How this all started...

In March of 2010, my wife and I started looking at boats that we could not only sail on the local south Texas lakes, but every once in a while take down to the gulf coast.  After looking around at various trailor sailers such as the Catalina, Starwind, and Columbia.. we settled on a 1973 Clipper Marine 26 MK-I.  We knew it was an older boat that would require plenty of repair, but were willing to sacrifice time for money in our first purchase.

The boat was reasonably clean and in as good of shape as any other 30+ year old boat I had seen.  For the price, we couldnt resist.  So in April of 2010, we bought the boat and christened her:  the Hale'iwa.

She was on the water by June, and after a failed launch attempt, and a replacement of the outboard with a new Nissan 4-cycle 6 hp motor.. she provided many weekends of summer fun with the family. 

One afternoon while motoring into the marina, her keel hit and slapped back against the keel trunk.  I raised the keel, and circled back around in the marina to put her onto the trailer.  With the trailer too far down in the water and coming in too hot, my wife attempted to stop the boat from hitting the back of our truck.

The resulting impact placed her index finger between the nose of the bow and the back of our truck, and split open the soft underside of her finger.

She was a real trooper through the ride up to the hospital to get her stitches.  Lesson learned: Make damn sure the keel is up in the marina if I don't want to be signing divorce papers.

It wasnt but a few weeks later when we were back out on the water, enjoying the Hale'iwa yet again. 

Though this time around, we noticed she was taking on a bit of water.  After 4 or 5 hours of sailing, I appeared to have about an inch of water on the cabin floor.

Looks like it was time to finally use my insurance and file claim.  I pulled the Hale'iwa out for the Marina Service Department to take a look, called the insurance company, and waited.

Well, the bad news all came at once.  The Marina wanted around $2,200 to repair the damaged fiberglass around the keel trunk, and the claims adjuster said the boat had previous damage, so the claim would be denied.  Considering they did not send out an initial surveyor before the boat ever touched the water,  I could nto fathom the justification of their findings.  Lesson learned:  Make sure an insurance surveyor checks out your boat before it ever touches water.

After spending a bit of time asking questions about repair work on the Clipper Marine forums, I have decided to  take a shot at performing the repair work myself.  Since I am confident that I will not be spending anywhere near $2,200 for repairing just the keel trunk, I figure I might as well see what I can fix up on her within  the limited budget that I do have.

With help from one of my friends, we went out to the boat yard and collapsed the mast to transport the boat back to his house.  While taking down the mast, he took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of the damage from the outside of the hull.

At first glance, the damage from the outside looks fairly small and relatively simple to repair.  When I get the chance, I will take a look at the trunk from inside the cabin.  More to come...