Morgan 30 re-build

[StoneAge]

Hi everyone.. we have just taken delivery of a Morgan 30 for a complete rebuild and we want to share it with the world and thought this would be the best place to start. So please go and have a look at our developing web page to see an almost day by day re-fit of this neat little cruiser/racer.

The re-fit is complete from stem to stern and is going to incorporate several new ideas such as LED lighting package and a new engine capable of running bio diesel. There might even be a hydrogen supplementation unit added to the diesel as well - Diesels LIKE hydrogen - but this is dependent on some criteria that may be beyond our control.

I'd post some pictures here, but, I'm not sure how to yet .-)) I'm pretty new at this Sailnet forum so more will be posted as I learn. In the meantime, the link is in my signature. This is going to be fun!!! We start fresh on Monday. Look forward to hearing feedback from everyone on this.

[deniseO30]

Well, so you don't feel ignored. Congrats! Welcome to Sailnet! I'm not familiar with M30 construction and was wondering, did you remove the hull liner if it has one? OK get back to work! Keep us updated! like the site you made too! Oh, theres a guy that just got a Morgan for free and he's been making posts on another sailing forum about his project. It was a sunk at the slip boat I think.

good luck!

[sailingdog]

Welcome to Sailnet...

As for posting photos...the easiest way to do it is to get a photobucket.com or flickr.com account and upload the photos there...then use the icon to link the photos in your post.

[StoneAge]

Hello again.. and Merry Christmas.

We have been very busy with this boat. Thus not having so much time to come and post. Had some very interesting revelations.. but first.. a bit about the history. She was built by Morgan in the early 70's. This model is a '73 (I think) built for the racer/cruiser market. VERY wide at 11/6" for a 30' LOA vessel, with about 2 inches of tumblehome on the hull. The exit is almost double ended and is extremely hydrodynamic. Especially with the "Sharkfin" Keel arrangement.

The hull is a solid layup and in very good shape. deck is balsa core with an interior liner. As you may have seen from the photos on the blog, she doesn't have much of an interior. No hull liner, but the bulkheads are very solid and in great shape.

Can't say that much for the deck though... Turns out someone cut a hole in the foredeck to make an anchor locker, never finished it properly and left the deck core exposed. I started the "tap test to see what was up, marking the good parts... then stopped. Why? There were none. So we started cutting the deck away to see and there is so much wet and rot the whole deck core has to be replaced. Fun fun fun fun fun. Don't cha just love old boats?

We will be updating the site over the next few days and then we are going sailing for a few more while the kids are out of school. Then we'll be in a new year...

Thanks for the welcomes and look to see much more of us int he new year.

[Jeff_H]

I remember these boats. They are a big cousin to the nortorious IOR era Morgan 27's and kid-sister to the Morgan and later Heritage one tonners. Like the M-27's, these boats were notorious for fragile keel to hull joints. They were also known for large amounts of topside flexure, bulkhead separation, and rudder post issues. The M-27's that I knew well were all raced pretty hard, and generally needed to be beefed up early in their life with the addition of additional frames, and tabbing in these critical areas.

These were good boats upwind, but were hard boats to sail downwind or in a beam chop as they tended to roll steer badly. They took big comparatively skilled crews to sail well, especially in a breeze. Not exactly good boats for offshore or short-handed sailing. Certainly an interesting piece of yachting history. Just be careful with it.

Jeff

[StoneAge]

Thanks for the news Jeff.. I'll make sure and have a REALLY good look at the keel/hull join. I did expect it to be a bit moe fragile than most because of it's Shark Fin setup. Didn't make much sense to me to configure it this way, but there you have it.

The boat is not intended to do any offshore stuff, just cruise around the gulf and discovery islands and maybe puget sound a bit. So I'm not worried about the lacking of strngth for that purpose.

However I do take the information about the flexible topsidesa nd b'head separation seriously. All will be re-tabbed. This unit is just starting t show signs of tabs separating - so they all must be re-done.

Thanks again... Pic's to come.