SAVING NEWPORTERS and a link of interest

[Clyde A. Phillips]

I found this on the web while searching “Newporter 40” in IMAGES on Google.  I enlarged a picture of the Swan (of Honolulu—not necessarily in Honolulu) that led to a site advertising a Newporter being parted out. This link should take you to the first of 18 pictures. 

http://s785.photobucket.com/albums/yy133/tomrr45/Newporter/?action=... 

 All but two of the 18 show a good looking, well maintained vessel. The two show that the sides amidships were cut out to well below the clamps on both sides. They must have found some rot, and then started to poke around and found more. 

From what I’ve seen from the various Newporters in repair I’ve come to the conclusion that rot is likely in all but the most highly maintained ones, but in the plywood mostly and some of the structure close to the plywood rot. A good repair plan would be to put her on the hard and remove all the skin, fix the inner structure, and re-plank, re-deck, and re-house. With the success that a boat builder on the Chesapeake is having in building new boats using sheet PVC I think that would be a good, lasting route to go for plywood replacement. The interior of this boat looks good; the exterior does too, except it needs (apparently) replacement.  The masts and booms look good, but who knows?  During my time with the eastern built boats the booms were not fiberglass covered, but in the early days of eastern “kit assembly” the booms may have been glassed in California.  These could look good externally but rotten within.  All this to say that some promising Newporters are being destroyed when there is still years of good sailing in them.  

Bob Mitchell’s Newporter was in much worse shape than some I’ve seen torn apart, but his will return to sailing in new condition.  Someone out there can, like Bob, learn how to repair and rebuilt so that some of these boats under the care of discouraged owners can be resurrected to sail again.  If you are one of these owners, reconsider carrying your boat to the dump.  These boats are well worth, in good condition, 80 to 100 thousand dollars or more.  Fifty thousand dollars or so should rebuild them to perfect condition, if you or some other owner does the work for the love of the boat and rarely uses professional help.  Newporters are fully worth the effort.

[Clyde A. Phillips]

Eddie,

I have never had that sort of an experience with a Newporter.  I have sailed a lot on a lot of different Newporters, and most of them were brand spanking new!  I've sailed some well used ones and at least one well known one, the Black Swan, which at the time was not in real good condition.

But for inspiration for those who need it, look at what Bob is doing on this site.  He has set himself up as a publlic example of what it means to be rebuilding something.  I had my doubts about his boat ever seeing water again at one time.  But now, I have no doubts about his finishing the rebuild and I know there will be no rot in that boat when she hits water again.  I have been "with him" through quite a bit of his work, basically as an encourager, but he took on this job knowing he wanted to see it through and he has learned a lot in the process.  Other boats are getting better by the same sort of effort, and I think you are right.  Doing it alone, all alone, is tough, but if you have someone in the background saying "Good job, Buddy, keep up the good work" almost anything is possible.

Thanks for your input to this site, it's even a help to old guys like me, who will likely never sail his own boat again.

Peace,

       Clyde 

 

[Eddie Offermann]

Agreed.

I got pretty scared for a bit on mine when I found some delamination that had let water in and caused some rot, and can imagine the horror that must come over an owner when they realize that the shell looks pretty but the insides are suffering severely. Fortunately, Herb, the former owner, had dealt with much more serious repair work on So Nice and sat and coached me through it.

In a lot of cases, that's probably all it takes - someone who knows better saying "This isn't so bad. Let's just strip off the glass, cut out the bad wood, and rebuild this. It'll be ok."