Comet #2858 in Dry Dock

I own a late 1940s vintage wooden sailboat, a Comet, which was designed by C. Lowndes Johnson and first published in Yachting magazine in 1932.

The boat is cedar plank construction, with a plywood deck covered with painted canvas.  I believe that a cut in that canvas, along the port side of the deck, allowed moisture to get into the deck and hull material; a hard lesson learned about maintaining all aspects of a wooden boat.  Additionally, the boat cover sits down on that part of the deck, and is often wet from rain or snow.

This resulted in rot in both the plywood deck and the upper part of the hull along the port side gunwale. It was possible to poke a finger right through the wood.

Here is the start of the effort, having stripped off both layers comprising the gunwale.  The hull plank behind the gunwale shows deterioration.  This was done at the yacht club in Chestermere, but I soon realized there was too much work to do remotely, so it had to be towed home.

The next photo shows some of the worst area, with a bit of deck plywood pried up, and the top edge of the hull thoroughly rotted.  But the decay is limited to the top inch or two.

I cut open the deck, using a straight edge guide with a circular saw set at 45º, to provide a bit of gluing surface for the replacement piece. You can see deterioration of the removed plywood.  Note the coaming forward of the removed deck is severely damaged.

Just as the deckand hull had rotted, so had the ribs and deck beams of the boat frame.  But this was only in the immediate vicinity of the gunwale.  I was able to hand cut the rotted bits off, back to sound wood, to create a scarf joint.  While the joinery is not furniture quality, the joint is glued using filled epoxy, compensating for any inaccuracy in the cuts.

Once the frame parts were repaired, the next step was to cut off the top +/- 3” of the hull plank.  I bought a cedar 1x4 to replace the upper part of the hull plank.  It was used as the guide to cut the hull with a circular saw, so that any deviation from a straight line in the edge of the 1x4 would be matched in the cut line of the hull.

The cedar 1x4 was trimmed to rough size, and scarf joints cut at each end to mate with similar cuts cut in the existing hull.  The piece was glued to the frame with Titebond III, and to the edge and scarf joints of the hull planks with filled epoxy.

After epoxy was set, the added piece was planed and sanded flush with the rest of the hull plank.

New deck is 1/4” marine fir plywood (stocked at Windsor Plywood), glued with filled epoxy along the 45º bevelled edges, and nailed with ringed copper nails, salvaged during the earlier demolition stage.  A bit of added pressure was needed on the forward part, due to the curvature of the surface.  A few concrete pavers served for the purpose.

Deck plywood was rough trimmed, and would be sanded flush with the existing deck.

The “Sub Gunwale” was installed, then the deck trimmed flush.

All bare wood, and surfaces that will be repainted, are primed with a 2-part marine epoxy primer (water based).

Cotton canvas is (sparsely) glued with epoxy over the primed plywood. The weave will be filled with exterior latex paint, providing water protection and leaving some texture for grip.  Blending the new canvas into the old was difficult, requiring epoxy to fill the weave along the transition, and sanding to a smooth transition. 

The outer gunwale is made from Sapele, which is harder and stronger than mahogany, and readily available, and not dissimilar in appearance.

The damaged part of the existing coaming was cut off, and the replacement board clamped on and a mating scarf joint cut, just visually aligning.

Repaired coaming, attached and shaped and sanded.

The state of the boat when winter caused work to be suspended.  There are 3 coats of epoxy on the repaired brightwork (port gunwale and coaming), and 1 coat of white paint on the entire deck.  Varnish and more coats on the deck will complete the effort in the spring.

I got this boat free off the internet in 1988 (yes the internet existed back then, in universities), from a chap at Pigeon Lake.  He was finding this one difficult to sail solo, but had other boats he could manage, so he gave this away, complete with very fine cotton sails.  I did restore some parts of the boat, particularly the centreboard trunk, before launching it in 2009 in Chestermere, where I have sailed ever since, or at least until spring of this year.

My first ever racing event was the Commodore’s Regatta.  Another sailor approached as my son and I were rigging the boat still on the trailer, and asked if it was a Comet.  He used to crew on a Comet when he was a young lad of 7 or 8, up at Pigeon Lake.  So he pulled out his iPhone (with his 700 best sailing photos), and brought up the photo of that boat from 1953 (below).  We were surprised to see the sail numbers matched!