I'm considering aquiring an Arctic Tern for $900 that has been badly finished and used for a number of years. The builder did an excellent job of making a true hull, and the boat paddles great and only wieghs 40#, but the finish is terrible. Very lumpy and uneven, lots of runs. Butt -joints on side panels look terrible. Cockpit has some very rough places inside, especially where my knees fit under the deck. I'm wondering what it will take to completely refinish at least the outside, and do some serious smoothing in the cockpit. Also thinking of pulling the coaming off and replacing with a better design--it sticks up off the hull to far it seems, has no knee/thigh braces and has a little peak at the center of the back rim, that hurts during a layback. I'd like to make a coaming that slopes smoothly at the back, no peak, no 90° edges. What should I watch for to maintain a good seal with the skirt? The rear bulkhead inexplicably was installed with about a two-inch gap at the top deck that opens the cockpit to the rear compartment. Some of the fillets in the cockpit and compartments leave raw glass exposed at the edge. The boat seems structurally sound however. I also need to rig the deck, it has nothing but hatch straps. Also inexplicably, the footbrace racks were installed one forward of the other by about 5 inches, so they need to be pulled out and re-done, holes filled. He also had a compass mount off center and very close to front of cockpit coaming. That has to be moved forward, a nice mount crafted, and the holes filled in. The boat paddles great, is very responsive and very little weathercocking. I just want it to look as sweet. I'd also like to really re-enforce the keel line, particularly on the bow and stern. The stern has worn through to about 1/8 inch into the bare wood along about a 6" length as though the boat were dragged across concrete. There are numerous oyster rock bars where I love to paddle and occaisionally some will be where you'd think they shouldn't be, sand is medium to coarse grained and put-ins are sometimes rough.

I've never built a boat, never worked with fiberglass, but have read extensively about it and have no doubt I can do the work. I don't really have a shop either, was thinking about setting up a rough shelter in the backyard and waiting till spring to re-finish and re-enforce. I can probably borrow a garage and set up a "paint booth" with bisquene plasitc to varnish in after doing the real messy work outside.

Question: is it possible to entirely strip the outside of the boat and re-glass it, re-varnish it? Am thinking of painting hull, I like the contrast you see on a lot of CLC boats. I've read on this forum about the heat stripping, pulling off whole pieces of glass at once. Will the boat fall apart if I remove all the outer "skin"--or stay together but come out of true? The deck is not that bad, I may get away with just sanding or stripping the hull, priming and fairing and painting. But with paint I understand it would have to be a supremely smooth and fair prep job. What about high build primer? Yes, no? If I glass over or epoxy over exposed glass on fillets inside the boat, will it bond them and add strength, or just weight?

If anyone would care to comment or outline basic steps/parts of the process, I'd love to hear your input. Thanks!