Little Gremlin - MB class dinghy

"Little Gremlin" is a Manchester Harbor "MB" class sailboat, built at Graves Yard in Marblehead in 1948 - immaculately maintained by the owners.

She came to us with a leak on the starboard side of the new centerboard trunk (replaced several years before).

Examining the bottom, we found the keel had split along a line parallel to the keel/trunk joint - this piece of split off keel had the garboard attached, and it was floating away from the rest of the keel - Leak City! This kind of repair is called Re$toration because it means taking the boat apart and rebuilding it... Ca Ching! Not in the cards...

But Wait! There's More! We knew that if this split had some meat behind it, we could fasten the split to that meat, and lay a little bit of cotton in the seam and it.. should.. work..

We made up some pine "cleats" that would show nice above the floorboards as it lay on the ribs, and molded some epoxy resin between the bottom of this piece and the inside of the garboard - Voila! -just enough "meat" to put some small fasteners in to keep everything stable, then the cotton worked it's magic to keep the ocean on the correct side of the boat, The Outside.

Classic Restorations are a wonderful thing - and this boat is Worthy of that - but in the meantime, this fix is non-intrusive (can be undone easily), and gets the job done so the boat can be put on its mooring and Used - the Number One concern for this family.