Restoring a Trailerable Sailboat

Going through your new used boat—inside and out.

Article and photos by Guy Light

My name is Guy Light and I have been sailing since I was nine. My first boat was a Chris Craft pram that my grandfather built for me. When I was 14 my Dad sold it. That was irritating … but I still have the 1932 Alto Pal half-horse outboard and it still runs. You know it’s old when you’re in New Zealand and find one on display in a marine museum!

I really wanted to be a machinist like my father but he wouldn’t have it. So what did I do? I became a race car driver … go figure! For 44 years I’ve designed, built and raced endurance rally cars sponsored by numerous car companies, tire manufacturers, driving light companies and oil producers.

I don’t take a normal approach to things and have a tendency to think outside the box. If someone built it, I can take it apart and put it back together again … and make it better. My wife says I just can’t leave well enough alone. She is a very tolerant soul!

Sailing experience: Multiple catamarans, trimarans and land-sailers.

I finally decided I’d had enough of hot rod sailboats and wanted something more serene, so I went searching—via iPad, you know—for my first monohull pocket cruiser.

Night after night, ‘til two in the morning, looking, searching, reading every blog and looking at thousands of pictures, falling asleep and leaving an oily face print on my iPad. Finally, I saw a video … this guy in a Monty 15 gets the top of his mast hooked by a topping lift from another boat. It pulls him up on his stern. The whole keel is out of the water! Then it yanks the boat onto its port side; the mast is almost parallel to the water…and finally it unhooks. He sails away! Almost no water in the boat. And I would imagine his next statement was, “That was a hell of a ride!”

OK, I’m smitten! It’s gonna be a Montgomery. Besides, it has a lapstrake hull and I get to hear the water slapping the sides while we are sleeping. But now I have a mountain of decisions to make. The 15 or 17? The 15 fits in my shop! The 17 goes faster. Heavier or lighter? Oh, which one will it be? I read more late at night, search the internet, call Jerry Montgomery. But what will actually determine which I get depends on what’s available. I finally found one on the California coast. I called the owner and made a road trip.

Being from Nevada, rust, salt corrosion and those associated problems aren’t really in my vocabulary. The sails are good, the hull is sound; she’s 25-years old, but I can see the foundation is solid and with a lot of TLC I’ll have a “brand new” boat. We settle on a price, hook the trailer to the car and while leaving I realize the gentleman who sold it to me is standing in the driveway with his best friend and tears are running down his cheeks because his life has just changed after 20 years and I realize I’d better do a darn good job of the restoration and do him proud.

Deconstruction: On the way home I found out the boat and trailer tow very nicely behind my Suzuki XL7. That’s another plus for small. And at every gas stop or rest area (because I have a micro bladder), I would walk around the boat and the gears are turning about all the things and stuff I want to do.

We are in the driveway and we have a bunch of large storage boxes and are ready to access all the treasures hidden within the boat. Boy, that mast when it’s on its crutches for going down the road, is a real head-knocker. I felt sorry for my wife! A solution for that problem will be discussed in a later article.