New to the forum, so first I would like to say hello.
My brother and me picked up the subject boat on a nice aluminium tandem trailer with a 145 Evinrude.
The cost was $800 plus the installation of a exterior french door in the man's house. That took us about 6 hours. The trailer was worth more than that.
I had been out on the boat and it ran o.k. but it had some issue's.
We towed it home and it sat for about a year. We finally got to looking into things and the first thing we did was a compression test. 3 of 4 cylinders were great, the other only 20 psi. The outboard was 20 years old. Decision was made to get a new outboard. Got a good deal on a Yamaha F90. Transom is in pretty good shape, some damp wood but not any rot or delamination, several holes drilled and found damp wood in the area's adjacent to the motor mount bolt holes. Decision was made to mount the motor up for now. Got some break in hours on the motor and when we could get it to full throttle, she really moved. GPS indicated 38 MPH. No flex to the tramsom. It did want to list a little to port.
The deck had a soft spot where a couple of inspection plates had been installed and we got after that today. Cut a portion of the top deck skin to outside the limits of the deck rot and peeled that away.
The bad plywood was removed to reveal what I knew to be there, waterlogged foam.
The foam from just ahead of the console to the transom was soaked.
We removed the foam from the port side to the first stringer from about midship to transom. Our next move was to find out if the stringers were toast. I wasn't sure of the construction of the stringers. I drilled a small hole in the stringer to see if the wood was wet. When the bit went in with no resistence, my heart sank. I then took the grinder and cut a hole big enough to see what was going on in there and to my relief, there was no wood only bone dry foam. Checked a few more spots and everything was dry. We figure the water was getting in through the poorley installed inspection plates. Little to no sealent under plate ring. Ckecked the bilge in the center section, dry. Checked the bilge on the starboard side, dry.
Am I correct in thinking that the only wood in the boat is deck, transom and misc. hard points for mounting hardware??
Checked the whole hull for weak spots and found it to be very soild.
Next move is to refoam, repair deck and paint with non skid.
The gelcoat is faded and dull like most boats with age on them. There are a number of blisters below the waterline as well. Opened a couple of them up and they were dry inside. They are mostly about 1/8" to 1/2" in diameter. Looked like they came from a time when the boat was left in the water for extended periods of time, not sure.
Looks like we got a good deal and with some time this classic can be brought back to ship shape without allot of grief.
Just thought I would share what might be a nice comeback for this Aquasport.
pbailey
