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When we bought the boat in the winter of 2009, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Our “new” Dehler 31 had great structural integrity but needed a lot of TLC due to 10 years of neglect on the hard. As such, it was necessary to start from the bottom and work our way up.
Some of the first issues we tackled were reshaping the cast iron keel (grinding it down and refairing it to a hydrodynamic shape). The hull also required some pretty extensive blister repair.The cockpit seats needed rebuilt (the one over the lazarette literally crumbled in our hands when we were looking at the boat). 9 months later and we had her floating again and continued the restoration on the water. It took about 5 years of weekends and week nights to transform our boat from beast to beauty, but she was worth it. A few detailed accounts of some of those projects may be found below.