Seafarer 31refit

[margitchris]

Since the quiet of winter is settling in and since I finally pried my wife's cell phone away from her to take the pictures, here is my refit project of a 1971 Seafarer 31 yawl. She has been on the hard a little more than a year. The is nothing new here; just more shots of a ground and filled deck on its way to the first coats of primer.

Here is the deck locking aft. The corner of the cabin roof was crushed by a falling pecan limb in August. If you had seen the size of the limb, you would wonder, as I did, why much more damage wasn't done.

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Here is the shelter as it has evolved. I'm on my third silver tarp; the falling limb did the last one in.

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Here is the reluctant prop stubbornly clinging to the shaft six months after I began trying to remove it. You can also feast your peepers on the strange externally mounted stuffing bow which in on the REMOVE list

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Here is the deck looking forward showing the intricacies of my shelter construction technique:

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/22c7bd9e3a.eck

And here is one of the two oversized port holes that I filled in to make all eight ports the same size:
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I feel good because I actually got a few hours' work in on the boat today.
Happy turkey leftovers,
Chris Miller
Lloyd, Florida[/img]

[fusto]

Something really odd about this pic...

Why is there a stuffing box on the outside of the boat?

[margitchris]

Seafarer yachts are often powered with an outboard motor mounted in an aft lazarette. An opening in the counter through doors affectionately termed "bomb bay doors" is where the outboard motor shaft exits the hull. When I began thinking about the oddities of the inboard engine istallation on my particular boat, I realized there were scuff marks on the outboard mounting board in the lazarette. The inboard engine seems to be about 2o to 25 years old. My guess is a previous owner got tired of the outboard in the lazarette and hired a boat yard to install a Yanmar. Boat yard took a look at the limited space and accessibility where the prop shaft exited the hull and decided to do the nifty external stuffing box. To adjust the stuffing box, you simply jump over the side with two wrenches, hoping the water is clear and there aren't any alligators or water moccasins lurking about. OK, so I wasn't too keen on doing that and I let the stuffing box go too long and the boat almost sank on its last trip to be hauled out.
Oh yes, and the yawl rig is pretty much an afterthought too, but the thinking is not nearly so "outside the box."

[Figment]

I love the seafarer 31. Great lines.

But I can't see them! Are the pics not loading because of the extra image tags, or is it a freeimagehosting thing?

[suntreader]

The Seafarer 31 sure is a looker. I was bidding on one about a year ago when the owner pulled it from the auction at the last minute. That was a very early one with an attached rudder rather than the more numerous ones with the spade rudder. Either way, very sleep boats.

I'm just down the Interstate in Gainesville working on a 32 foot Islander.

I'd love to see some more pictures of the project, what is going on with the interior?

Dave

[Hirilondë]

Seafarers are lookers, but I can't see the pictures either.

[margitchris]

You should be able to view the pictures now. I have not posted pictures before, so I had too much stuff in the image address. Sorry.