Renovation of “Ariadne.”
Snapdragon 26 Sail No 108.
This renovation started out as a 6 month project to get a tatty old boat back onto the water. It turned into an obsession that lasted two and a half years and saw the complete overhaul from a virtual wreck to my pride and joy. By the end it was unrecognisable and by all accounts is now a fine example of what can be done with a 26 which I now sail extensively around the East Coast and across the Channel to France, Belgium and Holland.
When I first saw the boat in late 1998 it was at the back of a yard in Hullbridge Essex and looked a very sorry state. Abandoned for the previous few years it was covered in all kinds of creatures and filth with the bilges full of vile yellow water. I was wearing my rose tinted spectacles that day and saw something entirely different to everyone else. At the time I had virtually no sailing experience but plenty of dreams and enthusiasm. A good look over her revealed countless jobs that all seemed achievable to me and so after negotiating a suitable price I became the proud owner of this dubious prize.
First job was to clean it and bale countless buckets of smelly water out so that I could begin to assess what was really needed. Next was to drop the mast and have it brought home where after smashing a 10ft wide whole in my 6ft high brick wall at the end of my garden, the boat was duly delivered on 9th December 1998.
The hull in general was solid enough due to the heavy build used in those early days of GRP boats. The interior had been subjected to an appalling assault by a previous owner who had moved the heads aft from the original position to create a large fore-cabin. To do this, sections of the original interior GRP lining had been cut out and a crude plywood bulkhead fitted which dissected the large window to create a heads compartment and hanging locker between the then reduced main cabin and the fore-cabin. This was dark, dingy and cramped, (I have seen several other 26s converted in this dreadful way since) and I was sure I could come up with something better. The cockpit locker tops and sole were also of crude plywood and the rudder was a huge modification slung over the transom. This was apparently done when the first inboard diesel engine – a Yanmar YSE8 - was fitted years before. Chunks had been cut out of the GRP moulding in the cockpit to accommodate modifications or repairs after the engine installation and this had resulted in the leaks which had caused so much damage below. Exploration of the engine bearers revealed that the water had entirely rotted the wood over which the GRP had been laid and the GRP was lifting in places.
At about this point I got carried away and decided that this was not going to be just any old Snapdragon 26. Fuelled by ideas from the Boat Show I decided that with a bit more time and money I could make this boat really special. I felt there was really no need for so many straight edges inside a curved boat. I liked the idea of the large forward cabin. However the bulkheads would be curved to provide a heads compartment without intruding too much into the main cabin and which would not dissect the main window. The galley would also look better made to fit the curves and moved forward to create space at the starboard quarter-birth for a comfortable seat. As there were five of us, the port side quarter-birth (the boat was laid out for 6!) could be sacrificed and given over to storage and the dinette then replaced with a U shaped settee birth with removable table again opening up the main cabin. Again this would involve the use of curves on the base of the U birth using flexible cherry veneer on marine plywood everywhere with beech trim. Basically this meant ripping everything out and starting again – the condition was so poor the decision was easy and whilst I was at it I would remove the engine and re-build the bearers.
I erected a scaffold over the boat in my garden which I covered with removable tarpaulin and spent the next few months cutting out all the old woodwork with an angle grinder right back to the bare hull. This task varied in difficulty. The more recently modified bulk-head just fell apart, whereas the original woodwork tabbed with GRP to the hull was a nightmare to remove in places. There were also areas where the deck moulding showed what appeared to be substantial gel-coat stress cracking which indicated areas that needed beefing up. I removed every fitting on the boat even down to the grab rails to ensure they could be properly overhauled and that when replaced there would be no leaks. It was clear from the start that once all the holes and cracks were filled and the GRP rebuilding completed, the whole boat would need to be painted. I didn’t like the colour of the deck anyway!
Stanchion bases and a new stem roller were fabricated for me by my Dad in 316 stainless steel as was a new skeg fitting to take the bottom of the rudder which I decided to move forward slightly more towards where it was originally, thus allowing full use to be made of the stern locker with a lifting lid to house the fuel tank and gas bottles. My skeg was unusual (the boat was one of those completed by the owner) and this modification required a substantial amount of work. I extended the skeg with GRP reinforced with stainless rods to take the new fitting below the propeller, and built a new rudder (GRP over stainless steel frame) with the 1”1/8 stainless rudder post with tuffnel bearings housed in a GRP rudder tube glassed into the hull and secured at the highest point by a new GRP section made over a wooden core, level with the seat tops in the cockpit. This is extremely strong providing protection for the rudder at the base and for the propeller which washes directly onto the rudder. The position enables me to push the tiller out of the way when moored. The initial size of the rudder blade was guess work and would be increased after my first season to make steering more responsive and give the ability to turn the boat in almost it’s own length.
