The Boat

Our vessel of choice is a 1978 Morgan out Island 41 (415 model).  We chose the Morgan for a few reasons; the long keel makes her easy to steer and track straight (not so good for backing up in tight marinas though!)    She’s a pretty simple boat and even simpler with the rebuild (more on that later) No complex systems, electrics etc.   The Engine room is just massive (when we had the engine out and beds cut out, I was able to stand in the engine room!!).  The Electrical layout is simple.  And most important the crew cabin (forward cabin)  has 2 separate and overlapped single berths for our kids so that they each have “their own space”.  The ketch rig has smaller individual sails to handle and gives us a bit more choice in sail combinations.  Between the Ketch and Sloop of the 415 model, the Ketch has a bit more sail area and the Morgan needs all the sail area it can get!  And best of all we got the boat for only $6k!!!!

That was the good, now the bad on our particular example of an Out Island!   

When you buy a 41 foot boat for only $6k you know there is going to be “some fixing” We knew going in that we would have to do some woodwork  (the previous owner  had started to build a nav station that just didn’t work for us), replace the standing rigging as it appeared original, do some electrical and clean it up, the boat had been sitting for almost 10 years in storage!

Initially she looked OK when we bought her.

But after moving her from Annapolis to Grand Island, New York (we initially kept her in the US to take advantage of the drastically cheaper parts and free shipping on just about everything there!)  We realized that her condition was far worse, not Life support worse but close! We though that a summer of weekends would be enough to get her going again, this involved weekends of driving 2 hours , crossing the border and putting in a mad 2 days of work before driving back home again every weekend!!

By the end of the first season of work we had removed all the original wiring, plumbing, heads, and probably 1000lbs of just plain old junk that the previous owner left behind!

On to the rebuild! 

After a season of work and repairs ( we called her the "swiss cheese boat" at this point! )

Grinding out the old thruhulls

Getting ready to glass! (and no I wasn't auditioning for "Breaking Bad"!)

Kids helping apply the patch!

Applying the patch with peel-ply

We realized after the first summer that the project was about to become much more extensive than we planned, but we’d come this far and there was no point in stopping now

In the end we have so far done the following:

·         Closed up 14 unused thruhulls (Grinding and glassing in patches inside and out)

·         Removed all the Electrical and started rewiring as we go

·         Removed the old heads, tanks and hoses, replaced with C-head

·         Removed the Engine and replaced with Yanmar 4JH2E

·         Replumbed the fresh water tanks

·         Rebuilt the galley

·         Replaced the forecabin cushions

·         Replaced the standing rigging

·         Replaced the furler

·         Rebuilt the Nav station

·         Reinstalled/added to the electronics package

·         Repainted the shear and boot stripe Forest green

By the fall of the first season we had tried and tried to get the old Perkins 4-154 running but upon closer inspection we realized that it had been “Rebuilt” in an incredibly hodge-podge way and basically was 800lbs of scrap trapped in the engine room!  Over the winter of 2015/2016 we started shopping for a used/rebuild engine and settled on a Yanmar 4JH2E, the only complication was that it was in Connecticut!  So in the spring we rented a Pickup truck and did a weekend in Connecticut!   Drove there, picked up the engine Saturday morning and then did a 6hr drive to Grand Island to drop the engine off at the marina.  That was the easy part!  We then had to dismantle the old Perkins, drag it out into the aft cabin, degrease, clean and cut out the old engine beds, build new ones and glass them in with a new oil pan.  Then drop in the new engine, align it to the shaft, install the electrics and hope it all worked!  All in all, the engine swap soaked up $10K USD and 6 weekends of work!

From June to August of 2016 we made a mad dash to get the boat seaworthy and launched.  We were very lucky to be able to be ready to lunch by the weekend of August 12^th. The weeks leading up to the launch were consumed with getting the water systems for the  engine sorted,  the plumbing for fresh water finished and enough electrical installed so that we had proper running lights, bilge pumps ( both electric and manual)

Almost ready to launch!!

Its now 2017 and we’re trying to (again) get enough done to make the trip south this winter.  On this year’s major to-do list

·         Replace furler

·         Install dodger

·         Finish Galley remodel

·         Install remaining lights

·         Install remaining electronics (stereo, BMS, etc.)

·         Install new High output Alternator

·         Install new floors

·         Rebuild helm pump

·         Install windlass

There’s a lot more minor stuff that we’ll I’m sure be fixing/installing along to way!