When you get an offer to buy a beat-up J/24 for very little money, what do you do? Walk away as fast as you can? Take the offer, hoping you can race the boat in its present condition? Restore the boat despite the amount of time, effort and money involved?

My son, David, 20, who just graduated from Connecticut College, went forward with acquisition and a would-be restoration, knowing that his father would object to the amount of work required. In fact, he didn't let me in on the purchase for several months. I got suspicious when cushions, sails, a rudder and a mast were brought home and placed in storage "for a friend."

Finally, at Christmas, the grand plan was revealed: David had purchased a 1979-vintage J/24 with the intention of turning it back into a pristine racer. "It had a good racing record, but needed a lot of work," he told me. "I was looking for a boat that could do Block Island Race week – one that was part of a competitive fleet. The price was right for my budget: it had been donated to Sail Newport but was not in good shape. They couldn't use it."

ROGER MARSHALLThe hull after it has been sprayed with Interlux's two-part Perfection topside paint. It has high gloss and high reflectivity and totally changes the look of the project.

So I went with David and my other son Mike, both on the college sailing team, to see this diamond in the rough. It was a wreck. The cabin sole had delaminated. We ripped it up to take a look, and as I stood on one of the plywood floors and it promptly collapsed. When I poked at the bilge, it oozed water from the vermiculite that filled the sump. We checked where the sink led over the side and discovered a champagne cork serving as a through-hull stopper. A skim coat of something – probably epoxy – covered the outside. A hole forward indicated where the boat-speed impeller had been removed.

A boat designer by trade and the author of several books seamanship and boat repair, I've undertaken several restoration projects. I knew that the job was doable, if a little daunting, and I was willing to work on it – and ask for a few favors. Hopefully, in the end, David would have a totally upgraded J/24 in top-notch racing condition. As it turned out, we did even more to the boat than initially intended. We kept very little of the original 1979-era gear and upgraded to a full kit of Ronstan Orbit blocks, new hatches and a whole lot more.

ROGER MARSHALLBefore and after changes to the forehatch. The original forehatch was made of fiberglass and did not inspire confidence when I stood on it. We cut it out, and installed new bossing for a Lewmar 60 hatch. The new hatch was glassed in, refaired and bolted into place.STARTING AT THE BOTTOM

The first job we tackled was to strip out the rotted plywood floors (made of industrial grade plywood, not marine grade). In most cases, this entailed levering up one end of the floor and pulling the entire thing off the hull skin. Next, I ground the hull skin clean of paint and other trash that had been epoxied in place, while David dug out the sodden vermiculite.

We cut new floors from closed-cell, high-density foam left over from a project that I was doing at J & J Marine in Somerset, Mass. We also made a foam sandwich to fill the newly emptied sump area, leaving space for the lifting slings and a bilge well. Because the hull is somewhat lightly built and might flex, the foam was glued into place with polyester resin rather than epoxy. Although epoxy is stronger than polyester resin, it tends to be a little more brittle and susceptible to cracking when it flexes. We buttered the foam layers and set them in place, feeling a bit like bricklayers. The entire foam filler was then fiberglassed over to form a tight, airproof seal. Because the floors were foam, we installed compression tubes around each keel bolt and glassed them in place.

We then installed new floors using the same high-density foam. We positioned the floors close to the same place as the originals, but we modified them slightly to enable a single-point lift sling to be attached to the keel bolts. With the floors in place, the entire bilge was painted out using Interlux's Epoxy Prime-Kote, which is the right base for a two-part topcoat. The area was then finished with Interlux's Perfection white.

ROGER MARSHALLThe floor repair project finished and painted. The floors are fiberglass covered high density foam. Note the space for the single point lift and the bilge sump.PAINTING THE TOPSIDES

The next job was to prep the topsides for painting. The existing topsides were very rough and needed lots of fairing and TLC. David, Mike and I worked on them for days, using epoxy fairing compound, long boards, and enough sand paper to make me wish I'd bought stock in the company that makes sandpaper.

We started with a 100-grit sanding, rolled and tipped Epoxy Prime-Kote, and sanded it off with 220 grit. Next we rolled and tipped another layer of Epoxy Prime-Kote and sanded most of it away with 320 grit and then 400 grit. The plan was to do all the tedious prep work ourselves and then get a professional painter to spray on the topcoat. But when the professional came to look at our work he was not too complimentary. "It'll look ok from the shore!" he said. So laboriously we went over the hull again with 400 grit and this time got it pretty smooth.

