Hylas 44 Rebuild

[arh]

Hi,

Well after much research and lurking on these forums i finally took the plunge and purchased Christy, a 1989 Hylas 44 in April this year. She had one owner from new although was little used (683 hours on the engine in 25 years) which is not always a good thing as lack of use can be as bad (or even worse) than hard use.

She was safely delivered from Southampton to Conwy by Halycon from these forums. In late 2015, she was lifted from the water and the rebuild and refitting commenced in preparation for when I retire in 3 years with the intention of living aboard.

If there is any interest, will update the thread as the works progress, ...

On her mooring in Hythe, Southampton


In conwy, with the old well worn and leaking teak decks:





Being lifted and taken to TLC Repairs near conwy marina






Decks being removed, the old decks had not properly bonded when being originally installed, this had resulted in water getting underneath and then leaking in around fittings:




More to follow as works progress ,,,

Tony

 

[mainsail1]

Interesting project on a lovely boat.
I have a teak deck rather like yours in size and condition and I will have to bite the bullet on repair or replacement sometime soon. Would you be prepared to say how much the replacement deck is going to cost?

 

[arh]

Hi,

Few more photos showing the progress:

Old deck being removed



The deck had recessed channels for the tracks when no teak decks fitting, these had been filled with plywood which had rotted away with water ingress.





Old adhesive being removed:





New Teak deck being set out:



Tony

 

[Flynnbarr]

Great thread,please keep us posted:encouragement::encouragement:

 

[jonic]

Ditto

Great idea for a thread and great choice of boat,

I shall follow with interest having re-fitted a 1985 Contest 36s for myself this year.

 

[Seajet]

arh,

my hat is off to you Sir, a lovely design which I have long admired; well worthy of Beiser's ' Proper Yacht '.

All the work will be well worthwhile, please do keep us informed.

 

[Monique]

I refitted an Amel Super Maramu for our RTW. Began July 14 and coming to a successful conclusion this winter at Marina di Ragusa, Sicily.

Only 1 big problem; all blimey yotties wintering here are too social for me to complete the works in good time... beer o'clock twice a week, Italian lessons on Mondays, guitar on Wednesday and a concert at the local concert hall yesterday. Plus the frequent meals at local eateries.

No time to work!!!

PS: you have far too much teak... it will cost you dearly! That said, she'll be worthy of a RTW herself.

 

[arh]

Hi,

Many thanks for the kind comments, I spent many years researching and looking at different yachts but always kept coming back to the Hylas 44. She is slightly bigger than what I wanted (ideally I was looking for something around 40'), but everything else about the design and layout ticked all the boxes for me.

The previous owner had spent a lot of money on 'upgrades' (electric winches, electric in-mast furling, electric genoa furling, etc.) but unfortunately the standard of execution of some of these upgrades caused other problems. I am now removing some of these 'upgrades' and making the boat and her systems less complicated.

As an example, the previous owner had installed electric guy winches for the spinnaker sheets (Anderson 46 winches), the picture below shows the switch for the winch installed in the deck:



Unfortunately, there was no sealant around the switch and as the boat had not been used for around 2 years before the sale this was the damage in the aft cabin



so as well as the deck i have several smaller projects on the interior, i will update these and ask questions / opinions as i proceed. This is the damage caused by a leaking baby stay in the forward cabin:




Thanks

Tony

 

[arh]

I refitted an Amel Super Maramu for our RTW. Began July 14 and coming to a successful conclusion this winter at Marina di Ragusa, Sicily.

Only 1 big problem; all blimey yotties wintering here are too social for me to complete the works in good time... beer o'clock twice a week, Italian lessons on Mondays, guitar on Wednesday and a concert at the local concert hall yesterday. Plus the frequent meals at local eateries.

No time to work!!!

PS: you have far too much teak... it will cost you dearly! That said, she'll be worthy of a RTW herself.

HI Monique,

I understand the comment about the teak and i considered removing the teak and reverting to a bare deck for a short time; but when you see pictures of the Hylas 44 with and without teak, it was a very short period of consideration. The Amel is a great yacht and i looked at them but for 2 people it was just too large for me. I have seen from some of your other posts that you have fitted a Dessalator water maker i believe? if so i am considering the same make so would appreciate any feedback good or bad, thanks

Tony

 

[saltylegs]

All the best with the refit I too will be following
Many thanks

 

[Twister_Ken]

Those pix of the old deck being hacked off are bringing it all back. Arghhh!

I wish you fortitude.

 

[E39mad]

Lovely boats - hope the refit goes well

I never understand why some builders screw each teak plank into the decks. Causes more issues than necessary especially when it wears and the dowels are proud of the deck.

Are you having replacement teak or an alternative?

 

[Twister_Ken]

I never understand why some builders screw each teak plank into the decks. Causes more issues than necessary especially when it wears and the dowels are proud of the deck.

