Repairing the Emilily
The Emilily is a 1971 Sunfish sailboat. When Emily and I found the Emilily, she had been tucked away in my grandpa's garage for about 30 years. The Emilily appeared to have all of its original parts, but it was in poor repair from disuse. Once we unpacked the boat, we noticed it had a large hole in the bottom. We stripped the crumbling filler off and fiber glassed the area. Mice had also made a home in the Emilily's sail, so it needed to be patched.
Before fiberglass repair After fiberglass repair
After sail was patched Before/during sail repair
Painting the Emilily
The Emilily had quite a few small dents along the body of the boat, which we patched with marine filler. After the body of the boat was filled and sanded, the Emilily badly needed a new coat of paint. The Emilily started off dark blue with two white racing stripes across the nose. Our plan was to repaint the Emilily light blue with a white bottom.
Cutting out the Emilily's pattern
Taping off boat the trim
Preparing to paint the bottom of the boat
Marine gel coat is a cocktail of several very toxic chemicals, such as methyl ethyl ketone. To prevent from inhaling cancer, we wore respirators every time the jars of chemicals were open.
Mixing the gel coat components
Spraying the first layer of the two part pattern
Peeling off the contact paper to create the pattern
We created the two part pattern, using about a hundred cut out pieces of contact paper. As soon as the second layer of paint was sprayed, the contact paper had to be removed before the gel coat cemented them permanently to the boat.
The final pattern, before the metal parts were reattached
The finished Emilily sitting in the driveway, on the refinished and rewired original trailer
Modeling the original wooden dagger board
Close up of the finished pattern and repainted decorative fin
Sailing the Emilily
The total list of repairs we did to the Emilily were: fiber glassed the hole in the bottom of the boat and the crack in the center line in the foot well, filled dents with marine filler, repainted bottom white and repainted top blue with two layer Hawaiian inspired pattern, redid pop rivets on trim, attached new pulley, patched sail, added new strap to restrict tiller handle movement, reattached fitted parts, repainted decorative fin, and added a protective clear gel coat.
Special thanks to Paul Knafl, without whose time and slightly sarcastic teaching this project would not have been possible!
