Uma refit

[Al Taylor, P10 #174]

I know many of us have been following Dan and Kika's refit of Uma. What started as addressing the original poorly tabbed bulkhead, distorted hull from unsupported chainplate knees, and squeaking  floor and bulkheads has turned into a complete gutting of nearly everything inside the hull and below deck.

They are at the stage where they are creating new ribbing to stiffen the hull, and the latest video showed pretty poor bonding in a model they built between the new sparring and the hull. Basically a single point impact resulted in parting of the stiffeners from the model panel of the hull.

Even though this failure was in the model, basically the same technique was being used on the inside by the pros installing the ribbing inside Uma.

Seems like the impressive stiffness of the new sparring relative to the known flexibility of the 50 year old hull along with the strictly secondary bonding  of the new to the old could create similar problems with other point impacts like a dock, a hard grounding, or even severe loading of the standing rigging during heavy weather.

I am not hating on them at all. I've enjoyed watching their journey with Uma, but lately I wonder what was driving the decision to go from reinforcing bulkheads and floor/hull joint to this project. I'm also not trying to backseat drive this project. I believe they know what they want and how to get there, but the scope creep is the thing that gets at me at the moment.

Al.

[JimR]

Thanks for posting this Al,  As an owner of a 36-1 (hull #27) I have a great interest in the modifications they have made to date and are currently making.  What I don't care for is their constant bashing of the construction of the boat.  It was built to be a coastal racer/cruiser, not a boat to cross oceans.  I am actually very impressed with how the boat has held up as they have not only crossed oceans but also gone up into the artic with basically a stock P36.  Was it the best made production boat at the time?  No, but based on what I have seen in my over 50 years of sailing, Pearsons are built as well if not better than many of other production boats that were built at that time.  Just my 2 cents.

[Guy Johnson]

I'll have to go look at some of these videos. 

Are they using epoxy resin to bond the stiffeners to the hull? Epoxy forms stronger secondary bonds than polyester resin. 

Their boat has seen a lot of open ocean miles, many more than Puffin our 10M has seen. I don't think I could fairly compare the two even though they are about the same age. 

Guy

Puffin 10M #6

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From: pearso...@googlegroups.com <pearso...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Al Taylor, P10 #174 <awtayl...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 3:15 PM
To: pearson-boats <pearso...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [pearson ] Uma refit

 

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[JimR]

I believe they said they are using vinyl ester resin.  I noticed they are also using simple rigid foam as the core for their stringers and ribs which I know is controversial as it offers little in the way of structure.   

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Foam core stringers is not controversial.  The foam is a form.  The strength is in the laminate.  Basic technique.  OEM Pearson floors were done the same way on my boat. 

Vinylester is likely equivalent to polyester in secondary bond strength.  It is superior in water resistance and therefore more blister resistant.  Don't know that there is an advantage using it for tabbing that isn't immersed below LWL.  Epoxy is better than both for secondary bond strength and for water resistance.  So, vinylester is probably an inferior choice (compared to epoxy) for repair/mod work like this and was likely a choice based on economy.  Penny-wise and pound-foolish?

I agree with Jim.  Above average coastal cruisers of their day.  I would caveat that Uma was not stock and had significant upgrades to the bilge stringers (floors) and the hull-deck joint before crossing to Europe.  But otherwise, in terms of structure, basically stock. 

I need to join Guy for a watch party and catch up.

Dan Pfeiffer

[Robert Franklin]

Me too, Jim.  

I own hull # 36.  It is no mystery to me what Dan and Kika have in mind.

I've watched religiously from the time I saw their hull in straps with the keel waving side to side like a radio antenna. Why that was, I have no idea. I've owned my boat almost from new and never had anything structural suggesting that kind of weakness. In fact when I think of UMA waving, I am reminded about how energetically George Dubose tried to access the keel bolts on his 36 and finally (correctly in my opinion) gave up. 

Meanwhile, I think Dan and Kika are nuts, but clever, charming and entertaining.The point is I still watch religiously and add to their numbers algorithm. Without this rebuild UMA would be just another travelogue disguised as a sailing video. This is what many of the good ones have become, such as Wynns, La Vagabond, O'Kellys, Zatara, Zingaro. [Huge exception: Sailing RAN. But even that remarkable two person endeavor has little at this point to do with sailing.]

Bob Franklin

"ARION" 

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[John Getz]

Someone commented on their most recent video that the model of the new rib they made that came apart was not the same process that the professionals were doing inside the boat. It was the same materials, vinylester and foam, but the prep was different and better. We’ll find out in the next video.

I think it’s a little crazy, the lengths they’ve gone to rebuilding the boat, but she’s a platform for their design and engineering as much as she is a cruising home. Certainly don’t feel like doing anything like that on my sweet old 36–1.

John Getz

ALICE

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On Apr 10, 2024, at 2:46 PM, Robert Franklin <robertm...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[darin doherty]

Greetings all,

So, I have enjoyed their videos also.  I look at the folks that build their dream boat from scratch.  Here they have a solid hull and foundation to start with.  That being said, if you noticed during the paid professional demolition, there were places they actually pulled the original tabbing off with a pry bar then manually jerked it off.  I look at my boat, which I have just recently redone a lot to, and a lot of the tabbing is not done very well.  The hull seems to be great, but all the structure that was glued into the hull looks like dry, not fully wetted out standard weave.  There were places I was able to grind a little and yank a bit to get some of the tabbing out pretty easily.

