Kalulu

Last update:
March 2012

Kalulu is a J51 aluminium sloop.
She was brought to us by the new owners, Toby and Helen Keppel Compton, for a general refit.

This lovely aluminium J &V designed 51 foot sloop was purchased late last year by Toby and Helen Keppel-Compton in Holland where she was lying. After initial discussions about a refit she was sailed across to our yard in Southwold. Our brief was to fit a new Mikuni heating system, new hot and cold pressurised water system, redesign and build the heads, fit a new Lewmar windlass and investigate the teak on plywood deck.

Once safely moored on one of our fitting out pontoons we built a shrink wrap tent over her to keep out the elements and provide a controllable atmosphere to work in.

The work started with removal of all deck fittings followed by the removal of the teak and ply sub-decks to both the side decks and the cockpits.

Once the last of the plywood had been removed it was discovered that the aluminium deck under the side decks was only slightly over 1mm thick and had become detached from her deck beams and stringers.

After much careful thought and debate with the owners and their surveyor Bill Macgregor it was decided to remove all the filler and paint from her superstructure and clean back to bare aluminium, remove all port-lights for refurbishment so as to allow a new aluminium deck of 6mm to be laid down.

The new deck material was sourced of the same grade as she was built from and after patterning up cut and laid in sections. We made aluminium counter sunk machine screws of the same grade so that we could mechanically fasten the new deck to the old and in doing so sandwich the new and old deck to the deck beams and stringers.

All of these fastenings were then welded so as to create a watertight seal and then the new deck plates were welded to the toe rails and the existing superstructure.

Once this process had been completed she was primed and sprayed with Awlgrip Matterhorn white to a very good standard.

The task of stripping and refurbishing the winches and all other deck gear then began after which these fittings were re united with the vessel taking care to insulate the fittings against the aluminium and also insulate the fastenings.

The portlights and hatches were all stripped down, reglazed and fitted with new seals before being refitted and two very special flush hatches were sourced from Italy and fitted so as to provide a flush midships cockpit.

The cockpits were next with a sub deck of West impregnated BS1088 ply being laid before a new Dek King plastic deck was laid over the top to finish her off.

We have recently removed her Mercedes Benz inboard and are in the process of rebuilding this prior to refitting it to the vessel in the last week of March.

Her heads have been redesigned and are now being rebuilt and her cover has been mainly removed to allow the pushpit, pulpit and guard rails to be refitted.

The remaining refit works will be carried out below and then she will be lifted out to allow her underwater sections to be blasted and re coated, her anodes changed, her seacocks serviced and finally her topsides will be re sprayed with Awlgrip Flag blue.