Sailing Boat Muendo - the Restoration
This post is about the restoration of the sailing boat 'Muendo'. She is a steel 40 foot (12.2 m) long, cutter rigged classic longkeel sailing boat. If somebody asks what type of boat it is, I never know what to say, as it is an unknown design. I found her in the Netherlands and she was in a state of neglect.
This is how I found her, photo: own
I had been looking around for a boat but never found what I was looking for, but when I saw the lines of Muendo, I knew I had to buy her. Obviously restoring her would be a long process with a lot of graft and money, but luckily I had quite a bit of time, and decided to go for it.
After stripping out the interior fully out, as nothing was worth keeping, I decided to have her completely sandblasted. As the steel was quite bent around the frames, a bit of expoxy fairing ensured that she looked smooth again.
after sandblasting and expoxy fairing
Then followed the best part of this process, the painting. The professional painters did a really good job, and soon she looked all shiny again.
Now it was time for the interior. By that time I realized that, although I could do everything myself, it would be much quicker for me to start working in my own profession and then pay for a professional carpenter to finish the interior. So I shipped the boat to Makkum in the Netherlands, where I found a carpenter ready to work on her interior.
In the end the interior was a lot of work and took a long time, but I think he did an excellent job. Especially the gunwale was hard to get right.
After the interior was more or less finished, it was time to get her back in the water, a big moment!
The next step was putting the mast back on, buying new sails, and install all the equipment. Then the biggest moment of all, raising the sails for the first time!
I will leave you with this picture of Muendo in one of the French Canals, on our way from the Netherlands to Italy. In my next post, I will tell you about that trip, that took a lot longer than expected....
@Ultrabiker
images are my own
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Sail away - great job on the restoration - inspiring!
Thank you @danielhime, for passing by and glad you liked it!
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Amazing work! You could write a book on just this!
Thank you @aktivsoul, and yes, a book could almost be filled with the whole restoration process.
Wow that looks like it took ages. A lot of work definitely and a lot of effort to make it ready to sail again. I hope she is sailing well now these days and hope you have a lot of fun with her!
Do you know the age of the boat? When was it built?
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Hello @atlantic-matt! thanks for stopping by. Yes it did take a few years to complete, although I was not working on it fulltime. She is sailing well now! The design is from the '60s, but I suspect the boat was built much later than that by an amateur builder; unfortunately I do not have a lot of information on the boat.