 forward seacocks are seized, I am planning to rebuild them, should I replace?
* Yanmar is desperate need of oil change and fuel filter, is there/should I replace the oil filter as well?
*Several through hulls and cracks in the keel need fairing, what would you recommend for compound?
*Bottom needs sanding and painting

I'll save you all from the full list (it covers three pages), I am just trying to stick to the immediately necessary for now. Are there any other crucial projects specific to the J30 that I should look into? Thanks in advance for any advice you might lend.

Josh and Marly

Congratulations on your purchase, I'm sure our class president will be sending you a note too asking for all you info. I have a 79 boat too, brought out of Maine and now in Salem Ma. If the seacocks are frozen you can probably work them using a penetrating oil letting that sit and slowly working the ball valves. I might try taking one out to see how hard it is. As for the oil yes there should be a filter i would imagine you have a 2qm engine yanmar has all the info on that engine and you can get parts thru a yard in that area. As for minor fairing i would use either west system with a micro ballons or better yet get 3m vinelester fairing putty acts like bondo dries quick and is easy to work with... COmpound for your hull go to a automotive store and buy a polishing compound and a good buffer followed by a coat of wax. I like turtle wax. Bottom paint i would use an ablative paint like interlux micron extra or as the paint market is going a water based paint. Hope this helps to get you started you survey report should have problems noted on it if there are any.
Luke Buxton

Congratulations and welcome to the group Josh and Marly! I am another new owner who just recently got though the "important" list and recently splashed, and am sure that you will appreciate the abundant information here as well as various owner's blogs like Bill's:
http://j30rhapsody348.blogspot.com which includes engine information like oil changes, zincs, pump impellers and the like.
As far as seacocks go, I had a lot of work to do on Blitz in that regard to meet insurance/survey requirements. I agree with Luke... lots of penetrating oil like PB Blaster or Kroil, though that didn't work in my case. I had good luck with Perko seacock rebuilding which was better than complete removal and refairing, which I also did for another seacock. This still requires getting the top nut off without destroying it, and getting the driver nut (stem nut) out, which can be destroyed if need be. Just be aware that you might need both the rebuild kit (seats and ball) as well as the driver stem kit. If you have anchor locker seacock requirements, you might consider special ordering the 932263N part directly from Forespar, which threads onto the straight thread bronze thru-hull and fits in the area.
For bottom paint, it is important to determine what was on there... being blue, it could be VC Offshore (a racing bottom paint), which would need to be completely removed if you were going to switch types. In all cases, parts of the bottom recently faired or sanded down to fiberglass should be primed with barrier coat like Interprotect 2000.

Good luck - the learning and labor will be worth it!

Chris
Blitz #357

Thanks for the help! I'll definitely try the penetrating catalyst before rebuilding. Our surveyor recommended the water based ablative bottom paint and the guys at the local hamilton marine told me that it covers most everything and can be burnished to a racing finish. Would this be an issue with "VC offshore?"

cheers,

Josh

Josh, Good news! We are enjoying our first summer with Kinesis ,# 497, and loving it. We are at Centerboard Yacht Club in South Portalnd and will look for you on the water. Hopefully, we can connect at some point. For information and lots of other stuff this website and it's members are fantastic. Sam

Hi Sam,

Marly and I are at centerboard too, we've been racing Anita's Pearson 26, Jubilee, in the wednesday night series and we're parking the new acquisition on the mooring Peter Babyak just vacated! Small world, you'll definitely see us out there.

So bottom faired, painted, seacocks un-seized and an unholy amount of housekeeping finished. Oil change and boot stripe today, sails and electronics loaded tomorrow and we splash on wednesday out of royal river boatyard. It'll be down river, around Cousins, past Falmouth Foreside and into her new home in Portland harbor.

I have a strange question that has Marly and I scratching out heads. We have the anchor well to starboard and a rope locker forward of the vberth... but no haws pipe... i have to be missing something or do all you j30 skippers out there retrieve your line from the locker, your anchor from the well, assemble it on deck and throw the ole' parking hook over the side? Then reel her in, diss-assemble and stow in their separate compartments? Or will a decent amount of line fit into the anchor well with the anchor and chain? Just curious...

-Josh

There is a deck fitting just offset to starboard from the bow for a cowl vent. Usually the cowl is removed and covered by a deck plate when not in use. That acts as a hawsepipe to store the anchor rode in the locker in the bow with the line fed aft on deck and attached to the anchor through the hole in the forward end of the anchor locker. It's possible that a prior owner glassed over this fitting and Class rules now allow you to do so.

Hmmm, I haven't been looking for it specifically but I haven't noticed it, perhaps is has been glassed over. I wonder if I can find some blueprints or schematics so i can re-install? I promised Marly that we'd be doing plenty of coastal cruising and not just racing it (she was strongly in favor of an O'day 30) so a hawspipe or cowl would make that a lot easier.

Engine work wrapped up, boot stripe on. Electronics will be installed and sails hung tomorrow, cant wait to get her in the water.

Cheers,

Josh

for the dorade fitting take a look in the forepeak you should be able to see were it was plugged it should be on the starboard side. It you cut it in make sure that you seal up the balsa core with epoxy (West System is a J30 owners best friend)

Or you can get a anchor rode bag and keep the chain and rode in it which is what I do that way when you are racing it can live in the just aft the the bulkhead

On 505 we have the off shore plug in as water can get down below when the bow dips into short steep waves. Salt water managed to get into some of my wire connections for the nav lights. good to replace those wires every 25 years.

The dorade is same, same as the engine air ventilation ones on the stern -- one faces forward and one faces back.
the forward one connected to a dryer hose goes to the bottom of the engine compartment and the back one goes to the top of the engine compartment. at least that's how it works on the 500 series.