Thread: 1963 Heron Sailboat repair and restoration

Hi Craig,

looks like you're doing a fine job. Just remember - its a $250 1963 plywood boat, not a piano. Now is the time to be pragmatic and do what needs to be done to get it on the water, not in to a boat show (at least, that's what I kept telling myself during my project).

The crack that you see at the bow of the boat is the line between the ends of the planks and the outer stem. A crack there might not actually be the cause of the leak because the planks are fastened to a frame that sits just behind the outer stem. I'm not sure how your boat is configured, but many Herons have a sealed bouyancy chamber at the bow, so if the crack at the stem is the cause of the leak, it would actually be leaking in to that chamber rather than the cockpit.

I'd say there is a good chance the leak is coming from around the centre board case or the bolt that holds the centre board in place. How does the boat look on the inside?

Hi Craig,

Looks like a nice restoration job you have there. I'm doing a similar boat to yourself. The thread is here

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f32/restoring-jack-holt-vagabond-100708

and I'm also trying to keep a Blog reasonably up to date here

https://www.woodworkforums.com/blog.php?u=27678

The Vagabond is like the younger French cousin of the Heron.

Like you, mine is mostly structurally sound, with not too many repairs to be made, but I'm scraping off varnish, not paint, but the theory is the same. The heat gun has been my weapon of choice, but it's most effective where the varnish if thick. If it's too thin and dried out then I have to resort to sanding. For sanding I change between a B&D Mouse sander that can get into all the nooks and crannies, and a random orbital disc sander, that can take it off in a real hurry.

I'm probably slightly ahead of where you are now. I've fully stripped the outer hull and have done some patch ups on it. I've also mostly stripped the cockpit, and have started epoxying the bulkheads.

Good luck with your boat. The stripping and sanding can be hard work at times, and I know how you feel with your arms dropping off, but the better the surface preparation, the more likelihood that the paint will stay stuck.

However, one of the tips that I read somewhere in one of the threads in this forum relating to finishing...Always remember the 6' rule. If you won't notice it if you're standing 6' away from it, then it probably doesn't matter. Mind you, ask Daddles...I'm not very good at sticking to this rule and often can't see the forest for the leaves.
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Hawk

Mikey: Yes, it is leaking into that boyancy chamber, but I am going over the whole hull anyway. The last thing I want is to go through almost the right process, put it on the water... and sink! I DO apply the 6' test. Then confuse feet with inches.. and end up doing a lot more. I will try to be pragmatic about what I do. The end result must be a structurally sound, with no hand grenades, tidy and presentably boat. It doesn't need to be a restoration. I was thinking about replacing the timber beading around the gunwhales with a bead of rubber. Because that would seem to make more sense. Unsure yet. The only other thing I intend on doing is removing the forward deck and replacing that. If I have enough material left to do the rear, I will - just because it may match better. Everything stainless will get a polish, and the deck will probably get a dark stain. The gal (I think) guy wires willl get replaces with stainless. And that will be about it for her. Hull painted, of course! Not sure as to colour. Suggestions? I was thinking maybe a dark blue, and have a friend paint a large portion of the Aussie flag flying from the bow. Too tacky?

Hawk: Thanks mate - read your whole thread. Nice work! I hope I can come up with something like that. Thank god I don't have tar and do have epoxy! The Vagabond is a nice looking boat. Liked the detail on the transom and the deck.

Craig, did your boat have galvanised stays also?

My stays are galvanised and that's also something I'm planning on replacing.

I too am also thinking about colours...I have to choose something that goes with tan sails...I'm also open for suggestions. I want it to look a bit classic, so I think I've narrowed it down to royal blue, gold, cream or British Racing green.
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Hawk

Isn't British racing green a fail on a French boat?
Gold - too austentacious
Cream - you and everyone else, buddy
Royal Blue.... maybe!!
What about a deep red?

