What I actually bought
Bought for very little, which should have told me something. Moisture meter reads high right through the aft deck and the centreboard trunk weeps.
Writing the honest scope down now so I can compare it to reality later.
O'Day Daysailer · restoration
O'Day Daysailer restoration
by Example Logs
· boatbuildlog.com
An example restoration log. Shows how a restoration diverges from a new build: survey and teardown first, and a scope that grows once you open things up.
This is an example log, not a real project.
It exists to show what a useful build log looks like — dated entries, tagged to a step,
with hours recorded and mistakes written down. The technique in it is illustrative;
don’t follow it as instruction, and check anything structural against your
designer’s drawings. Its hours are excluded from the site’s median figures.
5
Entries
48
Hours
168
Days elapsed
5
Photos
Apr 2025
Started
Teardown
8 h
Everything off
Stripped all hardware, bagged and labelled by location, photographed before removal.
The photographs are the point. Six months from now I will not remember which of the three similar bolts came from where.
Deck & Cabin
15 h
Deck recore — scope grew
Cut the top skin, dug out wet balsa, dried the cavity, rebedded new core.
The wet area was roughly twice what the meter suggested. That is normal and worth budgeting for: assume the damage is bigger than the survey.
Hull & Plank Repair
11 h
Centreboard trunk
Old sealant had failed along the trunk. Ground out, reglassed, faired.
Slow, awkward, upside-down work. Two hours at a time was my limit.
Blisters and crazing
Ground out blisters, filled, faired the topsides. Crazing round the old cleat bases came out with the hardware.
Still to do: paint, then rig and hardware. Roughly 48 hours in so far against an estimate of 30.