David sanded the underbody to get rid of an "interesting" bottom paint. It looked like an epoxy-based product but bled through any paint layer put over it. So he stripped the hull to bare fiberglass and covered it with Interlux's Interprotect, an epoxy-based resin that's designed to stop water penetration through a polyester gel coat. After all our work we did not want to encounter an osmosis problem. We then applied Baltoplate, a racing bottom paint, over the Interprotect. This procedure worked well. The bottom will undergo a final sanding to get it as smooth as possible before the boat is launched.

The final topside spraying was done by Xavier at Jamestown Boatyard. He did the job on a Saturday morning so that it didn't interfere with the yard's regular work. We used Interlux's Mediterranean Blue Perfection. Because of the mottled appearance of the topsides after all the fairing we had done, Xavier ended up applying seven quarts of Perfection in five coats to perfectly cover the white, green, and yellow splotches. When the masking tape was peeled off, the consensus was "Brilliant!" The boat was coming back to life.

ROGER MARSHALLDavid and Mike at work on the topsides prior to getting the hull professionally painted. WHAT CAME NEXT

At that point, my boys left for college, leaving me to do whatever I had time to do with the project over the winter. I cut a new cabin sole and coated it with Ultimate Sole, a non-skid varnish. I also removed the old fiberglass forehatch, which was too weak to stand on, and made a new bossing for a Lewmar #60 hatch. Constructing the new bossing involved cutting out all the old bossing, setting the new pieces in place, joining the pieces and refairing everything.

The biggest single part of the project was replacing the main companionway hatch. In 1979, J/24 companionway hatches were made of fiberglass and were in two parts. These parts slid over each other but on this boat they were broken and had to be lifted off the deck when the boat was in use, making them a major pain, especially while racing. To rebuild the hatch, I made runners from foam core to hold the sliding hatch in place. I set these runners outside the existing hatch runners and fiberglassed them in place, with the idea that the seahood would fit on top of the runners and the new hatch, which would slide under the seahood. The entire project consumed more hours than I care to say.

I assembled the pieces for my sons to see when they got back from college. I thought I'd done a pretty good job, but it turned out that my thinking was still in the 1970s along with the boat. "It's too high" was the consensus. "The crew will never be able to get under the boom." David then sketched out what the hatch should look like. Fixing it entailed cutting away half the work I had already done plus removing the original hatch runners and several other pieces as well, not to mention a complete refairing of the area.

Surprisingly, the parts we had to remove contained lots more vermiculite, this time embedded in epoxy, which made them extremely heavy and difficult to cut through. I figured that the flat Plexiglass we were going to use for a slider was as low as we were going to get the hatch. But we managed to obtain a curved slider which fit to within an eighth of an inch. The entire job of redoing the companionway hatch took several days to complete, but it was well worth it because the boat's profile now looks much better.

We also did electrical work, though it was relatively minor and involved rewiring the lights and installing new LEDs over each bunk (including LED Nav lights) in place of the existing halogen bulbs.

ROGER MARSHALLThe finished deck.THE HOME STRETCH

The restoration is now nearing completion. It took longer than expected, by about two months, and the deck has been painted: Perfection for the white parts and Interdeck non-skid grey for the rest. Because the old deck is considerably worn, we plan on adding a little more non-skid powder to the Interdeck to get a good grip.

The new deck layout will be spectacular. It will be totally upgraded with all new Ronstan equipment throughout, except for the original winches, which have been cleaned and refurnished. Because most of the Ronstan Orbit blocks weigh only a few grams, any extra weight that we may have added by installing new hatches will be balanced out with the lightweight Ronstan gear.

We expect the boat to be at the Newport International Boat Show in September to show how an older boat can be upgraded, and to show off the products that were used in the restoration. The work was sponsored by Ronstan, Interlux, and J & J Marine, with help from J Boats and Jeff Johnstone, which helped us reduce costs. The sponsors gave us products only. We used Interlux paint because I felt it was the best and I have written how-to pieces about using their products.

This is my third restoration, and I find that while each project has its quirks, the average cost on a boat up to about 25 feet can be kept under $5,000 with careful planning and lots of sweat equity. About 20 to 25 percent of the costs are in disposables such as grinding discs, sandpaper, Tyvek suits, rollers and brushes; about 25 to 30 percent is in the materials for the restoration, such as fiberglass, resin, foam, paint; and the remainder is in new equipment. If you can reuse the original equipment your costs can be even lower.