Well, it has been a while since I could work on the boat. There was some major house renovations and my daughter was married w/ everything happening at the house but I finally had a chance to start working on the hull. I had the hull sanded but I needed to raise it up to remove the bottom paint. I used the rack system found at the SanJuan 21 class site (http://www.sj21class.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=230). This was working well until one of the front forms slipped along the ground and the boat dropped catching my left hand. It amputated one of my fingers and completely smashed my thumb. The stitches come out today. Needless to say this is the end of my project boat. I am not going to donate any more body parts. If I contiue to sail,  it will have to be in a boat that does not need major work.

This system worked well  (until it didn't). I think the problem was that there was a slight down slope towards the front and the slope of the hull slowly pushed the forward beam outwards. I was actually finishing for the day and lowering the boat down when it collapsed. If you guard against slippage then I still feel this system would work well. The bottom picture is all the parts for the forms. I made them using bolts so it would fold up to be used for another time (though since losing a finger and possible thumb there will be no next time for me.). I hope this blog has been useful for some. I will be selling my boat so if anyone near central Pennsylvania is interested please contact me through this blog.

The SanJuan 21 is a great boat for its size and I am sorry to give it up. I hope someone will enjoy getting it back to the water.

Tom Schaeffer