Something Resembling Progress...

A lot of time has passed since my last post and not much work has been done. The weather has been nice here which gives a false sense of spring and renewed urgency to get this project back on track. I've started cutting the bunk areas out of 1/2" pressure treated plywood which will be painted with an exterior alkyd enamel. The bulkheads will be made from 1/2" marine ply as soon as I can find a reasonable source, the local lumberyard wants $80.00 a sheet which I think is ridiculous.


I stripped all the teak off the boat this weekend to see if any of it is worth saving. Surprisingly with a lot of sanding and some gorilla glue I think everything except the hatch boards can be salvaged. Which is good news because this stuff is crazy expensive. Hopefully by next weekend I have some photos of some freshly sealed teak!


Another pleasant surprise is the Suzuki outboard that came with the boat, it runs like a sewing machine. Turns out it's a 1985 DT8 two stroke and is a perfect match for the boat. The previous owner bought it at a garage sale and never had it running before he decided to sell. I'm going to replace the fuel line, water pump and paint the lower unit and call it good.

Back At It!

Summer is almost over and I have so much to do, I made good progress this weekend though. I removed the rub rail, washed the boat inside and out, fixed some gelcoat chips and scratches in the hull and removed the hatches. Gelcoat is much easier to work with than I thought, though quite time consuming.

It was good to get some productive work done. My wife and I had our first child in July and its been such an amazing experience. I've put the boat on hold until things calm down some, like thats possible =). I'm about out of time for the summer considering the circumstances but I have some good inside winter projects to do. I hope to be able to splash down in late spring.

The Great Northwet, err Northwest...

Finally some good weather and some good progress! The water damage was more severe than I thought, almost all of the interior wood is rotten in one spot or another. I spent the day gutting the inside and now have the rotten wood for templates resting in the garage. Looks like this is going to be a bigger project than I thought, as always. Here is a few photos of my progress.

The vinyl lining appeared fine at first glance but started falling off as I removed things. It's basically a place for mold and water to collect, I'm unsure if I'll replace it. Here are some photos of the vinyl and flotation foam in the bow removed.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and wash the inside and start removing windows and deck hardware. I'm happy with the progress made today, hopefully the weather stays nice so I can start working on the topside.