I look at the channel refit and sail, and his tabbing looks textbook perfect, even though he tends to refit Contessa sailboats.  I believe he also uses polyester vs epoxy.

I did not see how the Uma crew prepared the model prior to laminating, but I would speculate there was probably some issues with either contamination or lack of roughing up (Only a guess like trying to guess whodunit in a mystery movie).  They did a good job leaving a cliff hanger at the end of the last episode.

I like my 10M but to say the entire build was great (coastal cruiser or not) is not true and leaves something to be desired.  I have seen internal pictures of Dan's boat from his website, and either he re-did some ot the tabbing, or the Pearson factory was completely inconsistent in build quality.  I would imagine it was not the 10M line only that suffered these issues.

Any way, for those that like to make things their own, I totally get the Uma crew not giving up on their boat.

Darin

Charis -- Pearson 10M #108

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[George DuBose]

I have watched all of Uma's episodes. I met them in Enkhuizen, NL when they replaced the lower unit of their electric motor.

When they were talking about dropping their keel, I related to them the difficulty of freeing up the keel bolts due to the excessive resin that was poured all over the keel bolts and in the holes around the keel bolts.

My P36-1 also has "dimples" from the knees being pulled inward, my keel was also "wobbling" when Skylark was in a travel lift a few years ago. I also removed the cabin sole and added wider and additional floors with Airex foam and countless layers of glass.

When I remedied a crack in the aft upper edge of the keel, I opened the crack only to find voids in the layup. By the time I have opened all the cracks and voids, I had a hole in the hull that I could put my hand through.

I was in a "heated" (50°F) hall doing this work and I had to heat the West System G-Flex to be able to work with it and saturate the glass.

As Uma always releases their videos some time after the actual filming, it was probably too late when I suggested that they use G-Flex due to its superior adhesion to plastics, metals, etc. It is also not as brittle as West's normal epoxy.

Recently I was told about a product called Coosa. It comes in large sheets, it is waterproof, very rigid, easy to saw and has a surface that holds adhesives well due to its surface. It is a mixture of fiberglass and foam. I tried to break a small piece with a hammer after cutting it almost all the way through and it didn't break or even show the ding from the hammer blow.

Skylark has been in Europe since 2009 and she always gets compliments from passerbys. The design of the deck and the hull is so different from the current editions of "bleach bottles". With her low cabin top and Flex-i-teek decking, she presents herself well.

My second son is beginning an apprenticeship with a top cabinetmaker and I told him to remember these Uma episodes and someday when my son's skills are high enough, he will do an "Uma" on Skylark, gut the interior, reinforce the hull and hull/deck joint and improve her overall strength and interior layout.

Uma is now in Olbia, Sardinia. In one of their episodes I saw a sign in the background of the video, "MOYS". I was just at that marina and when I returned to that marina, there was Uma. I will be back in Sardinia in September and will visit Uma to check on her progress.

George/Skylark

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[George DuBose]

Skylark had original floors that weren't perpendicular to the
centerline. Some of the tabbing of these floors was just a rolled up
piece of glass tucked into the seam where the floor met the hull. Other
places the tabbing was fixed to the formica of a bulkhead and the
formica was fixed to the NON-WATERPROOF plywood of the bulkhead with
RUBBER CEMENT. How's that for a bond.

...but these P36s have beautiful lines. ...and they are fast.

George/Skylark

[Peter McGowan]

The scope creep is hilarious, the earlier video where Dan ended up in an extended monologue “… and because we need to do this, we’ll need to this, so we might as well do this, and while we’re at it we’ve always wanted to this, and this…” left me wondering if they’ve entirely lost the plot.   Dan does give a bit of a clue that they’re not entirely crazy when he mentions “where we’re going, we’re going to need this” which implies (to me, anyway) they’re planning on some pretty wild passage crossings.  They may have done the math on what it would cost to switch to an ocean ready boat (and the work they would need to convert it to electric, and the risk that they’d find damage and all the unknowns) and decided they were better off just reinforcing Uma’s hull?  I do like that they’re adding watertight bulkheads around that sail drive, it’s always made me a little nervous what a big hole you’d have if something hit that drive, I’m more comfortable with the shaft setup though I noted on one of the Pearson Facebook groups recently that somebody’s insurance company totaled their boat thanks to a shaft strut failure so now I’m not sure that the shaft is a bigger point of failure than I had appreciated.  In any case I’m expecting the issue with their test will come down to skipping the sanding and dewaxing that replica of their hull before building the ribs.  I also think they should have used epoxy but that’s neither here nor there as the horse has left the barn on that one. 

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[Guy Johnson]

I had the same thought about the issue they had with the prototype hull piece. Also didn't look like it had been sanded either. 

Continuing on the subject of their destructive test, I don't recall seeing any delamination between the vertical rib and horizontal beam in the prototype, we know that section was covered in peel ply which should separate/surface the wax.  And maybe the cross beam was laminated before to the rib before the rib was fully cured providing some degree of cross linking in the bond. 

Guy

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Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 3:52 PM
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Subject: Re: [pearson ] Uma refit

 

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[Al Taylor]

I want to say the new ribbing were all put together when still wet, but I could be wrong. That would explain why they didn’t separate from each other. 

On Apr 11, 2024, at 1:26 PM, Guy Johnson <guy...@hotmail.com> wrote:



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