Just wanted to provide everyone an update...

I had Craig Staake come take a look at the recommendation of Scott on Tally Ho!. Craig told me up front he wasn't a fiberglass guy, but offered to come by free of charge and give me his thoughts. Based on his assessment tapping around the hull, the damage is not that bad and he didn't feel it would result in the higher end estimates I've received from Todd. While it's admittedly difficult to identify rot through glass without tearing it apart, this was good news and lifted my spirits a bit. Regardless of the news, Craig went out of his way to provide advice, knows Cape Georges well, and I'll definitely be working with him in the future on wood-focused projects.

I also spoke with Pacific Fiberglass, and had the owner come down to look at the boat. He came down on a Friday, and promised to provide me with an estimate by the following Monday. Mid-week, I hadn't heard anything and gave him a call. He remembered that I needed an estimate, and promised to have it to me by the end of the week. This was a couple of weeks ago, and I still haven't heard from him. Pacific Fiberglass may do very good work (I haven't heard otherwise), but they're not the people I want managing a large project such as this.

I'd intended to meet with a couple of the local Seattle area shipyards to get additional estimates. However, in the mean time I took a trip to PT to meet with Todd. It was fascinating to see the Cape George shop, and observe how they build their boats. They are in the middle of building a 45 foot pilot house cutter that will be finished with all the bells and whistles, including a diesel/electric hybrid set up. It's going to be a beautiful beautiful boat, and I hope I'm around to see it when it's done.

Todd was great. He was very laid back, but with a can-do attitude. We discussed all my concerns and the details of how this was going to all come together; all of which set my mind at ease. The trip in general reminded me why I bought a Cape George in the first place, and reinvigorated my excitement for these boats.

For the following reasons, I think I'll be ahead by having Cape George do the repairs: 1) they've done this repair before, and I suspect this experience will save me money and will result in higher quality work. 2) I'm interested in establishing a relationship with the Cape George crew for purposes of solving future problems. 3) I'm going to be working on other less involved projects, and I suspect having their expertise available will help tremendously. 4) there's something very cool about returning my boat to PT; a kind of rebirthing of a great boat. Todd is currently working on haulout date of March 29.

Relative to the different repair methodologies, I spoke with Todd about the advantages of fixing any rotted wood inside the bulwarks, saturating it with epoxy, and encasing it with fiberglass vs. tearing out the wood and creating a solid fiberglass bulwark. Todd didn't feel like the cost would be that much difference. I feel like glassing over the wood then through bolting the hardware again would allow for a potential problem down the road. Therefore, I'll probably go for the more permanent fix of building an all glass bulwark.

Thanks again for the advice. I'll keep you in the loop as repairs are completed.

Jason.