Is the Pilot House designed to be removed?

[sail149]

I think also the pip lot house on the later '84 for sure have a pre molded liner that in my case has some stippling painted on it. Which would have made getting a good bond tricky.
Unless the chase ways for the overhead light and above the front windows were lot tole moldings glassed over but it looks way to clean to be that I think.trying to get a good Finish on the inside of the pilot house if just it he inside of the fiberglass would be a lot of work but al have seen are fairly clean. Except possible the early single skin versions which appear to have vinyl texture glued to them. Maybe they are the soft top ones?
I can also see that if they did not get the inner and outer bonded together right they would have trouble fitting to the deck! As we all know. I haven't taken my windows out yet and really don't want to find another project!

[rnummi]

Oh that other project is there alright... It just depends on the pre-fix leak situation. You definitely will have leaks around the overhead handrail holes, those in turn feed water to the port and starboard window cores. Then you have the lower window cores where all the water collects and sits. MY PO had tried to use caulk around the periphery of the windows... To no avail, the water just ran through the core underneath the caulk. in retrospect it wasn't a hard fix, pull the Windows, hand router the core around each opening, fill with epoxy, plug the Windows back in. You now will have a solid material to screw into when you remount. So long as you start with overhead handrails, plug the interior holes, fill from the top, redrill, caulk etc. You've now addressed the primary leak points. Windows will be dry as a bone.

[rnummi]

While you are up there fixing the handhold leaks, you might as well pull the steaming light too. Same routine. Mine had been leaking since it left the factory. Once you discover there was no bedding under handrails/steaming light and after you stop gnashing your teeth at the factory techs who could have saved the pilothouse for us poor schmucks 20 years later with a few dollops of caulk... Anyway.... Like a good umbrella, you gotta stop the water at the top before you get to the Windows.

[sail149]

Rick
Thank you I have not checked out the handrails up there yet...... The cabin top one were are loose.
Stopping all the leaks from the top is my primary goal too. Leaks from the top everything gets wet on the way down .
Leaks from the bottom....auto bilge pump! (Joke)!
Cheers

[rnummi]

Warren, I can tell you mines dry as a bone now.... Definitely the cabin top handholds were primary points of water entry. Steaming light, and non-bedded snaps were the secondary source. Happily after a weekend of caulking and butyl taping.... No more interior drips. Now to caulk the Windows. My last observation is that nothing on the boat is "true" ergo, mass amounts of sikaflex life caulk and seal have almost addressed all surface leak sources. Still haven't gotten to the forward and aft cabin handholds though. If the same volume of water has been penetrating there.... Well we won't even go there.

[mboatworks]

I figured this would be an appropriate place for a few pictures of the Hardtop removed. It was extremely easy to remove, and only weighs about 120-pounds without the windows.

Notice the balsa coring was never sealed, and I was lucking the coring as in pretty good condition.

IMG_4995.jpg

IMG_6130.jpg

[rnummi]

Congratulations! Whenever I see an A27 pilothouse it gives me nightmares. That's absolutely a beast of a job. If I had it out like yours I would carefully router out 1/2 inch of the balsa and use resin to make it bulletproof. Again... bravo! You could do the community a huge solid by taking pics of the non-sealed core. I think it's outrageous that they didn't take a couple of minutes and think through what these boats would face. I also found the exact same issue around every port in the boat....

[Beta Don]

There are two basic types of boats sold today and it's been much the same for the last 40 or 50 years - Those designed from the ground up to still be in reasonably good shape 25 or 30 years later and all others . . . . and they're pretty much always priced accordingly

In 1980 you could buy a brand new O'Day 28 with a diesel engine and standard complement of sails for about $25,000 . . . . or you could buy something like a Shannon 28 with a standard diesel and sails for about $75,000. Some of that difference was from the use of high end fittings, bronze port-lights vs plastic, more teak and other exotic woods in the interior and exterior, bolts where others used self tapping screws and stainless where others used something else - Chrome plated pot metal comes to mind, but much of the difference was in the way the hull and deck were laid up and the quality of the materials used - Many tubes of high quality sealants which last nearly forever vs a few tubes of the cheap stuff which kept leaks at bay only for the first year or two

There *are* boats out there which have hull to deck joints, hatches and port-lights that still don't leak after 30 years - I've never owned one, but they're out there

We all want to buy a used 30 year old $100K boat for $15K, but unfortunately most of those better built boats have held their value and we still can't afford them. The replacement cost today on that Shannon 28 would be about $350K - They don't build them anymore because nobody would pay $350K for a 28' sailboat . . . . few paid $75K when they were new - They only sold 75 or 80 of them. The used 35 year old ones are selling now for around $55K to $65K, which is about 80% of what they cost new

I've never been particularly good at taking advice, sometimes even my own. For example, I know that for any 'restoration' it's always best to buy the very best example of whatever it is you like and go from there. It costs much, much less in the long run and it's much less frustrating too, but in spite of knowing this for a fact, all to frequently I still seem to end up with a poor example of some junker or other at a rock bottom price and then invest large sums of time and money to make it 'like new' again - Sometimes better than new because it wasn't all THAT great when it WAS new. Then a few years later after a TON of hard work, I find myself the proud owner of something I probably couldn't resell for half what I have 'invested' in it, never mind my time - Use it 'til you die because you'll never get your money out of it. If we're gonna keep it forever, we should be a bit more careful WHAT we start with, IMO. Luckily, I'm too old to take on any more boat restorations

A friend has a Shannon 28 - He's the second owner and he's lived and traveled aboard her for the past 25 years - I owned a used O'Day many years ago. Night and day different boats

I just wish I had figured all this out when I was much younger!

Don

[JT48348]

Unreasonable expectations abound!

Idk gents, the A27 and all it's foibles is growing on me daily. I kinda like the pilothouse and with reasonable expectations--there's simply nothing like it. If you're restoring boats expecting to get ur "investment" out of it, I have a bridge in NY for sale you might be interested in. Lol

If I had known the pilothouse weighed 120lbs I would have just taken it off the boat and made the repair job easier. I may rig my mast and still winch it off just to clean things up.

What did you use to get the pilothouse off the boat? How did you get it to the ground?

[rnummi]

JT: I agree with you completely. I have literally got blood in this boat. I love her looks, her style and the fact that her pilothouse is "solid" at this point. In short, everything that needed to be done when it was new, I did during restoration. Leaky ports? check. Leaky from windows? check. Balsa Core Rot? check. Faded gel coat? check. Cheap components? check. In short, every dang problem that this boat has ever had has been remedied. I couldn't ask for a better boat. It's plucky, it's a tough little nut and I love it from keel to truck. No one, and I mean no one has a boat like this for the price point we purchased it at. It actually can be made through owner effort into the best 27 afloat. That and, they don't make em anymore.

I wish I could have removed the pilothouse... but like anything else Albin... you just work around it.