45 foot 1970's IOR racer stored in a barn for 25 to 30 years

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Orion Jim

+1
Who scraps a keel unless it was to be melted and recast.

Exactly, at $1 /kg that keel would have been worth a quick $5,000. My guess is that a family member saw it as easy cash and sold it.

In my marina a boat with a 6,000lb keel was wrecked and, while still "owned" by the boat's owner, the hulk and keel were dragged separately to the storage yard adjacent to the guard's shack (which is manned 24/7 by two or more guards). Within 30 days the keel "disappeared". No guards, nor their boss, nor the marina manager, knew anything about it. Hmmm?

[jmschmidt]

My 69' built Newport 41 has no HIN but it has the inscription "Hull # 5" (of over 100 built) carved inside the transom. I have both CCA and IOR certificates for her. Originally designed by C&C as the "Red Line 41" the rights were sold to Lindsay Plastics of California. She came to Hawaii in the 1969 TransPac and has been here ever since. Great looking "destroyer" bow. HYRA champion boat for '70 and '71. Still completive for happy hour club racing.

[JPA Cate]

Welcome aboard CF, Ric.

Wow! What a lovely story.

The boat builder who built our boat and sold it to us after 8 yrs. went on (of course) to build more boats, one of which was for his own use. I don't know if you can pull off this sort of thing where you live, but he scrounged for recycled lead from various sources, built a mold out of concrete, in two parts. It was plastered to a very smooth finish. And allowed to dry during the hot summer. When the day came to cast the keel, it was done outside in the open air. The melting tank was set up over the opening in the top of the keel-to-be. The lead was melted, and whatever wasn't lead floated to the top where it was skimmed off and dropped to the ground to set up.

Eventually, the pour began, in the morning and, after it was about 1/3 full, the mold started to outgas. It was like a little volcano of melted lead blobs flying out of the keel. Well, you probably know the pour needs to all be molten, or it will not cohere. There was a lot of very careful capture and re-melting going on. Still not finished at sunset, the job was completed in the light of the car headlamps from the cars of the friends who had come to watch.

The next day, the remaining lead was melted down and poured into aluminum foil trays to make lead bricks, and all the machinery was taken back where it had come from.

The whole procedure would have destroyed a safety engineer; and when it was done, he had a usable keel that later traveled by trailer to the marina, where the boat was put down onto it, but that's another story.

I wish you every success with Mystery, and if you want to cruise her offshore eventually, now, while she is still all open plan, is when you will have to think about storage. You'll want to keep her light, but food and parts and tools take up a lot of room and need to be secure. Enjoy. She's a lovely project.

Ann

PS. She does not look like an IOR race boat to me, either. As Fred suggested, she lacks the pinched stern, but also, she has minimal tumblehome, compared to the old IOR race boat Jim and I sailed. Is it possible she's a one-off? If not, someone will come along here most likely, who is able to identify her.

[Russel2]

Originally Posted by Don C L

The keel was scrapped? Are you sure? I would suspect the owner had it removed and stored somewhere along with the sails. A boat in this condition with no keel and sails doesn't make sense.

Hi,

When the boat was placed in the barn those many years ago to be rewired and have new instruments installed, all of the lockers where cleaned out and the sails taken off. The sails were placed on the front bed of the trailer under the bow of the boat. The owner thought that the sails would be safe there. Although the sails stayed dry, unseen under the tarp, various rodents, varmints and birds nested and hibernated in the sails over the years. The owner said they were the used racing sails that came with the boat, so he disposed of them. I plan on getting a new suit of sails for the boat.

Ric

[Jim Cate]

Ric, you have likely already considered the fiscal aspects of your project, but just in case...

considering the many missing bits of this boat, the cost of getting her sailing again is gonna be quite high. There are usually a number of similar vintage race boats on the market with keel and sails, etc intact and at very attractive prices because the market for such boats is small (too much prejudice against them in the popular world). One can but wonder if such a boat would be, even now, a quicker and less expensive way to go, a way with a surer outcome?

Not wanting to be a nay-sayer, but hoping that you have made the analysis and found this route to be feasible, for to me it looks dubious.

Jim

[hpeer]

You might try contacting Ted Brewer about this boat. There is an off chance he can recognize it.

[hpeer]

I wonder if the keel was removed by the PO to lighten the load on the stands and the hull. A way to prevent hull deformation?

Hard to believe it got very far.

