Getting ready for the first season #1... survey and quick fixes

After the purchase of our "New" to me Tartan 27 I headed down to Bloomington to assess the condition of the boat and begin preparations to being the boat up to Chicago and get her sailing. Upon first inspection I learned that the seller was correct, my boat was in exceptional condition given her age. No major structural issues, good sails and in ok cosmetic shape. The main fixes I learned about were:

1) The port and starboard lazarette hatches were both cracked at the hinge and needed replacement
2) The front cabin top hatch needed repair and the main sliding hatch was delaminating
3) The teak rub rails were cracked in a few places and need replacements
4) The wiring was a complete mess
3) The trailer needed some TLC to be road worthy (more on this in a later post)

I didn't have the resources to replace the lazarette hatches properly. A replacement was available from Tartan for $400 each which was much too rich for my blood. I was able to remove the broken ones and make quick replacements from some plywood, these will have to suffice for the first season until I can make something more permanent.

The front hatch was a bad repair on the part of the previous owner, just a piece of plexi crewdly screwed onto the old frame. The plexi was cracked and leaking into the v-birth below. I caulked the crack and started taking measurements to eventually replace this with a new teak hatch, hopefully with a small skylight next winter. I'll probably end up doing something later this summer to make it look better but for now the hatch isn't leaking.The main companionway hatch is another story. The hatch is the original fiberglass and teak one and the teak is peeling up. Again, I think this will be a winter project to replace. I would like a nice teak one to match the rest of the bright work on the boat.

I was able however to attack the wiring right away. I started trying to sort out what ran to what but soon realized that over the course of 40 years the wiring was a complete rats nest and ended up completely replacing the wiring. In retrospect I did some things well and I would do a few differently in the future. I moved the negative block into the wiring box and repulled all wiring to the block and around the boat. on the positive side I simply repulled everything to the switches adjacent to the negative block. I like having all of the wiring terminations in one place, it makes changing things and troubleshooting easy. The downside is that the box is absolutely stuffed with wiring and will soon become a mess. I'm thinking this may be another winter project if I get the time. I really want to think it through and make the wiring clean and simple with the main goal of being nearly invisible and easy to change if needed.