1980 Endeavour 32
Name: Melvin L Donahoo Jr.
Boat Name: St Regis
Year: 1980
Size: 32' sloop
Date Purchased:1994
Boat History:
3rd owner of boat. 2nd owner purchased in 1990, sailed Chesapeake Bay. 1st owner since new, Gulf of Mexico, Texas.
Boat Upgrades:
Boat hull was painted with Awlgrip in 1993. New main 94, added roller reefing 95 and new 150 jib. In 92 the water tank top was replaced and tank cleaned.Winter 95 tore out entire headliner and unstepped mast due to water saturation in cabintop. During the winter I drilled 1/8" holes into bottom of cabintop at about 2" spacing and used heat lamps to remove most of the water. Then installed new headliner. I never sealed up the holes as all the moisture was not removed and I thought over time it would continue to dry. I never had any delamination of the cabintop and to this day still don't. Been checking the cabintop with a moisture meter periodically since repair and readings are static. Also rebeded the teak grabrails (for those who wish to know they are bolted through the cabintop with nuts and washers on the inside. Would be very hard to remove to rebed without destroying headliner.) and fixed a minor mast compression problem on the cabintop. The source of water leaking into the cabintop was partly from the grabrails but mainly from where the hole was cut through the cabintop at the mast base. As where the wires of the mast pass through the hole was never sealed at the factory and over the years water ran down the mast as it does and wicked into the plywood core of the cabintop. Sure hope the boys at the factory sealed all the other boats.
Boat since 1990 has only had one or two blisters but what I found this spring is that the gellcoat is starting to delaminate, flaking off the hull. sounds loose when you tap on the hull in some spots. What I found after grinding down some spots was that a barrier coat was put on top of the gellcoat (after removing all the bottom paint) probably by the first owner sometime before he sold the boat to the 2nd owner. I west system over the worst areas which I removed the gellcoat with a grinder and put the boat back in the water for the season. I'll probably remove all the gellcoat and West System the bottom this winter. If only the first owner would have done the job right and removed the gellcoat instead of sealing over it.
Future projects planned are to add self-tailing winches and setup for single handed sailing. replace alcohol stove with propane and a bimini top.
Brief Sailing Experiences:
First big boat I ever sailed on was the one I bought although I had extensive sailing on Hobie Cats and Windsurfing and years of powerboating on the Chesapeake Bay. The only thing I really needed to learn was how to get in and out of the slip at the dock. Since then I've been on a round trip to Bermuda in 95 on a friends Whitbey 42.
Hope this info might be of some help to others. In all I am very pleased with my boat and she has brought me great enjoyment. My only words of wisdom about working on boats are...
It's a boat, you bought it for fun, if it's not sinking it doesn't need to be done right now. Work on projects at a pace that's enjoyable to you, it will get done. Boats are never perfect, that's a Yacht. Boats sail and Yachts stay at the dock. I'll never own a yacht.