Having purchased GBR 1537, a highly modified Morrison 12 (C), and successful boat, she was showing her age and suffering from a degree of neglect. While the hull itself was solid, the deck hardware, , foils and paint work needed attention.
The underwater hull was suffering from blistering and the hull was covered in the bents and dings from the sailing and leaving cracks in the hull. Also the owner had had to remove the Centreboard base plate leaving the securing screws exposed.
And it was very Yellow!
When the boat was weighed it also turned out to be about 5 kilos over weight, so there was an opportunity to reduce the weight the boat.
Stripping the fittings
Having sailed the boat in October and November it became clear that the control systems needed updating and improving to make it easier to sail the boat. So in December of 2016 the boat was taken over to Ireland where it was parked in a Garage with a powerful dehumidifier.
The first job was to remove all of the old fittings, which proved a varied task, some came off really easily, other less so, T Bear did resort to the power drill for some of the fittings and in one case a Dremel!
A lot of the aluminium fittings (Clam cleats etc) were badly corroded and some non-marine stainless fixings had been used which had rusted so there was a lot tidying up to do.
It took about one full day to remove everything and photograph the existing systems. So we could have a reference for the new systems design.
Next stage was to sand the hull.
