Kelly Peterson 44 Refit

[Fidu666]

Hey guys,

My girlfriend and me have bought a Kelly Peterson 44 last August with which we intend to go cruising. She currently sits in Cabrales Boatyard in Mexico, where we'll do the refit from approx. next January on. We're both refit noobs, so there will be a lot to learn.

We'll most likely have a million questions along the way, so I thought it would sense to just open a thread to post them all instead of spamming the forum.

First question:
When the boat was pressure washed, a big brownish spot around the sink thruhull and the raw water intake of the engine appeared, which was not there when surveying the boat last year. Looks like the (very) old antifouling has been eaten away by sth. Also the SSB anode that sits in the same spot looks pretty beaten.

Since we're most likely going to peel due to Osmosis issues, I was looking into youtube and I found a video of someone peeling his hull with the same issue (well visible in the thumbnail or from 1:44 on).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPcoRC6t_A

A shot of our hull:


Does anyone have a clue what that could be? We have a couple of theories (years of stuff going down the sink, bad prep work before anitfouling, stray current etc.) but I wanted to ask around anyway.

Thanks for any hints!

[tkeithlu]

It was there while the boat was in the water, and it originated at the through hull closer to the keel. What came out of that one? Gentle sanding is going to reveal whether there is damage to the hull, but it doesn't look like it.

The peeling of all the gelcoat seems rather drastic. If you've got blisters, the usual route is to sand out each one individually and then refill the depression with either gelcoat or if very deep cloth.

You've got a very big job ahead of you - refits have a way of expanding to twice the available time and money. Consider not making the job worse than it has to be.

Good luck, and do post your progress.

[Fidu666]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

It was there while the boat was in the water, and it originated at the through hull closer to the keel. What came out of that one? Gentle sanding is going to reveal whether there is damage to the hull, but it doesn't look like it.

That's the the thruhull of the sink, where all the stuff from the galley goes through. It wasn't there a year ago when we did the haul-out for the survey. It's two layers of black Antifouling that look bad. Below is a layer of blue Antifouling that looks fine. There's some small parts that have chipped off to Fibreglass, which looks like its in very good condition.

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

The peeling of all the gelcoat seems rather drastic. If you've got blisters, the usual route is to sand out each one individually and then refill the depression with either gelcoat or if very deep cloth.

We've got a ton of really small Osmosis blisters going on, adding to that the gelcoat above the waterline seems to be crazed. Overall, the entire boat is in desperate need of a new paintjob. We'll try to sand everywhere first of course, to see how bad it is.

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

You've got a very big job ahead of you - refits have a way of expanding to twice the available time and money. Consider not making the job worse than it has to be.

Well aware, we're hoping for the best.

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

Good luck, and do post your progress.

Thanks!

[Fidu666]

Finally, we're back with the boat. First thing I did is a couple of test sands all around the hull. We're still settling in here in Mexico. It's still quite cool so I want to dive into sanding the complete hull as soon as possible, so everything can dry out nicely.

We have no idea when the boat has been out of the water for such a long period of time, so we'll try to make the best of the dry climate here in Puerto Peñasco all the way up North in the Sea of Cortez.

1) One of the "bigger" blisters, about 3-4 cm wide.


2) Keel


3) Crack along the bow, need to dive into this


4) Small void in the rudder


5) Area around the cutlass bearing. We'll need to pull the shaft anyway due to some weirdness going on.


6) Starboard Stern


7) Port Stern, only fibers left, all the resin is gone. Small area (until now).


8) Hull, Port side


9) Hull, Port side


10) Hull, Port side


Any thoughts and inputs are very welcome!

[tkeithlu]

What sort of accident was the boat in? The bow, prop shaft, and starboard stern (especially) look like impact damage. That's going to take structural repair, best approached from inside.

Taking the starboard stern as a starting place. Get to the crack from the inside, and patch with layers of fiberglass cloth. On the outside, shape it. Make sure that it is stronger than the surrounding hull.

Ditto on the bow - putting plugs in from the outside is cosmetic, not structural.

[Fidu666]

Yeah, once we've sanded the entire hull, we'll see what Fiberglass work needs to be done. There's been some repairs for sure, but the previous owner never mentioned any collisions. But at the same time he never put any work into the hull of the boat, which is what we'll do now. Maybe he didn't know.

Here' what the starboard stern looks like from the inside after sanding on the outside:


Next up is the removal of the prop and the shaft. Our PSS is a stubborn one, with one of the set screws having no intention of being removed.

[Benz]

To me those closeups look like simply vicissitudes of construction. A 2-piece mold will always leave a visible "seam" in the gelcoat along the centerline: that's likely what's going on in the bow. There's a couple of minor spots where a layer of mat didn't fully wet out; there's evidence of some fairing compound in the laminate, usually a way to get glass to stick around tight corners and radiuses. maybe they had to do some cosmetic repair when the hull de-molded. Unless there's delamination or a huge crushed spot, I wouldn't think there's been a collision. I certainly don't think so from the pictures.
If you sand as thoroughly as you plan to, just do a barrier coat below the waterline.
Good luck. Eat tacos.

[Fidu666]

Long time no post!