It is amazing what you can do with GRP – a skill I quickly acquired with the help of a book called “The Fibreglass Boat Repair Manual” by Allan H Vaitses, a little practice and a lot of patience and acetone to clear up the mess! This is obviously beyond the scope of this article but in a nutshell the secret is to only lay up new GRP over surfaces that have been ground within the last 24 hours, get the right mix and ensure that manageable sized pieces of mat are properly wetted out and rolled with a roller. You can fix virtually anything as good as new with care and patience. I bought 25 litre tins of polyester resin and mat by the metre from Canvey Yacht Builders who used to make the Jaguars. This was the cheapest way and they were really helpful.
Eventually with the interior back to the bare hull, all fittings removed and a new mahogany rubbing strake secured with 6mm stainless screws all round I began installing the new bulkheads. The boat was so heavily built in the first instance that there was plenty of scope for bulkheads to be put virtually anywhere without affecting the rigidity of the boat – the mast being supported by a substantial GRP arch that takes the load. Floor bearers in these boats are also massively oversized looking more at home on a modern 42 footer again allowing for some tinkering. Some had been cut out by the previous owner giving an increase to 5’10”of headroom in centre of the main cabin. The plywood bulkheads were made with the assistance of pieces of cardboard as patterns to get the shape right, and then tabbed to the hull with layers of chopped strand mat. I used a variety of different types of marine ply, and for the curved sections I used two layers of flexible birch which can be bent in one plane, glued and screwed and then covered in flexible veneer. I was worried about the durability of the flexible birch but it has stood the test of time (now 7 years). Sheet materials came from “Silvermans” in Basildon. The flexible veneer is expensive but fantastic stuff as it glues on easily and can be bent around a very tight radius if required. To add rigidity to my unusual bulkhead arrangement I have recently installed a GRP arch which sits behind the heads door running almost fore and aft which is glassed in between the mast support arch and the floor stringers, one of which I extended to spread the load. The boat is “solid as a rock” with this although she was fine without it for my first 6 years and I only did it as a “belt and braces” exercise this year when the mast was down for new rigging.
With the bulkheads in, the next thing was the galley. I started by framing up a front made from beech and then added the plywood sides (mini bulkheads shaped using cardboard as patterns again) which were then glassed to the hull to give it rigidity. Doors and top in 12mm marine ply finished in cherry veneer were then fitted with the doors getting a beech trim to finish them. Bare edged ply looks terrible and should rarely be seen in my humble opinion. The double birth in the fore-cabin was then installed with lift up panels for storage access and a space for a 120litre triangular water tank at the very front. The door to the heads doubles as the door to the fore-cabin and there is space in the heads to hang wet gear, which like the fore cabin, has its own little window.
Any areas where the deck had shown stress cracking was heavily beefed up with more GRP on the inside after grinding. This was mainly around the companionway step, under the side decks and in the fore-cabin where there was no interior GRP lining. Chain plate backing bases in ply with several layers of GRP were also fitted and for the cap shrouds the bases were backed up with monel plates squished into a bed of car body filler (polyester “auto-putty”). This spreads the loads evenly and avoids “hot-spots”. Auto-putty is brilliant stuff and I used stacks of it for finishing GRP prior to painting and bedding backing plates for deck hardware.
The installation of the engine was a major operation for me. Having cut out all the old GRP from the original bearers which had been so badly damaged by years under water, I had a clean slate. However I did not want to mess with the stern gland and wanted to use the existing propeller shaft and stuffing box which all looked fine. There seemed little point reinstalling a 25 year old raw water cooled engine, bearing in mind the work involved so I explored the Beta Marine range thinking the two cylinder fresh water cooled model would be perfect. And so it would have been but for the price which at around £3k was not far off what I’d paid for the boat. Research showed that these engines are all marinised Kubota diesels such as used in generators and road sweepers. For a little over £600 I found a brand new 2 cylinder Kubota Z600 to which with of help of my Dad’s engineering skills and many hours of his time we added a water pump from a Fiesta, an overhauled alternator from a Talbot Samba and the raw water pump from the old Yanmar. The marinising was completed using a standard heat exchanger and various other parts from R&D Marine and ASAP Supplies to connect the engine to a Hurth 50 gearbox that I found in a boat jumble. The result is effectively a new installation with fresh water cooling and a wet exhaust for under £1000 which I have run for countless hours to date with only the need for minor modifications/ improvements and general maintenance. Installing it was stressful, as once assembled on the bench, the new bearers had to be made and glassed over with only a few millimetres tolerance so that it would all line up. I must have measured everything a hundred times along the way as a mistake would have spelt disaster and no one was more surprised than me when on the day we finally winched the engine into the boat and squeezed it through the companionway, it sat neatly on the new bearers with the prop shaft pulled up in almost perfect alignment. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as at last I could see light at the end of the tunnel.