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

My 69' built Newport 41 has no HIN but it has the inscription "Hull # 5" (of over 100 built) carved inside the transom. I have both CCA and IOR certificates for her. Originally designed by C&C as the "Red Line 41" the rights were sold to Lindsay Plastics of California. She came to Hawaii in the 1969 TransPac and has been here ever since. Great looking "destroyer" bow. HYRA champion boat for '70 and '71. Still completive for happy hour club racing.

LOL I had a N41 by Lindsay ,,, absolute mess contructionwise built like a cheap RV in plumbing ,elect., hatches. A real mess with a gas jeep engine salt water cooled. hit a large wave once and the entire galley section broke loose-it was only held in place by 2 woodscrews. A real mess.

[Russel2]

Originally Posted by hpeer

I wonder if the keel was removed by the PO to lighten the load on the stands and the hull. A way to prevent hull deformation?

Hard to believe it got very far.

Hi,

The keel was removed by the previous owner about 1990. This was done so that when the boat was loaded onto the lowboy trailer, it was only about 13' 3" maximum height at the tip of the mast aft of the stern. The Ontario Highway Traffic Act only allows maximum load heights of 13' 6". The boat then travelled by highway to be stored in a barn on the owners farm. If you check the stern view picture in the photo album you will see that the bottom edge of the rudder is in the grass a few inches off of the dirt. The bottom edge of the old keel would have had about two feet greater draft than the rudder.

Cheers, Ric

[Russel2]

Originally Posted by zstine

Very nice find. We enjoy our '75 Tartan 41 IOR boat. Sails great!. The bow thruster is unusual for an IOR boat of that era. Either an aftermarket add on, or the boat was not designed as a serious IOR race boat.

Hi,

Yes, you are right, the bow thruster is not original. When the previous owner purchased the boat about 1990, he had a refit done at that time. He had a new Perkins Prima M60 engine installed and the boat's hull was painted blue. The blue is so dark that most people think the boat is black. During the 1990 refit, the bow thruster was also installed. The boat was then trucked to the barn on his farm where he was going to redo the electrical and instrumentation. Then the boat sat stored in the barn until I found it.

Cheers, Ric

[boatpoker]

If you find a 6 or 7 digit number with 3-4" high characters in a lasarette or on a main beam you may be able to trace "MYSTERY" through NOAA or USCG.

Most boats of this size would have been USCG document if she was a US boat.

Here is the NOAA search page.
https://foss.nmfs.noaa.gov/apexfoss/...803075168:::::

There have also been a couple of "MYSTERY" 's registered in Canada.
https://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur...rations/search


If she is a Bruckmann, send Mark Bruckmann a photo and see if he recognises her. Bruckmann Yachts

[johnn33]

She does look at a distance to be very nice.
I wonder if his widow might remember if they belonged to a sailing club, or has any photos of regattas, and then club secretaries might have a record?
John

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by Paul Howard

Those swept back keels were a signature of C&C designed boats from the 70's, though the rudder is very different. Go to the Sailboat Data website searching for Whitby 45, a C design, one of the C's of C&C.
This could have been a Canada's Cup racing boat and, if so, could have been built by Bruckman's Yachts of Mississauga, long known as the C&C Custom shop, but now defunct.
Boats such as Maurader, still sailing out of the National Yacht club, Toronto, and Evergreen, Royal Hamilton Yacht Club, would be similar examples.

I doubt it would be a Canada's Cup boat, they were two-tonners and typically about 42' LOA. Bruckmann Yachts are still going strong, making beautiful, mainly powerboats - if you are afflicted with large amounts of spare money.
Bruckmann Yachts

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by johnn33

She does look at a distance to be very nice.
I wonder if his widow might remember if they belonged to a sailing club, or has any photos of regattas, and then club secretaries might have a record?
John

Or any buddies or workers who could have helped with the keel removal.

The missing keel amazes me, and is enough cost to spend some effort.

Why remove a keel? It sounds like you bought the boat with he trailer. That would lead me ti assume he moved the boat to he ban on he trailer. Was it stored in he trailer?

My next guess is that he removed the keel at tue time he pulled the boat out. Maybe he left it there? May well be tone but Insure as hell would poke around at a that yard.

[SV Siren]

You might want to post this out on the Sailing Anarchy forum group...there are a ton of former racers who know more than anyone, old racers, collectively...just be prepared and have thick skin, as they are a raucous bunch..