I saved an O'day 22 today.

[PPPPPP42]

If it wasn't sold by tomorrow it was going to be dumped in a field to be used as part of a paintball course. I found that unacceptable so I drove 6 hours one way to pick it up sight unseen for $200 and then drove 6 hours back with it. Thank god I had one working brake light (left one) and one working tail light (right one) and all four wheel bearings were in excellent shape and looked repacked.

Long story short it was a several times over abandoned boat and the guy wanted it gone. I think I have everything except the uppermost slat board for the door and both sails and the little bits that go in the mast track are gone, (bottom stop thing is still there).

I have a good mast and boom it looks like, the stainless bow railing and lifeline railings or whatever around the sides are OK, the standing rigging is all stainless wire it looks like so I assume its fine. Winch handle somehow stayed in the boat all this time and both winches work (some England brand I forget) All the pulleys and bits of hardware look useable. Some of it might be aftermarket and not original. Good rudder that I think may be fiberglass (painted and hull coated) with a laminate wood handle. Original (I think) tandem axle trailer, tires are shot but servicable, everything on it needs work.

Bad news is the boat has been sitting probably with the hatch boards off for probably close to 5 years and the hull is seriously suffering from neglect, Someone drilled about a 3 inch hole into the floor in the interior right as you step down from outside obviously to make it easier to pump out the lower hull. There is currently 6 inches at least of muddy water sitting on top of the keel in the lowest hull area and I can see by a foot long crack with rust leaking out down the side of the keel that it has probably gone through freeze thaw cycles and started to delaminate. It doesn't look too far gone yet though, The whole stupid interior seems to be one piece of plastic so I'll just hack a hole in the floor and put a big ski locker door in afterwards.
Also the whole interior is basically throw away at this point, and though most of the deck is solid the fore deck area is spongy, it appears to be really thin looking at it from the inside so i'm not sure what is normal for that area.

Pics later, I was more concerned with rushing home to minimize driving in the dark with messed up trailer lights and I don't have a day off for a few days. Also how do I even post/host/whatever pics on here?

O and BTW I am NEVER the one that gets the stuff cheap like this so I feel special today.

EDIT: I almost forgot, this is my first sailboat.

[ToppDogg]

Nice now lets see the Photos!

[deniseO30]

Oh my.. don't know if we should congratulate or feel sorry you! Good luck! Because boats are fiberglass and wood they are way more restorable then cars and trucks found in fields.

[SlowButSteady]

The things we (sailors) will do for love.

[tomperanteau]

The good thing about plastic boats, is that they will probably be around in some form or another for thousands of years. I'll be dead and gone before my boat goes down.

[PPPPPP42]

Ok, I'm covered head to toe in moldy mildewy water, but the exterior is pressure washed clean.

Got the mast up and boom up. In case you were curious this is possible to do by yourself with no tools or poles, even when you have no clue where the cables actually go. Thank you process of elimination, they only reach the correct spots. I learned after the fact that the side stays go on first along with the stern one, since now I cant get them all hooked up and got them all out of adjustment in an attempt to fix them. I just pushed the mast up by hand and crawled up onto the cabin top holding the fore stay then when the mast was straight I walked forward with it and clipped it in the loop in the bow. Those tiny adjuster things really suck to work with, I'd love bigger ones that can be done by hand, plus the threads kinda suck, is it possible to put new ends on these if the cables are good?
Managed to figure out how the boom goes on, and then when attempting to figure out how the cable thing actually attaches to it at the mast end, made the mistake of letting go of the cable while the rope wasn't tied to the mast cleat. Needless to say the rope is heavier than the cable and that eyelet that goes on the boom is now wedged in the masthead pulley, thankfully that stopped it before it came completely undone. Tomorrow I will pull the mast back down and redo the stays and get that stupid boom line back down.

Is there nothing but tension that holds the mast base into its step thing? I was expecting to see the slots in the mast base having a downward tilt so the cables pulling down would hold it in, but it looks like if someone were to kick the mast base towards the rear of the boat really hard it would possibly pop out if the tension wasn't enough.

I have no idea how I'm going to figure out the routing of all the lines when I finally get sails. Speaking of that does anyone have an old blown out set that they replaced and kept around that they might want to get rid of really cheap?
Also if anyone has replaced their hatch boards and has the old set around still I would love to buy them, I only have the bottom 2 and they are awfully beat up, plus it would be really hard to make a third that would match at all. I see a site making them as a set for $150 but ill just make my own crappy looking plywood ones for now if I have to since that's way more than I can afford until much later in this project.
Despite what is obviously a huge hull and deck repair job now I'm still optimistic, I get to earn the boat by damn near building it from scratch and I can make whatever configuration of interior I want.
Looking at how this hull is put together, any boat this model and age that wasn't extremely well taken care of would probably have all the same leaks and stress cracks and issues this one does, they would just be better hidden or poorly repaired by people trying to sell the boat, I feel I have a more honest start to a good project and for $400 total I still think I've got my money's worth.
I was too embarrassed to take pics before cleaning, it was truly horrible looking, maybe some tomorrow.

EDIT: could someone please confirm my belief that 1973 was the first year and that this is an early production 73. Is there any index of hull numbers for these like there is for the Day Sailors?

[deniseO30]

the cables are called "stays" the front is a head or forestay, back is back stay, the side stays are called shrouds, Most cabin stepped masts have a pin or hinged type of connection on the mast base.

O'DAY 22 sailboat on sailboatdata.com.. More than 6000 sailboats, sailing yachts, dinghies and sailing craft listed.

[PPPPPP42]

UPDATE:
Ok, I can raise and lower the mast by myself with no tools, I will never want a boat bigger than this though, it would be miserable to do then, and I will be making one of those poles for better leverage soon. Looks nice with the mast up and all the standing rigging correctly sorted out.
Also turns out the rudder is the original wood one, not fiberglass, its just in really good solid shape and well coated so I couldn't tell when I knocked on it.

Have pictures now, no clue what to do with them to allow people to see them.

GOOD NEWS, the keel wasn't delaminating, turns out its a relatively easy fix. In those keels the lead ballast was higher and farther forward than I thought, and most of the keel is essentially a hollow fiberglass shell. Turns out that the keel was filling with water in the rear most area and when it froze it put a foot long crack in a place that was previously (read: poorly from the outside only) repaired. So all I have to do is correctly fix that foot long crack from both sides and make sure I keep it pumped out until the cabin top / upper hull is waterproofed and then the lower hull is good to go.

The upper hull has been repaired around the mast step over a large area, this combined with the fact that the mast is aluminum color and the boom is the original gold color makes me wonder if they didn't have a dis-masting incident a long while ago. The fore deck as I said is also spongy.

I may consider cutting down all the fiberglass ceiling so I can properly repair and reinforce the upper hull and then just coat it and insulate it somehow.
I have ALOT of upper hull waterproofing to do though, basically everything that can leak does.

[night0wl]

post pics on imgur: the simple image sharer and drop them as forum pics here.

[CalebD]

I applaud and like the idea of repairing the deck leaks by cutting out the inner skin where it is leaking and soft, re-fill the core and re-seal with epoxy in a vacuum bagged setup.
Basic Vacuum Bagging

As for re-bedding your current deck hardware this is a good product to use: Need Butyl Tape? Photo Gallery by Compass Marine at pbase.com
Check out the other boat specific projects he has documented while you are there.