DN Restoration

Ken Stafford checks in with this update on a nice vintage DN he is restoring- it looks like it’s almost too nice to sail now! Maybe he will race it in the Vintage/Classic category at some of our DN regattas this winter….

If you are up to anything iceboat-related over the summer write a few paragaphs, take a few pictures, and email them to me at t_thieler@yahoo.com and I’ll put them on the front page. Any and all content welcome all year long!

And now here is Ken’s report:

The short story about the boat is that it was offered as is, free for the pickup by a professor colleague of mine. It was in Pennsylvania where it had sat unused for over a decade…and no one knew its previous history. It was complete shy some fasteners and a broken batten. The runners were horribly rusted as were all the non-SS nuts and bolts. The sail had no numbers or emblem on it although I could make out the image of its number, “2013”. I stripped off all the white paint on the hull and discovered only a small amount of delamination near the bow…fixed that and repainted with forest green polyurethane. Polished all the bronze fittings and stained SS, replaced all the rusted fasteners with new SS, removed all the rust of the steel chocks and steering pull-rods and painted them black. Completely stripped the varnished spruce mast, re-glued some lose mast top pieces, and refinished with 5 coats of varnish. Stripped the paint off the plank and discovered a beautiful wood grain. Again applied 5 coats of varnish. Carefully copied the old outlines of the sail numbers and logo, cut out new ones from green self-adhesive sailcloth I got from Sailrite, and put them on along with a bunch of tell tails. Found the 2 pieces of the top broken wood batten and was able to bond some very thin tapered wood patches over the break…doesn’t seem to upset the camber too much. Spent about 3 hrs on each of the blades removing rust, and grinding in new edges. Also stripped and refinished both the beautiful wood tiller and unusual hand brake.

The sail is from “Kenneth A Nelson Sailmakers”, the boom blocks are “Sharpnack”, and the runners have “LCB” stamped on the aluminum stiffeners. I’ve been told that it was probably built in the late 50’s/early 60’s and that the sail number was originally issued to Steward Hamel from Sharon MA.