One - Purchase

April 2, 2008 - We were pretty familiar with the O'day name, having fixed up a '76 Oday 22 (shoal keel w/o centerboard) prior to Gayleforce. I found this '77 Oday 20(shoal keel with centerboard) on a sailboat listing website, with a very brief listing and an even smaller picture. The boat was on the trailer in Palmetto FL and appears not to have been sailed or at least tagged since '89. The boat suffered a demasting via a broken forestay turnbuckle. The mast crashed onto the cabin top (with the cuddy hatch pushed forward) at the same time it struck the owners daughter in the head. After the accident, the boat was de-rigged and everything just thrown in the boat and there she sat for years(the boat). So, here is the rest of the story.After raising the boat bow via the trailer tongue to drain everything to the stern, I drilled a 1" hole at the base of the stern so I could flush the entire boat with a hose. The cockpit drain had stopped up years before and rainwater had been popping over into the cabin. Needless to say the frogs were having their run of the boat. No snakes though!After a couple of days of hosing out all the leaves and giving the cabin a sponge bath (so I would feel better), I jacked the boat off the trailer, cut off the rotten bunk stands, slid the trailer out from under her and sat her back down on 4x4's on concrete block piers. See pics below.Margaret helped me strip all the hardware from the boat. She stayed topsides holding or turning bolt/screw heads while I crawled down in the hull working the nuts off the bolts. I continued the next day to remove all the teak which was beyond salvaging. Next the rubrail came off. She is now ready for sandblasting off the bottom paint, and full sanding of the hull and topsides for primer and 3-coats of 2-part urethane. This is the current status of the boat. Sandblasting and sanding will have to wait till after the Beach Ball Race weekend. That is all for tonight!