OT-Nauti Girl

Over in another thread I stated that I owned a sailboat. Some members requested that I show some more photos about the process that I have taken over the last 4 years of retoring her. Right off the bat she is a girl and I respect that I call her my girl.

4 years ago my wife and I were at a dinner party and we were talking about sailing. At this time I had restored my third sailboat Volare, She was a 25ft race boat and had been hulled, a huge hole in the side of the boat from another sailboat. I had spent a year on Volare and was talking about the process of cutting a 2 ft section out of the side of the hull, sanding down the whole boat and spraying her with Imron.

Volare Photo

So after some drinks at the party the other couple we were with told us about a boat at the lake we could get into cheap, I like these kind of deals, so we proceeded to discuss the location and we got in the car the next morning and headed to the lake. The boat had been sitting for about 8 years with little to no one cleaning up after her. The exterior of the hull and the structural components were in place as we moved into the interior. at some point the water had been so high inside her that the teak flooring had rotted out, there was crap every where and I looked over the systems and discussed our options with my wife. It was extreamly cold that day in 2009.

Photos of our first Day

More photos of the next week after we took ownership

We started by having to pay to get the boat out of the slip she was in and moved her to the hard to start removing all the items inside and taking everything off of the boat.

You can see in these photos of the rotten teak and holly flooring, it was a true shame having to rip it out, at some point this was a beautiful yacht.

More phots of the interior and removing the teak floor. My wife was busy cleaning out the interior as I worked on the exterior removing all the rotted ruunning rigging and taking notes of the items removed as we took hardware home every week to clean, oil or throw out and replace.

Here you can see the structural grid system in the boat. The good about this design is its what you call Clasic Plastic, fiberglass construction. So you can really just gutt what you need and have a good base to resore from. My wife cleaned the next photos. The Diesel smell was really strong, and the plumbing smelled like Sh1t. I give her credit as I worked on the exterior in a nice summers breeze as she cleaned up the crap, no pun intended.

So here you can see that it is starting to get cleaned up inside. As my wife cleaned up the crap, I worked on the exterior and then it was a tag team effort to getting the floor back in. At this time I was also buying stuff off of ebay and trying to budget ourselves to meet the end goal, a good boat we could sail and be happy with the labor involved with a beer budget.

Photos of cleaning up

Here are some of the older electronics that were installed in the boat that didnt work, but I found replacment parts on ebay and I wanted to keep the boat vintage to its age. We also started looking at interior fabrics and dropped off the cushions to be remade, but that didnt work out with the lady photoed as she was in trouble with Jonny Law and we got a call to come pick our stuff back up.

After that I called a place in Florida and here is the pattern we went for. Out cushions are taking about a year to turn around. We are not in a hurry and are getting the Winter rate as she works with us. Here you can see the start of the teak and Holly Flooring going down and the finished product. I finished it with 8 coats of epoxy and then a semi gloss poly. This way I can just sand down the poly and refinish with out ever touching the wood again. The floor is also coated on all sides so there should be no rotting.

Here is a Photo of my wife, and my son with his new dog. The dog is now 2-1/2 yrs old so the photo was Christamas of 2010- One year of hard work. I have started on removing electronics and going thru the diesel and plumbing. I have a ton more photos of the last 2 years and I will upload and continue the story tomorrow night. We first sailed her in Fall of 2011. This was my main project untill I purchased the BMW E38 and now the E65.

I will see you all tomorrow night

Wow man im speechless just wow. U and ur wife make a good team)). I cant imagine how much time and effort u and ur wife put in. She looks amazing now. Show us some pics of her in the water. Chris ur the man.

Passion all the way respect thanks for sharing

very nice....the flooring/inside is beautiful...i bet everytime you go inside there is nothing like that fresh smell of wood.... btw is that a white boxer mix or american bulldog?

Fabulous work. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed the read and am looking forward to the next chapter.

You have a beautiful family. I'm sure your son loves the boat.

CCCP, you want to see my wife in the water or my boat, lol. My dog is a boxer/pit mix. He broke the glass out of the door last week so he is not on my "nice" list. Thanks for the comments and yes, my son loves to sail. He has been on a sailboat ever since he was 6 months old.

One day I will fill you all in on my father. He is the reason that I sail.

More to come later.

Hahaha chris noooooo azz i wanna see the boat in the water.

That looks like a LOT of work and you did a very nice job on it. My brother has a 34' Hunter at a dock in the Charleston Harbor we go out on every once in a while. He's had to do a lot of restoration on it as well but never repaired anything that extensive. I love, love, love teak but hate, hate, hate trying to maintain it...

