Going to the Dark Side

You just might like it....

Let’s start at the end of a particular old-boat refinish project, when I was at the launch ramp with a freshly painted 40-year-old Herreshoff America catboat—a fiberglass production boat I’d restored for a customer. The aging hull had arrived at our boatshop looking like a lot of other faded-glory hulks: chalky and oxidized white gelcoat, dried-up teak trim, spiderweb fissures from too many docking misadventures, and lots of gouges, divots and other blemishes in the aging glass hull. It was a beautiful design, but ugly mess cosmetically, just like a lot of old boats we’ve all dragged home as projects.

But at the launch ramp in late August, the boat was a glistening example of how a neglected, faded-white production boat can be transformed into something far more “classic” looking, and how—in the extreme example—an old glass hull can be made to look like the wooden original that might have inspired its design. As we were raising the mast at the ramp and sorting out rigging details, an elderly friend wandered across the parking lot to have a look. As he got closer, surveying the boat from bow to stern, he asked without a hint of irony if we were “getting her ready for next week’s Wooden Boat Festival?” I was stunned, but flattered: The vintage fiberglass boat, painted in colors that looked like stained and varnished wood, had at least momentarily fooled a savvy old sailor into thinking he was looking at a classic wooden sailboat.