Contessa 26 ‘Tess’

While I’ve been shuttered away in the ‘editorial dungeon’ at work, Rob’s been happily — and then not so happily — working away on Tess. Top priority has been given to fixing leaks and the worst offenders, as so many of you painfully know, were the chainplates. Honestly, I was a little scared of what we would find and my fears were well founded.

When Rob sees something isn’t quite right, he just jumps in and pulls it out by the intestines, as evidenced by this shot of what he found while rebedding the starboard aft lower.

Ugly, no? I was pretty sure any wood near the chainplates would be rotten, and boy was I right. The plywood still had some semblance of structure to it – it wasn’t just mud – but it was completely saturated and delaminated.

So how to fix such a mess? The plan is to Dremel a nice clean cut (instead of the ugly ripped edges), glass a new piece of epoxy soaked ply in the area and fill with polyester putty to make it relatively smooth (my job). We were planning on some kind of hull liner anyway because the PO used an angle grinder to shred away most of the liner and it looks like shit. So, no harm, no foul.

For the rest though, we’ll just have to wait and see. Rob’s rebed all but the port upper (of course it’s raining today) so we’re relatively watertight now but the structure of the decks is compromised. Our current line of thought is to drill some holes on the underside to allow the wet wood to dry out and then, come summer, inject a couple gallons of Git Rot into it. Not the ideal fix, to be sure, but it will strengthen the decks enough until the ‘big project’ can be started. The good news is that the rest of the deck seems fairly solid.

On to the cockpit. Our fugly cockpit. As I mentioned before, the PO cut out the old cockpit to remove the engine (presumably) and then raised it about 5″, using plywood. We’ve waffled on what to do about it but think we’ve decided to live with it and here’s why: it’s already done, it’s very, very solid, and it’s already done. Why reinvent the wheel? Let the next sucker deal with it.

But the problem with it is that the PO installed “drains” (ha!) aft but without the engine, the boat is bow-heavy. Every rain ended with a pool of water in the forward end of the cockpit. So once it was decided to keep the current setup, Rob installed two more drains forward – he epoxied the holes and used 3M 4000 for the bedding compound. Right now they lead straight to the bilge, but that’s just until we haul and replumb the whole thing.

But the plywood of the cockpit was still unprotected so there was more surgery left. First, Rob filled the holes where the old engine controls had been with polyester mud. Then he used West Systems with filler and filleted the sole so in not only looks nicer, no water can sneak in through a crack at the edge. Then he sanded it all down and applied a nice thick coat of epoxy. I’ll be doing the finish work by filling all the grain with poly mud and sanding it fair. At some point we’ll paint the whole boat so it won’t look ugly forever.

Ideal? No. But we wrote this on a bulkhead as a reminder:

We ordered a new main yesterday from Synthia Petroka at UK/Halsey. I know Synthia personally and she just did the ‘06 Singlehanded TransPac, so who better to understand our (Rob’s) needs in a main? Besides, she gave us a great price! If anyone has the Contessa crown logo in digital format, could you email it to me?

We also ordered a used working jib from Minney’s in LA. They have tons of used sails but I’ve heard their rating system leaves something to be desired. This one was listed as “XCLT/8+”. I’ll post pix as soon as it arrives and will let ya’ll know how accurately this sail was rated.

The rain has really put a damper on Tess-work — as has my monthly work deadline. Now the familial Christmas trip is coming up. Then in January, Rob will be gone for 3 weeks to work for the Seattle Boat Show. But that’ll give me tons of time to to “girl stuff” to her!

Saturday was the first full day I was able to work on Tess. Someone’s gotta work around here. Rob had done a few minor things but was generously waiting for me to really get the ball rolling. He knows I live for this kind of thing!

We had gorgeous weather all week so, of course, we woke up to rain on Saturday. Lots of rain. So much that if Rob hadn’t pumped out the 300 gallons of water in the bilge, the level of liquid would definitely have creeped above the floorboards.

Not much got done on Saturday, mostly because of the rain. We did organize our tools/supplies and sort of mapped out a plan of attack. I did strip a little of the nasty red paint off some lovely teak trim – check out our Flickr pix for all the details.

We kicked some serious PO ass on Sunday. There were about a jillion holes in the deck and house – some filled with silicone, some with 5200 and some with nothing at all. You’ll note a bucket in the middle of the cabin in one shot – it caught about a gallon overnight! It was relatively dry yesterday so we drilled out every hole we could track down and filled the majority of them with MarineTex. They’re very small holes and it should do the trick – it’s much easier to sand than West Systems. The bigger deck holes we filled with thickened epoxy. Now we just need to figure out the best way to bed the severly leaking chainplates. We understand that’s a problem on these boats. Almost makes us want to mount them outboard on the hull itself. Any thoughts?

