77 years have passed and our boats have been in the water and racing much of that time. I have often said that from the day a boat is splashed; two things begin to happen concurrently: The sun starts to rot the top and the water starts to rot the bottom. Your job is to keep up with it all! Remember that the PC was built for men of modest means and not deep pockets. Early on, the cost of a NEW PC was in the neighborhood of $1,800.00. When prices rose to $2,4500.00… feathers began to rise. As everything else in life, that price went up too…but the PC was still considered to be a yacht that the “average” sailor could afford. I suspect that the maintenance given was in the same vein. I can see skippers handing boxes of 80 grit sand paper to children or grand children along with an instruction to “sand the bottom so we can put the bottom paint on”. My guess is that more wood ended up on the ground than old bottom paint. Throughout the course of my restoration work, I have seen aluminium staples, iron nails, brass screws, stainless steel bolts, DRYWALL SCREWS and other unimaginable fasteners come out of a PC hull. The advent of epoxy made things better AND worse. Used incorrectly or in a sloppy fashion, two pieces in contact are now mated for life. Removing one means splintering the other, thus a chain reaction begins with the “removal” of a single rib or plank. It is often the case that a "rebuild" is cheaper than a "repair".

The day when one could make a short drive and pick up a PC in the water for $1,500.00, sail her home and continue to sail “trouble free” for months and years to come…are long since gone. A “decent” vessel will not cost upwards of $15-18K and the buyer can STILL count on continued expensive care, unless the boat has been correctly restored or rebuilt. In today’s world, saving a PC means finding a good boatwright and yard who knows wooden boats AND modern materials. Thus, here we are in a world when people are spending $125,000.00, $165,000.00 to rebuild S Class boats or 6 Meters and now PCs. The prices of labor, wood and materials have caught up with us, like it or not.

The photos on the following pages offer a glimpse of what a restoration or renovation is all about. You will see many sad surprises and many hours of fresh cut wood. The pictures need no captions. You need only to understand that the work shown is a product of two meetings of the mind. One is the skipper who cares enough to save his or her lovely period vessel and the other is the boatwright who has the skills, knowledge and desire to bring a rotting hulk back to life to sail another 77 years. I hope you see this in each photo.