Pond Yachts

During last year I was contacted to see if I could restore a couple of pond yachts one of which had sustained a lot of fire damage resulting in severe blistering of the varnish etc. The second one only had minor damage to the structure itself but had lost its rigging and the sails so the task was set.

Once I had the re-mitt from the owners as to what exactly they required I got stuck in, the first job was to assess the best method of removing the damaged surfaces so I carried out a couple of tests to find the best method. I decided to start with the larger of the two boats by working on the hull this was to take about a week to completely remove all the surface damage and repair the two holes in the hull which were then reinforced. Once the hull repairs including the rudder had been completed the hull was then prepped and then re-varnished to a high gloss finish.
Now for the interesting bit to try and work out the best method for removing the surface damage to the deck area whist maintaining the plank lines on the deck, again before attempting this I ran couple of tests and eventually came up with the perfect method. This process was to take quite a while to achieve the end result but when varnished proved well worth it and certainly enhanced the end result. The rest of the larger yacht was straight forward enough to finish with just some general cleaning of the brass fittings and fixing any other damaged components. All of the sails and rigging etc were fine on this model and required no work.

The second stage of the restoration was to deal with the smaller of the two yachts which would require new sails and rigging. Having had a good look at the damage the first job was to sort out the hull and its various fittings this was straight forward enough and when finished It was re-coated with varnish to finish off. The main job was to replace the severely damaged sails this would require marking out and cutting two new sails one of which was then coloured to match the original red sail. Once the sails had been made and the fit checked the next job was to re-fit the various eyelets and fixing points, this took a little while and proved to be a bit fiddly. Now with the sails ready the yacht could be re-rigged, having not come across this style of yacht before this again proved an interesting challenge but after a bit of research and the use of a book kindly supplied by its owners the re-rigging was completed and she was brought back to life. With all the work on both boats completed they were now ready to be returned home and sailed again.

Overall this restoration was very rewarding to see both boats returned to their former glory so they could be enjoyed for years to come.