I think that's history. It was the accepted method in the days before high performance sealants were available and thought to be up to the job AND a technique had been devised to clamp the planks onto the sealant long enough for them to cure.

I don't know, but suspect, that no teak-decked all-GRP boat would be both glued and screwed today.

 

[Tranona]

Lovely boats - hope the refit goes well

I never understand why some builders screw each teak plank into the decks. Causes more issues than necessary especially when it wears and the dowels are proud of the deck.

Are you having replacement teak or an alternative?

The boat was built in Taiwan where labour is cheap and appearances (and low cost) were important rather than longevity!

To be fair boats currently built there are much better because buyers now insist on better construction methods following experiences from the past.

 

[Boo2]

.... a technique had been devised to clamp the planks onto the sealant long enough for them to cure.

So how do they do that, may I ask ?

Boo2

 

[doug748]

"If there is any interest, will update the thread as the works progress, ... "


Yes, will be grand to follow your progress, thanks for putting that up.

 

[Twister_Ken]

So how do they do that, may I ask ?

Boo2

Vacuum bagging, I think when building from new. When I had my Twister redecked the yard used a combination of big weights and sandbags.

 

[Monique]

HI Monique,

I understand the comment about the teak and i considered removing the teak and reverting to a bare deck for a short time; but when you see pictures of the Hylas 44 with and without teak, it was a very short period of consideration. The Amel is a great yacht and i looked at them but for 2 people it was just too large for me. I have seen from some of your other posts that you have fitted a Dessalator water maker i believe? if so i am considering the same make so would appreciate any feedback good or bad, thanks

Tony

Hello Tony and all the others wondering about Dessalator Water Makers.

During our refit, we replaced an old 25 liter/hour Dessalator with a 100 Liter/hr Dessalator Duo 100 unit. This was chosen for 2 main reasons:
- Dessalator has been the choice of Amel for many years.
- The Duo 100 gives you the choice of either 24 V or 220 V pumps. Both pumps are integrated in the unit (a 12 V pump is also available if you wish; solely a matter of matching the unit to your own power installation.)

Before entering the discussion, a few facts should be considered. Amel boats are electrical GONZO's. They also have a very large water tank (1000 liters) This tank is located in the keel and contributes to the balance of the boat. Our choices took those features into consideration.

In the planning phase, we modernized the electrics with an increased battery bank to 8 X 120 Ah closed Lead/Acid house batteries (4 previously) and 1 engine/genset start (90 Ah) unit. We have 2 battery chargers of 60 Ah each (instead of a single larger unit) for redundancy reasons. We changed all lighting to LED and installed keel cooled drawer type main refrigerator. The original freezer was kept but cleaned up to increase efficiency. These changes were done to take advantage of the 450 W solar array topping our dinghy gantry. Thus far, we have been 100% self sufficient in the sunny Med cruising for 30 consecutive days, except for AC and laundry needs. We use the genset for AC to cool down the cabin in the evening or run the combi washer/dryer as we run out of clean nickers. The watermaker is run as follows; if we need water on a sunny day, we activate the 24 V side of the Dessalator and we can make +- 200 liters in 2 hours. The batteries recuperate quite quickly.. and can be topped up at the end of the day while running the AC. If we are on the engine, we can run the Dessalator continuously in 24 V mode. If the genset is running we can also make water through the 220 V selection.

In both 24V and 220V, we get near 100 l/h except in areas where we encounter extra warm waters.

It is a simple system and is, to this day an Amel selected supplier. Each boat comes fitted with one. The Duo 100 offers more flexibility in my opinion. Thus the reason for its selection.

Hope this helps... looking forward to your posts regarding your refit. If you wish the opinion of someone who has BTDT, I'll be pleased to help. Hylas are fine vessels and deserve a proper refit when the time has come...

 

[Tranona]

Vacuum bagging, I think when building from new. When I had my Twister redecked the yard used a combination of big weights and sandbags.

In production building things have moved on even further and decks are now preformed in a factory and then vacuum bagged onto the deck. You can get this done for retrofits now by companies such as Moodydeck in Swanwick. There is also a tend towards only laying teak in areas where there are no fittings which removes one of the biggest sources of potential leaks.

It is the old style - as perfectly illustrated by the Hylas - of laying teak all over the deck and then piercing it with hundreds of holes for fastenings that is a major cause of problems.

 

[arh]

Hi,

I had a quick trip over to the UK the other weekend and managed to spend a day at at the workshop to take a few pictures, plan some more works to be done by TLC and also to start a few of the projects which i want to complete myself.

It has been a few weeks since i was done and Barry and the team have made good progress:

Foredeck done, the centre part of the deck is a plywood template which will be removed and use to cut a piece of teak to complete this section.




The side decks are also coming on well, the masking tape is for the primer which is applied before the caulking




The other side deck, the pink filler is to fill the recesses for the tracks which had merely had plywood in before which had gone rotten and caused leaks through the track fixings

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More too follow soon

Thanks

Tony