The stubborn coupling and the shaft are out, and we also removed a shaft bearing for inspection that was noisy. Bringing the shaft to a workshop we found out that our shaft is pretty bent. They say they can straighten it, they do that stuff for shrimping boats all the time. We'll give that a go and see how it affects everything:






I sanded a couple of spots to have look under the layers of paint:




We have ton of tiny blisters on the hull so we gave the Antifouling a light sand. Anything osmosis related we could spot we drilled to dry out:


After my sanding the yard sandblasted the hull down to bare fiberglass. There was no way I would sand the entire underwater myself for weeks on end:


This is what a 40 year old hull looks like:






Seam along the centerline:


Rudder:

[Fidu666]

A long overdue update on our progress!

We have sanded off the brittle, cracked and crazed Gelcoat off our topsides:




We've gone through a loooot of grinding and glassing Osmosis blisters. Though job and we have gone overboard with the amount of repairs, which has made us overthink and struggle for a couple of days. We're happy it's done, and happy with the result too:




We can now confirm that the cracked seam along the hull is from the 2-mold construction of the boat. We have dremeled slightly open all the cracks, filled with flexibe epoxy and put two layers of fiberglass over it. More information here: https://kp44.org/rudders/hull_seam_voids.php


We have done a couple of tests with leftover barrier coat from our friends on another boat:


Started inspection on the rudder to see if it's still good to go:


And will finish closing 8 thruhulls today, two of which will be replaced to make space for more water capacity:


For detailed information about our progress feel free to head over to our blog, link is in my signature!

[Benz]

Great pics! Nice work.

[Fidu666]

Originally Posted by Benz

Great pics! Nice work.

Gracias, Benz!

[Fidu666]

A long overdue update on our projects!

Tiny and corroded water tanks have come out finally! We'll replace them with poly tanks in a different location which will give us more than double the capacity we had before (which was a mere 36 gallons ).





Cleaning the old water tank compartment. This will replace the storage the new water tanks will take up.



The mast has come down for inspection, paint, and some replacements. If you look at the old wind indicator one can only imagine when someone has done that the last time. The mast has a pretty massive bend to it due to years of a too short backstay. We had a look with a rigger before unstepping and we'll be able to correct the bend once the new rigging is installed. We have learned that the masts on the Kelly Peterson 44s are lightweight and "bendy" compared to other boats, so we should be fine. Apart from the bend we have found no other areas of major concern.









Time for a new wind indicator maybe?



Chainplates and bolts have come out for inspection and replacement. Also this project was way overdue. Look at the bolts - you know what's up. Chainplates are on their way to Colligo Marine in California for a rebuild with Titanium. Let's just hope the package will arrive since UPS Mexico did not leave the best impression by not showing up at all. We still have managed to find the person responsible and the package is on the way to the US. Fingers crossed.







We'll replace the entire standing rigging since the only information we have about it is that it is more than 10 years old for sure. Also the rigger has found damage on the strands within no time.


We're almost done with the first coat of fairing on the bottom - we hope to put on Barrier coat and Antifouling in the next 2-3 weeks. We're working with Totalboat Totalfair Epoxy Fairing Compound. Very easy to work with, and pretty easy to sand. Highly recommended, altough we read the better a fairing compound is to sand, the better water can permeated through it. Time will tell.

The Totalboat game is strong in this picture:





And last but not least: The first coat of topcoat has come on! After three coats of Totalboat Topsides primer a bright and shiny white coat of Totalboat Wetedge has come on. We are very pleased and impressed by the result.

After rolling the first two coats of primer on ourselves, the last coat of primer and the 2-3 coats of topcoat will be sprayed by the yard.

Last coat of primer before sanding everything off as always:


Topcoat impressions, looks A LOT better in reality:







As usual, if you want a thorough breakdown of all that we have worked on, feel free to subscribe to our weekly updated blog. Find the link to it in my signature.

Cheers!

[Fidu666]

Next up was more work on the bottom:

We painted 4 coats of Interprotect 2000 barrier coat, over the clean and faired bottom of Milagros, followed by one coat of red Pettit Unepoxy hard Antifouling as a guide coat. This would be followed by two coats of Pettit HRT Premium Ablative Antifouling just before going in the water.









Then it was time to clean and paint the compartments for our new Titanium chainplates that were in the making at Colligo Marina in the USA at the time.





Also we built a mockup for our new Ronco plastic water tank to see if it would fit in its new compartment and to see what adjustments we had to take care of.



New up was the work on our gooseneck, which was a remnant of an old furling mainsail system. While working on the mast we found a big crack in it, so it had to. We got in contact with Garhauer Marine, who would make us a new 316 stainless custom Gooseneck for a very reasonable price. They asked for specifications on the mast carvature, so we made fiberglass mold for them.







And then is was time for more work on the mast. All the problematic areas with chipping paint and corrosion we sanded down all the way to bare Aluminum before applying two coats of Totalboat Aluminum Epoxy Barrier Coat. Good stuff, but very picky in terms of coat thickness. Too thick of a coat and the stuff does not dry proberly. On top of the Barrier Coat we painted two coats of Rustoleum High Performance Protective Enamel after hearing from two parties of cruisers who have used the same and are super happy. The mast looks like new again.









Not happy with the space on the mast top and the old position of the wind indicator, we had a bracket for our instruments welded by a yard worker, which we installed on top of the masttop. The plates are recycled from our old stainless water tanks.



Old Mast Top:


New Mast Top Platform:


We painted the Platform with the same Barrier Coat and Rustoleum paint as the mast and we're very happy with the outcome. All our instruments and lights are in their proper spot now.







As always, for the full story and all the good, bad and ugly head over to our homepage, where we have a blog that we update almost weekly!

[AiniA]

Lots of work but it looks like you are doing a proper job. Keep it up.

[Tetepare]

That’s a refit! Impressive!