In honor of this thread, I have changed my avatar to a sailing theme (Olympics 6m elliott)

Great work Chris, Man I would love to cruise the waves on the open ocean in a yacht. Forget the 7.

Originally Posted by Rookie2008

Great work Chris, Man I would love to cruise the waves on the open ocean in a yacht. Forget the 7.

Hahaha meee tooo. But dont u disrespect 7 infront of the company. Hahaha))

Originally Posted by ***CCCP***

Hahaha meee tooo. But dont u disrespect 7 infront of the company. Hahaha))

.

Chris,
By the way, I was in Tulsa-OK on Saturday. I was at the Camp Loughridge (4900 W 71st) all afternoon. On my way back to Texas I kinda remembered that you live in Tulsa but it was way too late. Shame on me.

Now back to the Sail boat. I remember a few months ago when we were in ‘INPA mode’ you briefly mentioned about having a sail boat. But you didn’t quite get into detail regarding this sail boat and I didn’t inquire further. Shame on me- again.

What can I say?………This project is totally inspirational. I mean, the risk involved, time, effort, resources and sacrifice you put forth from the very beginning up to the completion date is terrific. This is a real man’s project. I wish I had the drive and guts to attempt something like that.

I don’t believe there is a better feeling in the world when you and your family stretch ‘Nauti Girl’ legs out in the wild waters.

Originally Posted by pkathee

Chris,
By the way, I was in Tulsa-OK on Saturday. I was at the Camp Loughridge (4900 W 71st) all afternoon. On my way back to Texas I kinda remembered that you live in Tulsa but it was way too late. Shame on me.

Now back to the Sail boat. I remember a few months ago when we were in ‘INPA mode’ you briefly mentioned about having a sail boat. But you didn’t quite get into detail regarding this sail boat and I didn’t inquire further. Shame on me- again.

What can I say?………This project is totally inspirational. I mean, the risk involved, time, effort, resources and sacrifice you put forth from the very beginning up to the completion date is terrific. This is a real man’s project. I wish I had the drive and guts to attempt something like that.

I don’t believe there is a better feeling in the world when you and your family stretch ‘Nauti Girl’ legs out in the wild waters.

Oh that totally sucks!!!!! We could have had a ball, Saturday we ended up going to Hard Rock and we won big....42 bucks, lol.

I will get into the sailing topic again later tonight, I have a couple of photos here at the house but more at work on the server. It will be a good read.

Thanks for the kind words but the facts are that I really don't have the extra money to blow on a new boat and I absolutely love fixing them up. I have been involved in sailing all my life and again a great story to tell everyone, it's just about life and the curves it throws your way.

All I have to say is YES.. There is only a small amount of time in your life to really enjoy what you do and the feeling of controlling a sailboat is aw inspiring. The wind in your face as the wind directs you, the down burst of wind that tips the hull ever so more close to the edge and the sure power you feel at the helm as you are sailing.

So more to come.

Tonight I think I will just talk about my roots, the love and desire of being a man with a boat.

The Beginning.

My father got involved in sailing at the age of 32, at this time I was about 6 yrs old and I remember being up at the lake as my dad was learning to sail in the winter months. Mike was my fathers name and he was a very sought after home builder back in 1976 here in the Tulsa area. Mike was building homes and we as a family would go up to the lake every weekend with some of my parents friends.

The car rides on Friday after school were in the jag v12 with my mom at the wheel my 2 brothers fighting back and forth as we screened down the road with our English bull dog in the back window. The jag at that time in my minds eyes was a total electrical nightmare. We went thru three of them less than a year.

As we headed towards the lake right after school already packed the night before we would race my other parents friends. It was a great memory of driving fast and as we would pass my parents friends we would all give them the old moon. We would take the 2 lane roads with style and dad was already up at the lake practicing for the weekend regattas.

Now you might be saying to yourself, WTF is Chris talking about? He lives in Oklahoma. That is true but in Oklahoma we have more shoreline than the east and gulf coast combined. So my memory of my father still comes and goes, when I am on the boat I know he is near or just feel that I hold him close, I think it's my way of dealing with his passing.

In 1978 he had placed second in the one-quarter ton North Americans located in New Orleans, and placed first in 1978 at the Mini-Ton North American in Dallas sailing a Lindenburg 22 named Sauerkraut. In 1978 dad started talking to Bruce Kelley about designing a Mini-Ton boat. The boat was built by Lovfauld Marine in Florida in 10 weeks. It was a cold molded boat from what I have been told.

Half my post was just deleted. I will post the end tomorrow as its getting late. Photos are the inside of our boat at night, my son and I tubing, and a photo of my grandfather with my two brothers.