Hardy Refurb Project - Please help!

Look for back copies of Practical Boat Owner about their restoration of a project boat Hantu Biru running from March to Dec 2015.

http://www.pbo.co.uk/expert-advice/expert-answers/pbo-project-boat-hantu-biru-2085

Starting here:
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Ended here

Hantu_Biru.jpg
 
Hardy's are built like the proverbial outhouse. I'd endorse all the above about getting it out of the water, removing all water, take out the soft furnishings and clean. Let it dry and assess the condition of the internal woodwork: with luck you may find that once dry all that is needed is sanding and re-varnishing. External woodwork should simply be a case of clean, sand and re-varnish.
Externally, power wash and elbow grease plus your choice of cleaner will shift things. I've used cilit bang (or supermarket own brands) to good effect.
If you're careful with the existing hood, you could take it to the local lorry canopy shop and get them to make you a replacement. I did that for our Hardy, cost me about £300 but that was about eight or nine years ago. Go to your local sailmaker and it'll cost more.
As to worries about stringers (wooden reinforcing bits of the hull) the build of Hardy's is such that I wouldn't worry too much. The one weakness is that cabin and cockpit decks are built on to a slab of ply, so if there's water underneath the deck you may find that this ply is rotting. That will mean cutting out the deck and replacing it, not a task for the feint hearted. Getting a professional to do it would be expensive.
I loved my Hardy and only sold it to buy a larger sailing boat to sail away to the Med on. Hope it goes well.
 
One other tip. Never buy anything from a chandlers unless absolutely essential. Screws and fastenings from local commercial suppliers, fibreglass from Glasplies (or other specialists). All types of hose from local hydraulic suppliers. Upholstery materials from local upholsterers. Ebay for lots of general things. Anyway, you get the idea. Have fun and keep us posted on progress.
 
Just had another thought. On our Hardy, the upholstery down below was made by having plywood panels which formed the lids over the lockers. Foam was glued on to the top of the ply and the covering was then held in place by staples. We recovered these without sewing by simply stretching the fabric over the foam, folding the corners and stapling into place. Cheap and quick, took us an evening to do the lot. You'll need to replace the foam but even so cheap enough. I recently did the same for my project boat, bought the material from eBay for about £5 a metre.
 
First day of cleaning, bucketing out and jetwashing today. I've updated the photo album you get get to from the link in the first post.

Good news is that after a bit of coaxing the outboard fired up and seemed pretty happy all things considered.

One question I have from today, if you look in the photo showing the back of the boat, outboard and fuel tank, under the fuel tank there's a wooden board with little cutouts where there are plastic bungs. I released the bungs and sponged up and water that came out into a bucket (smelt delightful!) Does anyone know where this water would be coming from? I thought it would be from the compartments either side (1 empty, 1 with battery and a jerry can in it) but that wasn't the case as the water level the compartments didn't drop when the bungs were open so I just emptied the compartments out with a small bucket. If i knew where the water behind the bungs was coming from I could target that as it presumably needs a damn good clean out.

A good positive start - she's looking 100% better than she did - a long way to go though. Next course of action - empty the inside into the garage to see if the timbers dry out and can be sanded down or need replacing. Also take a set of screwdrivers and a stanley knife with me to release the rest of the carpet.

If I could get her stripped back then at least we may be able to get her out on the river, albeit in pretty rustic shape whilst I carry on the project.

Oh yes, also what's the best plan of attack for the flat bit of fibreglass running round the edge of the hull, as that bit hasn't come up bright white (presumably due to standing water having been on it for so long) - Cillit Bang and a scouring pad or is something else better to get colour back to normal? To be honest it's not exactly bad, but if I could make it better then great.
 
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Try oxalic acid, or failing that, traffic film remover, which is a concentrated car cleaner. Both are as cheap as chips.
 
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Looking forward to hopefully more work on Lynda this weekend. Hardy have been really helpful with replying to emails regarding the boat. The bungs at the back are from the bilges. They say the way to empty them is to life the boat out of the water and lift the bow - such a shame that's the only way and there's no access to the bilges for me to pump them out into buckets etc whilst she's in the water.

There's a table screw thread/connector in the floor towards the stern that's trapping some carpet so I need to release it, hopefully under this fitment there might be access to the bilge - fingers crossed!

More cleaning, removing carpet and wet timbers the next step. I'll keep posting pics, apologies for not using the photo uploader for the forum, I always struggle with forum photo uploaders and my phone automatically uploads go Google Photo's so it's nice and easy. I'll pop the link in my posts when there are updates.

Thank you again to the community here for your help and advice - it's great when there's such as helpful and active community especially for people like me who haven't got a clue!
 
Hi All,

More updates post the weekend just gone.

Armed with a cheap (manual) pump from Amazon, the bilges are now emptier than they were, not entirely empty but much better. All the furniture is now out and drying in the garage and following some spiderman-esque manoeuvres the river facing side of the boat has now had a clean. Lastly I started removing the carpets that have become rotten from being underwater. There are some sections on the walls of the cabin where I will cut the carpet with a Stanley knife as under the level of the bench seat needs removing however above was fine so it seems unnecessary to remove these. Lastly I removed the fresh water balloon (It probably has an official name I'm unaware of) It hasn't been refilled in a few years so I wouldn't fancy drinking anything out of it...!

Latest photos are in the album here: Link to Google Photos

Next step is to clean up the cabin a bit more, replace any timbers from the seating that are rotten once dried and see what else I find....!
 
That's probably the one, basically the fresh drinking water tank that lives in the bow (I'm using words like bow rather than front - I'm learning!)
 
BowlOfPetunias said:
That's probably the one, basically the fresh drinking water tank that lives in the bow (I'm using words like bow rather than front - I'm learning!)
Click to expand...
Personally I would use that for washing etc and take a 5 gal container (with tap) full of fresh water from home for drinking.
Also you should put some steriliser such as Aqua Tabs in the bladder tank each time you fill with water.
 
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