The two primary Gibb winches were seized – and leaking, of course – so we removed them completely. I took them home and found a plastic insert in the drum. It was obviously supposed to be there but both were severely scored from years of inattention. A little 400 grit sandpaper and lots of elbow grease got them smooth enough to turn freely. We repacked and rebed them with 3M 4000  yesterday. Here’s a shot of one rebuilt and the other with the drum down as far as it will go without getting ’stuck’.

Another wonderful PO-ism is the legacy of the kitty litter. In an apparent effort to save money and piss off any later owner of this boat, he chose kitty litter (the nasty big chunk clay kind) as his non-skid. Just scattered it everywhere. Shit shit shit. Have you ever tried to sand down kitty litter with 60-grit sandpaper? Keep in mind that the kitty litter is about 10-grit! I went through three pads of 60-grit to grind down the pads for the halyard winches alone. Suggestions are welcome in how we can take off most of it BEFORE we sand.

Just love POs.

Originally, we thought the name ‘Skall Vi Ga’ was going to be the winner. It’s Swedish (oh, that Swedish theme again) for “Shall we go?” It’s a phrase my dad used my whole life and the only bit of Swedish my family knows. It’s interesting, has a nice ring, and means something to us. But it’s a mouthfull plus we’d have to explain it every single time. The final nail in the coffin was that we’d never say “We’re going down to Skall Vi Ga today.” Never.

So began the quest for a simpler name. The list below featured just a few of the names I had rolling around, the favs being Sjora and Tessa. We both really liked Tessa but there’s another CO26 with the same name in England so that was a big negative. We don’t want to be total copycats. But wait! We could drop the A and make it ‘Tess’. Simple and clean. We looked at each other and knew that was it.

So it’s my pleasure to introduce the world to the newly dubbed ‘TESS’. Now begins the real work of fixing her up. We’re always talking about what to do to Tess and when but there are a few obvious chores to take care of first:

1. Rebed everything to make her as watertight as possible. The PO (this will always refer to the guy who did all this crazy work, not the gal we bought her from) bed everything with bathtub caulk so it’ll all have to come out again.
2. Fix every stray little hole in the house – not a small job!
3. Replace the funky plywood cockpit sole he made when he removed the engine. It currently is about 5″ above the original level and Rob’s knees rest somewhere behind his ears. We’ll have to do major surgery to get it out – he epoxied it in and used lots of sheetrock screws – build a reverse mold that is deeper, lay up a new ‘insert’, and install with plenty of easily removable yet watertight sealant (Dolphinite perhaps?).

Not too far into the future we’ll haul out for a bottom job – it looks like he did an epoxy barrier coat at some point – and to fill the several unnecessary thru hulls that are scattered about. God, I love fiberglass work! Oh, and I could give you the Golden Gate Bridge at a very good price. Really.

The deal has been that if Rob buys a race boat, I get to name it. I told him that, in no uncertain terms, the name of any boat he bought would be “Schlomo Rodriguez”. It’s from a great commercial for whoknowswhat in which a Hispanic guy is looking at a baby name book. He gets a dreamy look on his face and says, almost reverentially, “Schlomo. Schlomo Rodriguez….” The wife gets a look on her face and says “No.” So funny!

But now that I’m faced with the reality of actually naming the pretty little Contessa, I can’t bring myself to do it. She deserves a much nicer name than Schlomo Rodriguez. So I’ve been mulling and mulling. Here’s a list of possibles:

• Skall vi ga – this is a Swedish saying my dad always said that means “Shall we go”

• Sjora – Swedish water nymph/sea goddess

• Inga – a pretty Swedish name that was also a fertility goddess (lord knows we’re not interested in going there!)

• Tessa – get it?

• Tessie – get it again?

• Baby Girl – a reference to the fact that she would be the little sister to our Crealock

• Black Betty – originally, I thought ‘Betty’ would be a good name. The boat’s black and there’s that great song called Black Betty, plus a Betty is a cool, tough, good-looking chick in surfer/snowboarder lingo. But then everyone would just ask “Who’s Betty?” Hmmm…

So that’s the list so far. It most likely will change but right now I’m liking Sjora (it has the two dots over the o and a little circle over the a – how Nordic!). You can see a Swedish theme – the Contessa was an offshoot of the Swedish folkboat, so it seems appropriate. Plus I’m 1/4 Swedish!

They say the happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it. December 4, 2006 was a happy day in the Bubak/Tryon household (technically, “boathold”). Rob has wanted to sail in the Singlehanded TransPac (a race from San Francisco to Kauai, Hawaii) for many years and now that we’re in the Bay Area for a few years, his desire is greater than ever. Of course it would be nice to have a sleek speedster but we don’t have the budget for one so the backup plan was to use our home, a Crealock 37. I was none too keen on the idea of losing my home for a couple months but it’s something he really wants so I figured we’d work it out.

This Monday, Rob was looking on Craigs List, a terrific classified ad website, and found a Contessa 26 for a very good price in our hometown of Sausalito. We snatched it up and are beginning the process of bringing this worn out classic back to life. We’ve had lots of experience refitting boats and know what we’re in for but welcome suggestions and advice from other experienced CO26 owners.