International Telstar Owners Association

hello to everybody !
this will be my restauration project and maybe will take a few months ...
a few words about me and my boat . i am a new sailor and this is my first sailing boat ! i own a auto tuning and performance shop here so working in fiberglass is not a problem , prepping and painting also . bought this boat in summer as a project for this winter. this boat hasn't seen the water since 2004-2005 ... so it is in a pretty bad condition overall , but i have big plans for it . during this time i was only studying a lot of future design improvements interior and exterior , different mechanism for raising the amas easier , lifting the mast , making a boat support for the trailer . things will be posted as progress ....

well lets start ...
first of all here are some pictures of the actual boat

and this is the interior ...without table and seats

first thing to do is cradles
because i bought the boat without trailer , i need to do a support for it . this will be able to keep the boat on flat ground and also will be made so i can put it on a trailer . i decided to make two cradles in total , in in the back and one in the front .the back one will be taller so it can support a little on the sides also , the front one will be shorter because on the tip of the boat will also be a "fork" which will keep the boat .
so made templates from the bottom of the boat and start working ...
here is the back one

Hi, your cradles look good. It looks like they are app. 4-6" wide(front to back). I don't know what the width should be on a 26 Telstar, but on the 28"s the front cradle is 12" wide(front to back) and the rear is 18" wide. They must be placed under the forward and rear bulkheads. These cradles take all the strain and weight of the boat. I don't know if it really matters as the keel is thick, but on the Geminis(which are heavier) there has been deformation of the hulls and decks from misplacement and not enough surface area when they are blocked. Just a thought, hate to see you do all of the work and then find problems from improper chocking. Good luck with the boat and enjoy it. Graham

thank you graham for your input !
by the way because i am new to this kind of things i appreciate very much any words , opinions and suggestion for this project!
the cradles are exactly under the separating wall in the hull front and rear ... i think this is called bulkheads ? i thought that this area is stronger for supporting the boat . you are perfectly right : my cradles are not so "wide" , the rear one is about 6" and the front one is 5"... . the steel beams are rectangular pipes 4"x 2" and the strings are 3" x 1 3/4" . i was taking ideas from the trailer building prints available on this forum ( thanks for those )! for the moment i stay with this because the boat is sitting , but i will consider this thought when i will finish the frame for putting it on the trailer .
here are some pics with boat sitting on them ...

next thing to do is working on the amas hinges .
my system looked pretty strange to me , i am not shore if this was original or not , but the amas were sitting very low when folded down . again because i don't have the trailer yet and considering the wheel fenders are usually higher , i decided to mod the hinges . also the original system didn't let the amas fold close to the main hull and this was also a problem considering the wide restriction for the roads in EU 255cm !
so target for hinges :
1. raise the amas when folded
2. get the amas under the main hull deck , but get as close as possible to hull to meet the 255 cm wide
3. when folded down , amas should not touch the corners like they do now
4. when raised , to get perfectly aligned with the hull supports for easy mounting the bolts

here are some pics ...

after i understand how they work what they need to do on some cardboard templates , i start to work on the steel ones . because i don't have yet any system for raising the amas i was using the engine cranes with good results and after 4-5 hours of spot welding , drilling , raising , bolting , get them down again etc i finally got them to work as i want them to !!! they go under , they get wide as the main hull , they touch the hull only bottom down not on the corners ... so every thing is perfect ! but this is only the right one ! i need to do the left one also ...

with the help of another member here i end up with this design which is working perfect for my target . and here they are half finished , grinded ,rounded corners...

forward progress...
after finishing with the hinge system and working well , i ve started to work on the right ama. seems that in the past the deck was split from the main for some reinforcement , but when glued back together wasn't done well and cracked. plus there were some bolts cover with some fiber glass tape without proper prepping...
so started to grind everything down fiber glass , glue , putty ...everything till the original fiber glass of the boat !
here are some pics

after glued all the edge popted new stainless steel rivets one 5mm followed by two 4mm and so on . because i have a lot of carbon fiber leftovers i used them for the areas where i need the fiber to be thicker. after that was grinding again and the final two layers of fiber glass...