Westerly Owners Association

Painting the fibreglass is a sure recipe for condensation.

Alan, The bolts through the stringers won't affect the strength it just allows moisture into the core. As long as the top surface is not breached and the stringers are well attached to the hull even the core being rotten should have no effect. Someone shaved the top surface from a number of the stri...

Sounds like someone's idea of beefing up the stringer. Won't do much good in that department though. I hope the holes that the bolts past through on the originals were sealed or the core is going to be soaked in water and diesel. If you are getting smells then that is a good place to start looking.

From a nearby boat maybe but how do you know[DISAPPOINTED FACE]

Be warned that rudder is HEAVY:-(

Big problem with fractional rig is the increased tension in the standing rigging. I was told it had to be kept tight or there was a risk to the mast. His then feeds back into the chainplates causing the likes of your problem if they are not substantial enough. The Konsort has the same bar below for ...

Fully agree Phillip, once you start doing anything like sanding or grinding you are going to be in an area with lots of dust in very short order. I generally do an area then go out and let the dust settle before cleaning up. It settles quite quickly.

I previously owned a fractional rig Dufour 1800 and as it was my first boat I asked questions about rig tension. The answer I got was you can't tighten a fractional rig properly unless you are on the wind with the Lee shrouds loose. I didn't get around to doing that I must admit but the boat went on...

Is it still the same with the tension released?

I use 3M dust masks which come in around £15 but will last some time. The filters are non replaceable but a quick pass with a vacuum cleaner keeps them going. No fumes or dust get through.

Hi and welcome to the group. If there is a conduit down the inside of the mast you will see pairs of pop rivets at regular spacing down the length of the mast. That doesn't mean previous owners or people they have employed will have used it as it can sometimes be tricky to get cables into the condui...

Bent keelbolt don't necessarily indicate an underwater collision I am afraid to say. More likely the guys trying to get the bolts into the hull when lowering it onto the keels. My Konsort has the same thing.

That's a big question. It is very easy to do as I did and end up with an empty shell. The floors and stringers were in a very poor state with the top of a number of them having been removed I assume to level the cabin sole. There had also been very large holes cut in some of them to pass the pipe fo...

Having said that I remember going there and ending up with nothing left in the hull due to taking out iffy bit after iffy bit [CONFOUNDED FACE]. There lies madness down that road.

Excuse me saying this but it looks even worse than it sounded. Not certain it wouldn't be better removed and replaced completely then the hull could be completely cleaned back for re-glassing.