Graduate 2024 Innuendo Restoration - Part 6: Back on the water

The fittings and new bailers were installed and I felt it was time to see if the “old lady” still floated … she did! And not a drop of water leaked in.

The next stage was for me to replace all the fittings … actually I retained the stem fitting and the mast step… and essentialy set the boat up for “single handed” sailing which was the main reason for both the main and jib sheeting arrangements shown above. This photograph also shows the re-profiling carried out to the plate case top and the way in which the colour has been restored back to normal on the floor.

With the boat yard in Chester where I was carrying out these repairs having been sold I was forced to move Innuendo back to a temporary home having rented out my main residence in the UK so temporarily she would have to live outside.

However a brand new cover has ensured she kept safe and dry!

With it now being nearly seven years since this whole process and having been given a gentle “nudge” by Stewart Eaton about it being the “60th Anniversary” of the Class this should be the only incentive I need to complete the task and get the “Oldest, Newest wooden Graduate” back on the water!

Ancillary Items

The mast and sails were essentially shot (although for “old times sake I retained the original Light Blue Windward Set) and so were sold and replaced with a new Needlespar Mast and suit of Edge sails and then subsequently with the new “Rooster” large mainsail. The boom, which was the wooden original, and had been tied down so hard in the boat it had adopted a permanent bend … great for spilling wind on a starboard tack!

The trailer was stripped down and sandblasted before being correctly primed with both galvanised paint AND red oxide and then painted with Blue Enamel. A new mast support was fitted together with new rollers to support the boat.

The trolley was virtually brand new and so needed no TLC.

Foils

The centreboard was a plywood affair and I suspect original. It was badly twisted and so replaced with a new laminated foil from Chippendale Boats on the South Coast. Beautifully constructed from laminations of mahogany and ash with a tufnol replaceable tip and an epoxy resin bearing for the centreboard bolt. The rudder too was original and solid mahogany but had been coated in something very very tough. It took hours to strip but now, after eight coats of International one pack polyurethane looks like new.

The rudder stock too was showing its age and so this too has been restored. The Nylon Coating on the Stock was badly damaged and so I took the entire component to a local “Metal Refinisher” who removed the old coating and shot blasted the unit which was then electro-statically powder coated as above.

Fitting out and re-rigging

Whilst I would like to think the end result of all this will be a boat which looks well… “pretty even”… I would be surprised if it were ever going to be “Championship Winning Material”; whilst she is still clearly an original Wyche and Coppock “Dandy-Grad” she is of course very much 44 years old. I feel sure that in almost all respects she will be better and stiffer than she was when new having the beefed up “box structure” of two side tanks and with the whole boat having been treated with Epoxy resin I have few doubts about the structural integrity. However the design ethos of the Grad has moved on considerably through the Rebel to the Alpha and then on to the Sprinter and now the excellent product produced by Rooster and the Boatyard at Beer. Having said that … in the RIGHT hands maybe she could perform quite well.

The ONLY fittings I have retained is the mast step and bow plate … everything else will be / is new. However I have set the boat up very much with single handed sailing in mind as and when I get her to what I hope will be her new home in Spain. The sheeting will be via transom to centre main as appears to favoured in the class (I actually think I have forgotten how to sail with conventional transom sheeting) with a “jammer” … if racing I guess you would remove the jammer. I have positioned the jib fairleads as far inboard as feasible by the addition of a “Mahogany fillet” added to the side tank. Whilst I appreciate that such a set-up may not be exactly 2012 “sailing technology” it is far simpler for use single handed.

All the main controls (Kicker, Outhall and Cunningham) will be led aft and cleated on the side decks with the whole boat finished with a brand new Mast, Boom and Sails including the new large Rooster main.