What do I have?

When I went to look at the boat I thought I had a good idea as to where the hull number would be.  I could not find it.  Even after getting it home and taking some more time to look for the hull number or ID, I still could not seem to locate anything that made sense.  On Tuesday night I finally located the spot where the manufacturer drills a series of holes in the fiberglass indicating the hull number.  Unfortunately what I found did not make any sense.  It looked like a "0" with a single hole in the one o'clock position next to the "0".  There were nine holes that made up the "0" for a total of ten holes.  Did this mean I had hull number zero (maybe a prototype) or hull number 10 ?(since there were ten holes).  Several sources including Blue Water Yachts, kept telling me to check out the transom, which I did, eight times.  I just was not seeing anything there.  This lead me to believe that the boat was pre-1974 since prior to that time Hull ID Numbers were not required.

I am a residential home builder and have several guys that I work with.  for the rest of this Blog I will refer to them as "The Guys."  Since virtually all my work is the block around my house, I can take advantage of down time on the jobsite and have The Guys work on personal projects.  Yesterday, I had them clean out the boat. This included getting all of the pieces and parts of the boat out, so we could catalog them and see what we had.  This also included vacuuming out all of the murky water and mosquito larvae that was in the bottom 8-10" of the hull.  We also took the opportunity to put all of the fiberglass hatches in place to minimize additional  rain water from getting back in.

It is amazing the difference that just that simple clean up made.  the boat does not look so "skeletal" now.  Don't get me wrong, it still looks very much like a boat project, but it looks much less like tennessee road side dump off.  so that's good.

So after the general clean up I started looking on the transom again for the Hull ID Number.  This time with more specific location in mind.  Ray from Blue Water Yachts told me that I should look right beneath the rub rail on the starboard transom.  I skeptically went back to look, knowing that i had already searched the whole transom and I was sure that I would not find anything new.

It was a great feeling, I almost felt like Indiana Jones (without the bullwhip) discovering an ancient artifact, when I started to realize that Ray was right.  Barely noticeable, under layers of paint,  there was the faint trace of numbers scratched into the hull of the boat.  After a little sanding and rubbing I was able to get a clear picture of the ID.  MAC04216M72B.

This was great news!  I was now able to put aside my fears that maybe this was not a true Macgregor, and maybe someone just had a kit boat or something that was made to look like it.  This number confirmed that this was a Macgregor hull  (MAC)  the hull number was 04216  and it was manufactured in September of 1972.  You can check out www.wadler.org/boat-mac/hullid.php for more information on the hull ID.

Now the next step is to see what I need to do to get this baby registered.  Before I start putting intensive time and money into her, I want to make sure that I can take care of titling and registration.  This might be hard.

Speaking of registering the boat.  Tricia and I were discussing possible boat names on the drive back.  During the drive we were joking about the Allstate commercials with the guy that is always causing insurance claims and he calls himself Mayhem.  Our conversation was revolving more around getting a t-shirt for Aiden (our two year old) that says " I am Mayhem."  Then it hit me.  With the condition that this boat is in, and the time and effort that I know it will take to get it alive again, it will be total mayhem.  It seemed like kind of a cool name too.  SO,  I think we will be christening her as Mayhem when we finally get her back to water.

The Find

After scouring the web for six months or so,  I came across many a deal.  Once a week I would get on ebay and craigslist and see what was new.  I was tempted by many of the charity sales on ebay but I realized fairly quickly that the cost of  getting that $185 boat from East Jesus back to Colorado cost more than the boat was worth.  further more I would have no idea what I was getting until I paid for it and it showed up on my doorstep.

I very quickly realized that I would have to sit back and wait for something to pop up on a Colorado craigslist site.  In the first part of September 2011 I found a potential candidate.  Someone had a 1971 Macgreggor V 2-22 for sale down in Colorado Springs for $1,000.  The listing had a poor image of something that looked like it could be a Macgreggor.  It definately was not a Sports Illustrated quality photo and I could not make out any sexy lines or curves but it could be a promising prospect.

Tricia and I made plans to drive down on Sunday afternoon to look at this potential new addition to our family.  We found the address fairly easily but my first thought when I looked at the boat was.......where's the boat?  My second thought was........ where's the boat?  

Tucked in between two homes in this college rental, residential district was what looked like a skeletal remnant of a 22' Macgreggor.  As I cautiously approached the remains of what used to be someone's pride and joy, I thought, "there is no way that I am buying this boat," and " Man I just wasted three and a half hours of my Sunday driving down here."

