Madges Winter rebuild - GBR 2646

[kerrgreg]

After an excellent first year in the cherub fleet having attended most of the events. And fully been getting into the cherub spirit having continued to fix and rebuild the boat every time it went out for at least the first half of the year.

I find myself with a long jobs list for the winter of fixing improving and updating Madge ready for another season of abuse. I figured I would track the progress, hopefully not the lack of, here on the forum for all to see and keep the motivation up.

Got a few bits to address with Madge, the main one being the amount of water getting inside the tanks, and the soft floor which has caused a few fittings over the season to break free. - likely related to the cracks in the outer skin or the holes/cracks elsewhere in the boat.

Things on the optional extras list would be fixing the de-laminated areas of the hull, sealing and curing the cracks in the outer skin, simplifying the rigging and some performance improvements such as T-foil, larger sails for when there are less 97 rules boats around.

So Ive got some things on the shopping list if anyone wants to part with some let me know via PM or something and Ill sort out some money for you.

• 05 upwind and downwind sails or just larger than 97 rules
• carbon! - tubes ideally
• Tiller Extensions for twin wiring

And a picture of madge sailing before changes.

[kerrgreg]

First jobs were to clean and remove all the fittings and rigging on the boat.

So to start with this is what she looked like after a season of use.





Can you spot the delam in this one? 

[kerrgreg]

Next up was to start the sanding back, I wanted to sand back most of the hull, one reason was to sort out some the delam and cracks the other reason was that madge has a very rough finish and it was making me sad looking at everyone's glossy and clean looking boats!

So it begins









This was quite interesting, there was lots of black paint, but under that I found white, blue red and yellow paint not sure how many pictures there are floating around of madge, but shes certainly been a few colours in the past. In some places the black was very thick and took allot of work but most of that paint was off in about 5hours of work today with the air sander and some 80grid pads.

[Neil C.]

Great work. Madge was white when she was first launched, but that's a few years ago now!

[kerrgreg]

Next thing on the list was to work out why there were so many cracks in the front of the boat, these are all in the outer skin forward of the shrouds.

Since the Allen inspection hatch was in an inaccessible place, and wouldn't open I opted to make my own inspection hatch, in the end I did manage to force  the Allen hatch open and will likely cut it out and seal it up before the start of next season.

Convertible!


I had to open the bow, which I had filled with holes during an adventure up their at the nationals, and then opened up the bow tank to have a look around. What I found I think explains the cracking.


Half sized bulkhead....


Which you might be able to see is also rotten since it wasnt sealed by its previous owner.. and that rots all the way from the tanks surface to the hull.


Here you can see the king post, which although looks fine, there is no bulkhead between here and the half one or much/any support for the hull forward of this, other than the previous mentioned half sized bulkhead.

As such I think this explains which the joins in the outer-skin panels have been splitting, so hopefully some reinforcement and additional strengthening there should then help the rest of the bow stay rigid.

[kerrgreg]

Great work. Madge was white when she was first launched, but that's a few years ago now!

Thanks Neil, that does fit what I found in a very few small areas.

Easy bits done so far, much more to do! Hopefully can be done in time for re-launching in march.

[simon_jones]

Outstanding work. Always seems to take more than you think, but should be so worth it.

[JimC]

Yep, Madge was white when new (1990 Torquay Nationals) and built to a very restricted budget as I recall. May even have been polyester, not epoxy.

I would be astonished if Simon Roberts hadn't varnished or epoxied internal wood, but that was 26 years ago. Inside the tanks on a self draining boat, especially a basically foam sandwich boat appears to be the perfect breeding ground for rot, suppose its never really dry. I once reached into the hull of a Int Canoe and pulled out bulkhead mush with my fingers.

[Neil C.]

Yep, Madge was white when new (1990 Torquay Nationals) and built to a very restricted budget

Nevertheless, the build quality was very good. I crewed in Madge briefly in early 1991. At that time she seemed to be a real state of the art, shiny new racing boat which was very well finished. A bit of a contrast to Flat Stanley which I crewed in later the same weekend. Stanley was still competitive and a true Cherub icon, but even Guy Lewington referred to him as a bit of a shed by comparison. 

[kerrgreg]

Got to agree that the build seems to be great considering 26 years later she is still going strong and only has minor issues, likely due to water ingress.

[Tim Noyce]

The build does look really good, looks like it was built with a lot of care.

When we did the rebuild on Comfortably Numb, I sanded for Days and Days using a random orbital sander with 40 or 60 grit to remove the layers. I kept going until there was no paint left so I knew that I was back to ground level. As with yours, there were many different colours to work through. I just saw it as a kilo per colour and used that as inspiration to keep going!

[JimC]

I'm wondering if the half bulkhead is associated with handling spinnaker pole loads, and might be a later addition. The Torquay report suggests Madge was originally rigged with a pole kite, but I don't recall if she was built with a tube for a sprit as well. Its certain that the snout is a retrofit since it wasn't legal in 1990.

Certainly my Bistro had no bulkheads between mast and bow, and I'm not surprised Madge is the same. If she was built of polyester, as I have a vague memory may have been the case, then surface cracking round the bow area might simply be the material showing its age in that high load area.

She was, BTW, mainly built by (IIRC) Simon Roberts for Will Perrett.

[kerrgreg]

I can confirm that the snout was added between 2010 and 2015 when Nick Pratt owned Madge, before 2010 the previous owner had it rigged with an asym pole coming out the starboard side. I guess that you could be right as it seems that the half bulkhead need trimming to allow the new longer pole and snout to fit, it was made of marine ply by the looks of things.

Im inclined to agree that the cracking is predominately where panels appear to join, looking from the inside.

Thanks for your input Jim, its really interesting hearing the stories and piecing together the history. - Does anyone have any pictures from back in the early 90's when Madge was racing? Preferably including Madge so I can add it to my collection of history

[Neil C.]

I can't find any photos unfortunately. I remember Will Perrett sailing Madge at the legendary '92 Rock Nationals, but I seem to recall he them went out to work in Australia for a while and Madge dropped off the radar for a few years. I've no idea where Will is now, or whether he ever came back to the uk. Anybody know more?

[andy_peters]

regarding longer tiller extensions.  Get down your local fishing shop and ask for carp rod butts or really any similar rods with broken tips.  Our local shop had a selection out the back and we took our pick.  One shop charged me £5 each but the other shop just gave me 3 or 4 for free.  Strip them down, put a golf grip on and you are good to go.  We are still using one original rod (the codfather) after 8 seasons of abuse.