How to open a can of worms, boat edition
- Thread starter OffshoreDrilling
- Start date
Guaranteed almost any sailboat had this damage due to the sheer number of fittings coming through the deck. Power boats a little less common but it's a 23 year old boat that was neglected. You guys are used to trailer boats that sit in a garage half the year in the winter, spend maybe 30hrs in the water in summer. Totally different ball game. Bottom line, a lot of this stuff needed to be addressed a long time ago but was never given any love.
I'm outta dollars to pay for shit this season. Going to give it a once over on the hull this weekend. Interior is a mess that can wait for it to be at the dock.
So.much.work. Spent 12 hours Saturday and 8 hours yesterday at the boat.
Saturday: arrived bright and early at 7am.
Sanded down all the fiberglass seams with a giant pile of 60 grit discs on an orbital sander. Then, sanded all the non-skid coating at that side of the deck off. Knocked everything down as close to even as possible.
Next was laying a fairing coat (think body filler) of thickened epoxy to fill the low spots and build up a final layer of material to be able to countour the deck.
Pulled the windshield off the boat.
Cursed every curse known to man, and some ones I created on the spot. This is the ultimate doing of all the damage. Factory put the windshield on, didn't lign up right, move it back 1/4" and put new holes. WHY NOT? All the port side windshield holes were like this.
Opened up all the old screw holes with a 1/2" countersink, filled with epoxy to seal them and give new screws a place to bite.
Did a bunch of other work in the boat sat/sun. Epoxy wasn't cured yet Sunday, I could still dent it with a fingernail, so I couldn't finish up
Taking off Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Tuesday to finish up the rest of the dirty work and Wednesday for the actual transport of the boat.
Saturday: arrived bright and early at 7am.
Sanded down all the fiberglass seams with a giant pile of 60 grit discs on an orbital sander. Then, sanded all the non-skid coating at that side of the deck off. Knocked everything down as close to even as possible.
Next was laying a fairing coat (think body filler) of thickened epoxy to fill the low spots and build up a final layer of material to be able to countour the deck.
Pulled the windshield off the boat.
Cursed every curse known to man, and some ones I created on the spot. This is the ultimate doing of all the damage. Factory put the windshield on, didn't lign up right, move it back 1/4" and put new holes. WHY NOT? All the port side windshield holes were like this.
Opened up all the old screw holes with a 1/2" countersink, filled with epoxy to seal them and give new screws a place to bite.
Did a bunch of other work in the boat sat/sun. Epoxy wasn't cured yet Sunday, I could still dent it with a fingernail, so I couldn't finish up
Taking off Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Tuesday to finish up the rest of the dirty work and Wednesday for the actual transport of the boat.
The boat is worth so little, it's not worth paying someone to fix it. I couldn't own this boat and just ignore this stuff. Can't stand owning anything that's junk. I like to take (reasonable) care of the things I own.
The hardest part after this is going to be cutting back on spending money on this thing. There's so much to fix/upgrade and I need to be reasonable with it. I'm not going to get much if any money back out of it when i get rid of it given its age.
Realistic game plan is to replace it with newer 30-35' in three years.
Realistic game plan is to replace it with newer 30-35' in three years.
Pulled the windshield off the boat.
Better tell your neighbor to drain his flybridge cover or he will be doing what your doing..
Back at the boat today, took off of work. I just spent three hours sanding with 60 grit on an orbital knocking down the fairing coat. THREE HOURS.
My brand new Milwaukee sander fried the power switch an hour into it. I got lucky and dug a crimp cap out of my tool box, wired it across the line and unplugged when I needed to switch pads.
Washed down the deck with simple green and it's drying now. Ran out to pick up a notched trowel and grab some lunch. Masking off the panel and applying the new non skid shortly.
My brand new Milwaukee sander fried the power switch an hour into it. I got lucky and dug a crimp cap out of my tool box, wired it across the line and unplugged when I needed to switch pads.
Washed down the deck with simple green and it's drying now. Ran out to pick up a notched trowel and grab some lunch. Masking off the panel and applying the new non skid shortly.
Pulled the windshield off the boat.
Cursed every curse known to man, and some ones I created on the spot. This is the ultimate doing of all the damage. Factory put the windshield on, didn't lign up right, move it back 1/4" and put new holes. WHY NOT? All the port side windshield holes were like this.
How many times have you said "Thanks a lot KJ!" during this process?
Congrats on taking care of everything the right way though, I'm guessing you'll be keeping it for awhile after all this time and effort into it? (nevermind, just saw 3'ish years...)
No worries, itll eventually be a picture with him and a dozen women on the boat and you can be at ease.
I was upset about it for 5 minutes. Everything wrong was mostly unknown until I dug my greasy paws into it. It just looked like it needed some minor repairs to get everything working 100% and a lot of cleaning. KJ was unaware of 99% of it.How many times have you said "Thanks a lot KJ!" during this process?
Congrats on taking care of everything the right way though, I'm guessing you'll be keeping it for awhile after all this time and effort into it? (nevermind, just saw 3'ish years...)
I'll have it a couple years. We'll see how nice I end up fixing it. If it was in a lot better condition I'd definitely hang onto it for a while until I could throw down $20k cash at a newer bigger boat. There's really only 1-2 BIG projects to make this thing infinitely better. Interior headliner being one, and air conditioning. The rest of the fix it/upgrade stuff can be knocked out a few hours and a few hundred dollars at a time.
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