A few more thoughts about the Heritage 1 Ton design.
One problem that almost all of the boats exhibited involved the way the headstay chainplate was originally installed – the chainplate itself was the right size, the bolts were appropriate but the builder didn’t lay enough glass into the stem and everyone that I personally inspected had to have some repair work done in the area. Morgan was good about following up and had one guy who flew all over the States doing nothing but fixing the problem. A problem that was a lot harder to repair with the deck on than it would have been to lay in enough glass while the hull was still in the mold.
A second problem was corrosion of the steel framework that was used to spread the keel loads. It almost seemed to be a ‘Monday/Friday’ problem as some boats had real worries with rapidly corroding frames and others showed no corrosion at all. Seemed to depend on what type of coating, if any, had been put on the steel framework before being installed in the boat. If none was applied before installation, it meant the surfaces lying against the hull skin were bare steel and bilge water quickly began the rusting process.
There were a couple of other items to worry about in those far distant days, hopefully not today if you are thinking of buying one of these old girls. The big errors in construction should have been corrected during the past 35 years – hopefully.
Insufficient laminate in the deck, combined with inadequate tabbing of the main bulkhead to the deck could allow the deck to flex between the chainplates and the mast partners. On the boat I sailed, we installed a laminated wood deck beam that ran from the chainplate to the mast partner on each side of the boat. It was epoxied to the underside of the deck and thru bolted to the bulkhead. Always a bit bothersome, after a hard beat to find vertical scratches on the mast where the deck had been pumping up and down while you were sailing. The deck beam stopped that little fun thing.
to be continued, as I remember things
Interesting discussion on the Heritage One Ton. I have a ’76 edition that I am in the process of bringing back to life. Having attended to a number of issues to get her back in sailing shape, I am now in the process of developing a repair for badly rusted members of the steel keel frame you mentioned.
By: Tom on July 23, 2011
at 3:52 pm