There’s another restoration in the workshop. During lock down I came across an advert on FaceBook Market Place for what looked like an ‘A’ Class Model yacht. At £80 it was worth taking a risk so I paid the seller a small deposit and headed down to Cornwall last week once travel restrictions were eased for some exercise and to collect the boat with social distancing adhered to, easy when the boat is nearly 2metres long.
It would be great to know what design she is. I had it confirmed on the International A Class Radio & Vane Sailors FaceBook Group that she is an A Class. I suspect that there were more of this design built as the hull was built in a two piece mould and the deck has been produced in another mould, I can’t see anyone putting this time and effort into building the tooling without wanting to produce a number of identical boats. There have been some suggestions to the design, nothing that I can currently verify but if you recognise the design please get in contact.
The first thing to do with the boat was to put the full main on the mast, the previous owner had only sailed it with a small main, I suspect this was to avoid heeling over too much as the blue tape along the gunwhale quickly revealed the glue for hull/deck joint had failed some time ago and was no doubt letting in water, this explains the wet rag I found in the keel recess.
The sails are in reasonable condition, good enough to use once the boat is finished and launched. The main is a little short, not quite to the top of the 8′ mast.
The rudder and lead keel needs a little work, there’s a few scratches and dings in both of them and the keel foot will need fairing into the keel stub and the whole boat repainted.
The electrical tape came off easily, the rear part of the deck/access hatch is also held on with electrical tape to beef up the failed glue.
Nice use of a Rubbermaid food container as a main hatch, this does seem to have a good seal and once removed does give easy access to the servos, receiver and batteries.
As with all the fittings there is signs of salt corrosion. The adjustable deck pate that controls the mast rake is brass and needs a good clean.
The rear deck will be epoxied back in place and round screw top hatch added to give access to the rudder
The deck joint as definitely failed, again a job for epoxy later on.
And talking of epoxy, the first job has been to remove the lead keel foot and rudder, these are currently being refaired with epoxy and microballoons.
There’s fair bit of work to do on the boat, not unexpected given the age and condition. I’ll try update the blog with progress on the ‘A’ as I split my time between her and Zenith
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