This is the Macgreggor sitting back at my house in the driveway

I decided that I would still look at the carcass since we drove all this way.  There were no windows (portholes)  or maybe I should say there were windows, its just that they were simply holes.  Absolutely everything that could be strip off of the hull of the boat had been removed.  But I soon realized that it looked like all of the parts were there.  They were just hiding in boxes and the 8" of standing water in the hull of the boat.  The entire inside had been stripped as well.   

As I started poking around this dry-docked debacle, my sense of horror and pity started to shift to a sense of realization that since everything was already pulled off, that would save me half the time!  It sure seems like a lot of time would be spent removing everything from the hull of the boat. This could actually make the renovation easier.  

The Craigslist ad stated that the boat came with body paint and fiberglass repair supplies.  Nate the current owner of this sunken treasure confirmed this was true.  I also noticed that the trailer was in good shape as well with new tires and what appeared to be a new axle.  

A half hour inspection revealed two rotten spots in the fiberglass body on the topside of the hull.  Lots of parts sitting scattered around in the stripped interior, a mast and boom, sails and miscellaneous supplies.  The hull was dented in at one of the trailer supports. The windows themselves were missing in action, bummer they are fairly pricey.  

The numbers started churning in my head.  Overall the hull was in decent shape.  The hull was most likely worth about $200.  the paints and repair supplies were most likely worth about $500.  I offered Nate $700 flat.  He gave me that initial look that sellers are obliged to give, in the day to day negotiations of global sales. You know that look, right?  The one that says,  " Are you seriously offering me a mere pittance for this jewel of the seven seas, this prize yacht of a sailboat?"  I think he very quickly realized that his choices were between accepting my offer or having to borrow a truck so that he could tow the carcass to the nearest cliff and push it off.

The background on the condition of the boat was this.  The owner previous to Nate had decided that it would be a fun project to refurbish the boat.  After tearing the whole thing down to its little parts he apparently lost interest.  Dreamy-eyed Nate bought the boat two years ago with the intention of finishing off what the previous owner had started.  Two years, several visits to West Marine, and a new wife later, Nate apparently realized that the boat project did not have a very high position on his priority list.  

So here I come along (probably just as bright-eyed as the Nate of two years ago) thinking, " I am the one that is going to raise this phoenix from the ashes.  I will bring happiness to this hull.  Or maybe I will just bring this boat from the status of being a 2011 Colorado Springs Craigslist listing to a 2012 Boulder Craigslist listing.

Either way, it was coming home with us.  Nate helped with securing the boat, getting the trailer lights working and we were on our way home with our latest adventure.  Check out some of the pics of our starting point.  These might be the same pics that I use for my Craigslist ad in March 2012.

The Beginning

We have decide to do a complete boat refurbish.  I am a residential contractor.  We have never attempted this before but thought " how hard could it be?"  We just bought a boat and have just committed to the project.  I decided that it would be a great learning experience for us and with modern technology, I could make it a great learning experience for all of you.  We just bought "The Project", and I have just started this blog.  The following will be our journey through the restoration of our boat.  We hope through this blog you can share our fun, frustration, and finishing of our boat.  And so the story begins.............




My family and I are avid sailors, meaning we think about sailing every day, multiple times a day but we only get out once or twice a year.  The reason we only get out once or twice a year is that we do not have our own boat and our taste in boats tends to be the million dollar variety.  So once or twice a year we lease a 50+ foot catamaran and sail somewhere in the Caribbean. 


We decided earlier this year that it would be beneficial to get a small lake boat, that would enable us to sail weekends, increase our skill level, and keep us in practice with the sails.  With that decision made we now had to decide our price range, vessel style and size.


We decided that we wanted something that we could basically camp in.  This would give us the ability to take the boat out to a lake on a Friday night, hang out, sail all day Saturday and then come back on Saturday evenings. We also knew that the boat would have to be trailerable since we live in the land-locked state of large ponds, also known as Colorado.  This meant that we were going to be looking at sail boats in the 20' to 28' range.  


We decided that we like the Macgreggor 22' and 25' and Catalina 22' boats the best.  Catalina was our first choice.  I then started watching Craigslist and ebay for boats.  Our price range was low.  We wanted to keep our cost below $3,000.  I also wanted something that I could work on without feeling like I was ruining our investment.  Since our dream is to spend 3-6 months a year sailing around the world, I felt I needed to have a boat that I could tear down and put back together as a learning tool.  The more familiar I was with all of the gear, equipment, and body of the boat, the more capable I felt I would be out at sea if something broke, got damaged, or was lost.


Thus began our hunt for the "perfect for us" boat.