Project - Aquasport 246CCP, 1979, Captain Koz II

[kaptainkoz]

Finally, after  almost 2 months of gawking at her, I raised enough dough to buy it, aparently not a moment too soon as the seller told me someone was supposed to pick her up 2 days AGO! Ouch.
 She is nothing special at the moment. She is a mess. Needs everything... floor, gas tank cover, woodwork, motor, wiring... you name it.
This will be a loooong term project (unless I hit the lottery that I dont even play), but, she will be like nothing anyone has every seen i assure you.

On the agenda is the following:
New floor with Greenwood XL 3/4 plywood
close off the transom and add a Armstrong type bracket for an ealy 90's Evinrude Looper 225
Leave the existing stern live well and cast a custom, flush, hatch cover
Cut out and glass in the stern batery boxes from my 200CCP, bridge the gap with a custom bait station with a fresh water sink and a cutout for a second Lowrance broadband fish finder
transplant the 4 foot coffin box from my 200CCP and move the center console up 2+ feet
Transplant the center console from my 200CCP (which is almost a foot shorter) and build a custom, minimalist, phone booth type Pilot house that will bolt right to the center colsole (see photo below)
Leave in the existing bow in-floor storage compartment, but cast a costom, flush hatch cover
Rewire the whole boat with marine tinned wire and LED lights where applicable

Anyone looking for parts check the parts forum or long island craigslist. for sale will be:
1979 246CCP - Center console
                       Coffin box
                       Various splashwell castings, hatches and pieces
1978 200CCP - splash well cover
                      in floor stern baitwell
                      in floor bow compartment
                      front grab rails
                      center console grab rail with custom light bar (look up kaptainkoz on here and see my 200ccp posts... you will see it)
                      custom mahogony splashwell bench (look up kaptainkoz and you will see it in older posts)
Anyways,.. as I said all will be posted in the for sale forum

Much more to come. I will post the play by play as it happens.
Here is some starter "Aquaporn" for now






Beautiful site.... 1978 200CCP on the left, 1980 246CCP on the right. Its sad that the 200 is going to be canibalized but the 246 will be awesome at its expense






Didnt have time to wash her out but its all going anyways


heres the plan for the pilot house

[gran398]

Koz,

Good plan!

Know you picked her up right.

Only one suggestion. The 3/4 deck...not needed IMHO. Go with 1/2 inch AC fir (5 ply) plywood if you want to go with plywood. All you need, quality product. Glassed both sides.

Captain Matt and Lil' Richard are the experts here regarding rebuilds. Am sure they will be here to help.

Looking forward to seeing you work the plan.

Nice boat...and the excess correct hardware...would think that would be needed from the guys right here on the board.

Good post...and thanks.

[Circle Hooked]

Congrats on the new boat,it looks pretty good now  

[kaptainkoz]

Thanks for the suggestion Gran, but im pretty set on the Greenwood XL from Overtons.com. True, 3/4 could be a bit much but the Greenwood Xl only comes in 3/4 that I can find. It is a kiln dried pressure treated marine ply which will take glass and resin. I know the argument is that it lasted almost 30 years with ply, where will it be 30 years from now..... but I dont want to think about it. I'd rather do it in the Greenwood and pretty much NEVER have to worry about again.
I looked into Coosa board but the price is insane and im not thrilled about how well it holds a screw. Same think with the Nida Core on cost and even worse with holding screws.

I will use the basic A/C Fir when I build the pilot house.

Thanks Scott as well... yes she looks good already and is a great start to an interesting build.

[GoneFission]

I'm sure you've seen it, but there is a BIG difference between the 246 and 200 - it seems like a lot more than 2.5 feet.  

Check these folks out for ideas about your pilothouse - they do a lot of them:
http://www.pacificpilothouse.com/why_us.html  

I'm with the others on 1/2" versus 3/4" - use 1/2" marine ply and you will save weight and never know the difference in stiffness, especially if you run a couple stiffener pieces under the center deck section.

[kaptainkoz]

Thanks Fission,
yes, ive seen the pacific pilothouse site and they are cool, but way too expensive for me. Cost aside, I really like the way I set up my center console so I want to use it as is. Also, the CCP's are not great on beam width, so the plan is to build it off of the center console to not even take up an inch more of width. On a custom job I can set and build everything the way I think would work best for me. It will be bolted on  so basically if I or anyone wants, it can be somewhat removable (although the anchor light, spreader light, spot light and horn will be mounted to it). I plan on reinforcing the base and lower walls of the center console with a few strips of fiberglass, basically where ever the mounts end up being. I dont know when I will start the pilothouse but I will post all my projects as they go

[kaptainkoz]

So between last night and today I put a good dent in the demolition phase.



The coffin box came up no problem. The center console was barely held in place because the wood around the bottom had rotted so bad and the deck is so wet that not many screws were sound. The floor is DONE! Its like walking on a loaf of Wonder Bread. So far nothing unexpected.




I pulled up the wet pasta-like gas tank cover to find the gas tank tub filled almost to the top with water. I drilled a small hole in the tub towards the back to drain it out. Nasty stuff. Like a swamp. To my pleasure I found that it is not the original gas tank however the label was badly eroded so I could not get data on it. I am in the process of draining the tank. I believe it to be about 100 gallons and the gauge says its about half filled. I paid particular attention to the first 6 gallons siphoned. I used an old school almost clear 6 gallon gas tank so I could shine a light behind to see what I have. The fuel is old... the boat hasnt been in the water in at least 2 years. Out of the first 6 gallons there seemed to only be about less than a gallon of water that settled to the bottom. Every next tank had no water in it. I am hoping that after removal and a through cleaning that I do not find any erosion or reasons to need to replace the tank.










