Boat works

[scubafool]

Just wondering, is anyone else working on their boat? Worked on their boat in the past? I am presently replacing the crossboards, stringers, & floor in a '69 14 foot Larson. Pretty fun stuff, actually. Want to do some river dives off of it once I'm done, then eventually use it as trade-in on something slightly bigger. Hey, I'm no longer scubafool, just call me FibreGlass Bug.

 

[k4sdi]

Oh yea, thats all we do around here in the winter. Just swapped engines in the ski-boat (old, wore out 327 to a newly built 350), rewiring the electrical system on the drag boat right now, and getting ready to recoat the bottom of the sailboat as soon as we get some nice weather!

 

[hnladue]

The only boats I've worked on are wood. Newest one being 1954. Oldest 1901. If God had ment of it have fiberglass boats he would have made fiberglass trees!! HA!

 

[Padipro]

I spent the last 10 months rebuilding most of the mechanical parts of this Wellcraft 230 Aft Cabin. My Father-In-Law gave it to me after he had the fiberglass work done and someone ran off with the outdrive. He let the thing sit for 2 1/2 years, thank God it was inside storage, before he desided that he didn't want it anymore. I've finally got the thing up and running but only after very fustrating times. I had to pull the engine twice, the outdrive three times, rewire damn near the whole thing, replace the outdrive impeller and the engine water pump and on top of that he didn't have a trailer so I had to buy one from a guy at work that had been sitting in his back yard here in South Florida for the last 5 years and rebuild that before I could even pick the boat up.

It's all been worth it though as yesterday several friends and I took a 4 hour cruze down the intercoastal to Port Everglades in the hot 80 degree sun with a case of beer, and a few sodas for me sinse I was driving, and docking along the way at a nice burger joint for lunch.

I'm hoping to get it off shore soon and try it out for diving, once the winds settle down a bit. If there's anything I can help you out with let me know. I've learned a lot in the last year working on mine.

 

[Snowbear]

Worked on their boat in the past?

I rebuilt a small sailboat. Lost it in the divorce, though :frown2:

 

[scubafool]

k4sdi, exactly how many boats do you have? hnladue, don,t paddle that dugout too far from shore Haha! Padipro, that's a sharp-looking boat there. Only a case of beer in 4 hours? Man, I guess we do drink too much around here. Alright, a question. When I took the old stringers out, there was something similar to the spray foam you might buy at Home Depot between the hull & the bottom of the 1x8 stringer. Is there some super-secret special stuff I should be using here, or will the Home Depot Express stuff work? Thanks, guys.

 

[Padipro]

A guy I work with found some stuff that was made for boats if I remember right. I'll ask him tonight what the name of it was and I'll get back to you.

 

[saintsfan]

BREAK OUT ANOTHER THOUSAND,it seems close enough to the truth, I will be replacing my shift cable on my outdrive in a few weeks,it works fine but its just a little stiff. have fun doing the stringers and deck i did that in a wellcraft was a whole lot of "fun"

 

[k4sdi]

k4sdi, exactly how many boats do you have?.

Umm, lets see, 28 Ft Sailboat, 22 Ft Sailboat, 2 Catamarans, a sailboard (haven't used the thing in 3 years), 2 ski boats, a drag boat (vdrive), ummm I think Im leaving something out here.

Actually, 3 of us co-own all the boats, so I can't take all the credit here.

Mark

 

[scubafool]

Man, that's a lot of floating assets you have there! I bet you DO stay busy in the winter working on them. Hey, since you're obviously such a boat nut, check out this website, boatplans-online.com. I was looking at the 25' Carolina SportFisher,and thinking that it could probably made into a really sweet dive platform. It would be pretty cool to have a boat like that you built yourself. I don't know if you would end up a whole lot cheaper buying their plywood & fiberglass kits, a couple of big outbaords, instrumentation, controls, gas tanks, and on and on, than you would be buying a decent used one, but I bet you would be much prouder of a boat that you built yourself. However, that would be one monstrous project to take on, judging from the time I've already put into my little boat. I haven't had a chance to touch it in two weeks, so I'm still glassing the stringers down. Maybe next weekend I can start on the floor. Unless, of course, my BP/W comes in, in which case I'll be quite busy "playing' with my new toy.