Yes....sorry... guy wires = stays

Originally Posted by CraigCanberra

Isn't British racing green a fail on a French boat?
Gold - too austentacious
Cream - you and everyone else, buddy
Royal Blue.... maybe!!
What about a deep red?

I like your summary...maybe that's what the last person who was doing up my boat said...as the colour of the paint they gave me with the boat is....deep red.
I'd dismissed it as I thought it would clash with the tan sails. Maybe it would go better than I realise. Sounds like a test might be in order.
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Hawk

LOL.... no, you're welcome

Originally Posted by Hawk

I too am also thinking about colours...

Hot pink

Richard

Back to my fave subject... me! I've done the stard side! Yay. Starting on the underside. Mate came around and we flipped the boat on the trailer and put a saw horse under it.

Unfortunately... the following has been found
-fibre tape on the starbd hull upper astern
-woodrot in the hull
-woodrot in the decking? I think? It could be structural. I may cry.

Anyways, here are some pics. Really keen for some suggestions. I'm not sure what to do about woodrot - the only solution I have is throw it away and build it again. And I probably know enough to make a dog's dinner out of that. I'm not going all purist on this, a fix is a fix. The reason for stripping the hull was to find anything now, to give it a paint, and to hopefully ensure that I will get a few years out of it before needing to do this again!

Pics - enjoy!

The nice thing about wooden boats is that they are repairable.
Carve out the rotted bits & replace them with new ply & etc.
How-to has been covered in other threads in this forum recently.
Also the current & immediate past issues of Australian Amateur Boat Builder magazine.
cheers
AJ

OK things are getting slightly more scary. Scraping the hull and kind of nearly went though it. More rot on the bottom, and there's a couple of fibreglass looking patches. What's the options? Do I cut a hole in the hull? Or put some anti-fungus stuff in it and fibreglass over it? Certiainly a section I was glad to find (in a way) because I don't think it would have lasted long.

You cut the bits out and replace them. As AJ said, this has been covered quite a few times in recent memory so with a bit of digging you should find all your answers. As for feeling a tad scared by it, I understand that and although I haven't had to do it myself, it seems to be fairly straight forward.

Just have a go mate, if you stuff it up, at least you've had a go before junking the boat which is better than junking the boat without having a go.

Richard

OK, I'll have a look. I don't really know my way around yet.

I think I love this old boat. I couldn't junk it. So if I stuff it up... I'm up for more money/expense/time/effort/grief from the wife

That last one is the killer...

And any clues about the backbone - What looks to have happened is the paint has been worn off by grounding, that's let water in, and the tape has eventually 'delaminated' from the timber. Somewhere here I think we have the previous owner's reported water entry into the forward boyancy comparment. I guess I have to take the tape off? Can't be re-stuck? And..my standard next question... how do you do it, and what is it called that I replace it with, and where do you get it?

Did I mention I am completely new at this working with timber thing? Nothing like going in the deep end (Unless you brought a leaking boat, like me!)

I've had a look through MikeyRoberts' thread, and he seems to have come across most of the issues you've got. I'm not sure about the expense of replacing the ply where it's rotting. Patching may be cheaper, but a lot more fiddly. Probably depends on how long you want to keep the boat for.

I don't know what it's like where you're from, but here in Adelaide, Herons are a popular class. That means even old tired boats get done up and sold on to people new to the sport as their cheap way to get onto the water. The less work the next person has to do to the boat before they can sail it, the more you can ask for it, which may offset the expense of having to pay a bit more now. The popularity of the class is one thing that I don't have in doing up an obscure boat like the Vagabond.

From what I've seen in the pictures so far, I'd probably just patch it with epoxy. Regarding the keel, I'd strip it back to bare wood and re-apply the tape. But then, I already have the epoxy and tape on hand.

For sourcing materials, previously I would have said CapeBoatWorks, as I thought they were in Canberra, but I just looked them up and they're now near Wollongong, so I can't really help there.
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Hawk