As you can see, the gas tank cover is DONE. It was competely soaked. I never saw wood the consistency of rice pudding. The great thing was that most of it came right off. I got about 2/3's of it off in a few minutes without any tools. I will recore the cover and make it like new


Wiring is all out ans sorted based on wether it is going to be reused or not. ONLY marine grade, tinned wire is going back in




Here is the motor. It was on the boat in pieces. Alot of fun to get it out without machinery especially the powerhead. it is a 1990 Evinrude 225 and she will get the full restoration treatment.

Next step is to start removing the floor, foam and transom.

[Capt Matt]

Congats on your new purchase, I like the pilot house idea. We don't see many in FL but I would love one in the winter it sure would make it more comfortable out there some days. I think overbuilding with the 3/4 ply is the right call. All the local builders around me use 3/4 if they are not doing composite.  Always better to overbuild than under build in my opinion. Good luck with the project I look forward to following it.
Capt Matt

[DOCREED]

Re: Pilothouse
While you are doing all this work, consider this.  While building your pilothouse, consider including supports in the top for side curtains.
In S. Florida, the ttop enclosure i have on my 250CCP is adequate to keep the cold winter wind (wind chill) (dont laugh) and most of the spray off me while at the helm.

Up there, if you had some roll down side curtains for bad weather it would increase your comfort level a lot.  If you were more hardcore, you could add a drop curtain in the back for those really cool days.  I know...I know canvas is expensive.  But, with a pilothouse, the side curtains should be relatively inexpensive.  You can always add the rear drop curtain at a later date if you need it.

My 3 sided enclosure is worth its weight in beer, even here in South Florida but, there have been times i have wished i had some side curtains to keep me dry.

Also, My fuel tank is 120 Gallons.

Good boat porn so far

[kaptainkoz]

Thanks for the great suggestions and feedback Docreed. Wow, 120 gals! Jeez my 200CCP had a 50 gal tank. I guess the only way I will know the volume is if i measure it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the side and rear curtains and yes, that has been in the plan as well. I wont have more to share on this until I get the pilothouse started, but im thinking of making removable frames out of square aluminum, skinned in canvas that will bolt to the pilothouse and swing open and affix to the gunnels to really protect the crew. Its not so much raw temperature im avoiding as much as it is the november/december spray on a choppy day going into the wind. It can soak you before you even drop a line making for a miserable day.
Why not just drop down canvas alone? Problem is the width of the center console and getting out of the enclosure. with fixed sided curtains, If I leave the pedestal seats I would have to squeeze between the seats to get away from the helm because the curtains would be right against the outside of them. If I leave the flip back seat its actually worse because then I have no way to get out. A vertically hinged type curtain that doubles as a spray deflector or a pocket/sliding door seem the only options. I dont really want to give up the width for a sliding door (im losing a few inches of width left and right of the console as it is moving the CC further forward into the bend of the bow), so a fall/winter/early spring bolt on hinged frame may be the ticket. Nothing works out super great to close off the other 3 sides. Im probably not going to fully commit to it until after I have used the pilothouse a while.
Heres an illustration of what I am thinking of at this time:



On another note, here is what I have planned for the stern

[kaptainkoz]

I got a quote today from Overtons.com for the Greenwood XL plywood. its about $65 a sheet. For 6 sheets it comes to about $389 and $153 to ship it to Long Island NY, for a total of about $542. Just as a reference because regions of the U.S. differ, my local lumber yard wants about $85 a sheet for basic 3/4 marine ply which is $510. Its a total no branier as far as costs go to use the Greenwood XL. Thanks for the input guys but im going 3/4. I will save some weight by using the smaller coffin box and center console. Also, once I get rid of the 3 or 4 hundred pounds of wet foam and wood onder the deck, a little thicker wood wont hurt

[WannabeDeepSea]

Koz, my plan was(and still is unless I go coosa or nyloboard) to use the Greeenwood XL as well.  Look up overton's coupons.  There is a code right now for 15% off.  Comes out to $55 or so(I am looking at 6 sheets as well).  A month ago they had a code for 20% off, too bad my priority was a new gas tank at the time.  I spoke with the folks at Greenwood and the gentleman verified all that you read about the panels.  They are used by a large number of manufacturers and have a lifetime(with some fine print) warranty.  This warranty does not apply to consumer installed panels though.  It is supposed to be a great product.

[gran398]

Since you've decided on 3/4...Check out the 3/4 AC fir. Very dry, no voids. Just like marine ply, but not mahogany or its derivatives. Hard to find...but if in stock in your area....no shipping charges.

All of the Carolina builders, if they use wood...prefer AC fir on new construction vs marine ply. Drier to start, and its glass/resin encapsulated anyhow.

If interested, you should be able to find it at a good local specialty house/lumberyard

[kaptainkoz]

Thanks Gran I appreciate the info.
Wannabe, thanks for the coupon idea. I googled Overton coupons and I found a few for free shipping but I doubt that would work on shipping of this nature. I did see a few for 20% off $300 purchase which would be nice being the woman at Overtons said I would have to pay New York tax of 8.65% for some reason. Well its going to be a while before I can order it anyway so I have to hang tight till the money goes up and the bills go down.

[WannabeDeepSea]

Let me know when you are going to order if you have a hard time finding the discount codes.  The one that works now is V6WEL27 for 15%.  I'm keeping tabs on it, unsure when it expires.  You might also check discount codes for Gander Mountain, it is an associated with Overton's and sometimes has different discounts.