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After 2 years, and lots of help from everyone on this forum and from other wood boat owners, I finished up the restoration of my 1961 Grady-White. I received a ton of help from my friend and cabinet maker Jerry Bobela who worked with me to do ribs, transom repair and keel replacement. Here are some photos from some stages in the process.

Removing paint and varnish

38 steam-bent ribs


New outer keel

Caulk, fairing and paintiing complete


Rear bench and motor well restored. Transom and decks stained


Varnish, flooring and reassembly


Finally launched!

The boat handles very nicely and was well received at the recent show in Essex, CT where it took first place among outboards and received the show award for Most Original.

Now I need to decide what to do with my Penn Yan which was my previous restoration. Next project is a 1940 Old Town canoe with my kids!

Thanks again to all that helped with answers to my questions and to all of the tremendously helpful posts on this site.

Rich

How proud you must be! Congratulations on an outstanding project and end result. People like you with the passion for preserving the art of wood boats are a special lot. Hats off, my friend!

Nice boat. Nice work.

Not to be critical, but how could she have won "Most Original" with all the work done to her? There must not have been any non-restored boats at that show.

Andreas

Thank you both. It was more of a project than I anticipated, but I learned a lot, enjoyed it, and really appreciated the construction of these boats.

Anreas - That is a very good question. I am new to these shows and do not know the judge's criteria and did not ask, so I cannot say if the award was appropriate. I do feel good about the fact that we may every attempt to re-use or repair versus replace whenever possible. The only things we had no choice on were the ribs aft of the dashboard, outer keel and the base of the motor well.

Rich

Nice work! Looks awesome!

Beautiful work. She looks great!

So excited for you! She looks amazing. Sorry I never made it over to see the work in progress. Ever take her onto the LI sound? I'm out by Fairfield all the time. Thompson is running great! Enjoy the fruits of your effort.

Beautiful restoration! Be proud! What HP is that Tower of Power?

Thanks for all the kind words. I just returned from a long weekend up on Lake George and we really enjoyed using the boat. If anyone has any interest in a 16ft Penn Yan in similar condition, I would consider selling her now that the Grady is done.

Chris - I am happy to hear your boat is working well. I ventured out on the Sound from the Housatonic over to Captain's cove one calm day. I'll let you know next time we are planning a similar outing.

The engine is a 1962 Merc 850 that Jim Melanson went through thoroughly and resealed. It runs beautifully. For some reason I am having intermittent problems getting the priming bulb to firm up prior to starting and cannot figure out why. If anyone has dealt with this and has any thoughts, please let me know.

Thanks again for all the help on this forum and for the support.

Rich