I had spent many hours sitting inside the hull on an empty 25 litre resin tin trying to image how everything would all look and how to hang the various panels that needed to be fixed to the hull. “Skyhooks” would have been great to fix things to, but since they’ve not yet been invented, plywood sections needed to be cut and glassed to the hull so that the various panels screwed to them. It really is it amazing the amount of work that goes behind the finished veneered surfaces. I made the engine compartment so that the side panels would come apart for the installation and of course any subsequent major overhaul that might one day be required. The U birth to port and the starboard quarter-birth however was fixed with the sides glassed to the hull. The tops of course remove for storage space. With the dirty work done it was time for a few coats of varnish and connecting up of all the new wiring to the new electrics panel which incorporated a stereo and modern fused switch panels. The old headlining was then entirely covered using 5mm foam backed leatherette (vinyl) from Toomer and Hayter.
After a great deal of fine preparation the exterior was painted in white using International Precote and Toplac with non slip Blue/Grey deck paint on the textured panels. This proved to be incredibly hard wearing and lasted for 6 seasons before I needed to repaint the deck (done this year). The topsides (with their two coats of Precote and two of Toplac) still look great after 6 years and are regular mistaken for highly polished gel-coat with a few years left in them yet. A new GRP fore hatch with Perspex window provided light in the fore-cabin. In the cockpit I replaced all woodwork using 15mm marine ply with mahogany edging and the new stern locker top was in mahogany with dovetail edges and marine ply top. In the ply I have created a “laid teak” effect by routing lines and filling them with black Sikaflex rubber which I then sanded back flush. This is very effective although with hindsight there is probably an easier way to achieve this. I replaced the original galvanised push pit (which did not match the pull pit) with a shiny stainless one allowing access over the stern made again by my Dad and a friendly welder in 1 inch 316 tubing.
By the time I launched her in April 2001 she looked almost brand new. In my spare time I had also learned something about how to sail her and with the help and support of some friendly club members we threw her back into the water and I held my breath as we set off down Benfleet Creek on her “maiden voyage”. As my sailing skills and confidence in the boat increased, I ventured further from the safety of the creek, initially across the Thames Estuary during my first season, up the East Coast in the second, making my first Channel crossing in “Ariadne” during May 2003 in what turned out to be 25 knots of wind (another story).
Over the last 6 seasons I have continued to find things to do and have since added new sails, slab reefing, stack-away sail cover with home made lazy-jacks, spray dodgers, an electric windless which I can operate from the cockpit or the foredeck, a proper fridge with compressor and numerous other little refinements such as running all lines back to the cockpit. I am usually single handed and these things make life much easier and give me the confidence to creep into tiny East Coast creeks knowing I am in complete control of the boat. I sail whenever I can but the reliable diesel engine gives me the reassurance that I can clear the shipping lanes in the Thames Estuary or English Channel if things get tricky. I am pleased to say that I am running out of things to do now and so can just enjoy the sailing. This is a great boat for the East Coast and I have no plans to upgrade for a few years yet, even though my family are all much larger than when I started out. My youngest is 17 now and 6’2” but still comes away on her. We have made several crossings to and from the Continent for holidays with four on board for a week or so and it’s been fine – although on such a small boat it does help if you like each other – a lot!
Before and after Pictures
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The boat was, – and is, - moored in the Baltic in a small marina in Kirchdorf, on the island Poel north of Wismar. We had a superb summer concerning the temperatures, a bad one concerning the smell of diesel gas leaving the exhaust. But it was a good time for my wife Nicolette, who is a greenhorn in sailing to get used to living aboard and learning how to manoeuvre. And I must say, – she did very well. All in all it was, as usual, too short a season and, at the end of September, the boat went into winter’s sleep, disturbed only by two workers of the local wharf who replaced the original interior lining. And they made a very good and professional job. It looks as good as new.
In use the instrument is amazing and the amount of information beyond belief. On the Limehouse rally I glanced at the screen when we were in the lock, it showed the boat near the outer gate on the starboard side which of course we were. 
