Del Rey 50 refit - sv Trim

[Adventuresail]

Together an architect (Agata, 26) and a self taught boatbuilder (Alex, 27) tackle the extensive refit of their 50 foot cutter, a William Crealock designed Del Rey 50 named Trim.

I thought i would start to share some photo's of the work we have done so far.

We bought Trim in Turkey and sailed her through the Med to the United States via the Canaries, Gambia, Cape Verde and the Caribbean. We couldn't defer Trims much needed refit any longer and since July 2018, Deltaville VA has been our port of refit. 100% of work has been carried out ourselves.

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First we built ourselves a workshop and a canopy to keep the boat dry

[Tayana42]

A lovely Crealock design!

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Once we had dropped the mast we got stuck into cutting off the entire flush portion of our foredeck which had extensive rot, beams and all.

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After the first month of work we had an open boat

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After cutting the deck off we stripped most of the interior - replacing bulkheads as we went

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over several months we built sixteen new deck beams laminated with epoxy from 6 layers of Sapele. We then coated each beam with several layers of varnish, meticulously sanding between each coat.

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This was our first round of 5 beams - as you can imagine, by the sixteenth beam we were happy to be finished laminating, sanding and varnishing them.

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Beams and king plank in place ready for the new deck to be glued and fastened down

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In between building beams, I replaced the chainplate knees. 6 layers of 17oz fibreglass fabric moulded into the hull over marine ply. Each chainplate knee soaked up amost a gallon of epoxy.

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Before we laid down the ply for the new deck we removed our engine, completely rebuilt it and re installed it with all new engine room heat/noise insulation.

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All the deck panels were pre painted before fastening to the beams to save masking and overhead painting. Rolling and tipping with traditional oil enamal (Kirbys) gave the desired result. The rough layout of the lower saloon bunk area took shape at the same time as the deck construction.

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At the height of summer working at night was preferable to working in the chesapeake bay's heat and humidity.

Using a pneumatic chisel made short work of removing the last of the teak from the cabin top and side decks. Once removed the entire surface was rough sanded and covered with a layer of 17 oz fibreglass biaxial cloth.

Heavy duty fibreglass screen material proved to be handy for making precise templates on horizontal surfaces.

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After both layers of 9mm meranti marine ply had been fastened and epoxied to the beams a layer of 10oz cloth was laid on top to provide abrasion resistance.

The last of the rotten ply to remove underneath the side decks was the hardest to access but was achieved using my trusty pneumatic chisel, a 4" grinder and a mini curcular saw.

The cabin top was faired using my home made long board and epoxy/microbaloons.

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Our bulwark dimensions were 3.5" tall x 2 inches thick laminated from 2 layers of 1" Sapele. Epoxied and through bolted to the hull flange every 12".