1974 Ebbtide Restoration - SPLASHED

mercurymang

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Jul 14, 2012
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850
Hello all. Before I say anything else, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope and pray and 2014 will be a good year for all of us.

In 2012 for some unexplained reason, I caught the boating bug. I did not grow up around boating and it was never anything that I found of interest. I began watching craigslist everyday - I'm sure some of you can relate to this - and as time wore on, I sensed that this new found fascination was much a kin to a train traveling down a steep grade inevitably towards a valley somewhere below. I was going to buy a boat and in October of 2012 I found a 1974 Ebbtide that was relatively close, had a good price and looked very nice to the eye.
I went to look at it around 9pm on a Wednesday and by 10pm, it was in my driveway. I took it out one time and noticed a few things mechanically that I didn't like which led to a winter long project of refreshing the Mercury 650 that came with the boat. By springtime, everything was ready and from May until October, I took it out at least once a week. We even made a trip to Oklahoma and Broken Bow Lake and it has served me well over the past year.

Near the end of the season, I began to feel a soft spot near the back of the boat. I have made regular visits to iboats.com and spend most of my time in the Mercury sub forum as well as this forum. As a result, when I felt the squishy floor, I kind of knew what I was in for. Since then I have spent countless hours on here reading up on how to restore a fiberglass boat. (I have also been saving money).

Today, the weather was very nice down here in Texas and I used my day off to clean up my shop, pull the boat into the back yard, empty it out and get the whole process underway.

I started by trying to peel the carpet off. You can see a picture below that shows a portion of the carpet removed. That took about an hour. After finding some rot, I decided that I'm not going to bother pulling all the carpet out, I'm just going to get my skill saw and begin removing floor.

You can see in the last picture a small section where I poked through the floor. The wood beneath it is holding water so I know that at least the backend of the boat will need to be restrung and glassed. I am going to work my way forward and see how far the rot goes. If I goes too far, I will obviously have to pull the cap.

At any rate. I am done for the day but I will post some pictures. I hope you will follow along. I know that there are quite a few experts on here and I'm sure I will have questions as I go.

Happy New Year

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Woodonglass

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

welcometoiBoats-1.jpg


For a 74' She appears to be in very good condition! The downward shot of the windscreen is a bit revealing. As you can see the walkthru portion when closed is angled and it should line up in a straight line. This indicates that the sides of the hull have flexed over time and caused this mis-alignment in the screen. You'll be able to cure this during the rebuild you'll soon be doing. Have you determined whether or not there's foam below the deck? If so, you'll need to determine if it's waterlogged and if so, It'll have to come out as well. You'll have to decide whether or not to replace it but I would recommend it. Since you've already been researching you already know about wet stringers and transoms and hopefully how to determine if your's are. If not, just ask and you'll get plenty of advice.

If you haven't seen this yet, this link has some good starting info for you..."Fabricating Decks, Stringers, and Transoms"

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mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Thanks for the response WOG.
Yes, it appears that there is foam under the deck and I'm pretty sure it's waterlogged. I do plan to replace it. My hope is to not have to remove the cap but I don't know if that will be possible.

The boat is in good shape. I'm fairly sure the transom is sound but I wont know for sure until I drill some samples.
 

Woodonglass

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

With Waterlogged foam it's a toss up on the transom. If they did a good job on glassing the inner transom skin and there's been no breach then it might have survived. Let's hope for the best. Same for the stringers. Time and exploration will tell!!!;)
 

glnbnz

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

I will follow along. Looks like a fin project!
 

Woodonglass

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

FINS??? I don't see NO Stinkin Fins!!!!:lol:;):D:laugh:
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

I just finished cutting a roughly 10" X 20" section out of the floor just before the rot in the picture above. What I found was actually better that I expected but not ideal. The foam was not waterlogged but the stringers show some rot here and there. As I work my way backwards I expect to find more rot.
When I cut the floor I noticed that the floor seemed to relieve some stress and move. By that I mean that the floor was not straight and when I made the cut, one side shifted up and the other down. My boat is still on the trailer and I don't want to cut the floor out completely without taking measurements first. If the cap is on and the boat is trailer-ed, the hull should not move too much correct?

I intend to build a bunker to move the boat to before I start work. Should I go ahead and do this before I do anything else or should I do some cutting first just the see where all the problems are and then move it to the bunk?
 
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tpenfield

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Subscribing in and will follow along. :thumb:
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

As I have begun to dig into this I have found that my biggest fear is putting it back together with the hull misshapen. As I said, I have intended all along to build and cradle for this but now i'm starting to wonder if it will be worth it. The main reason for that is the fact that I am working on this uneven ground. I really wanted to get this thing in my shop but putting in a garage door was going to eat all my fiberglass money. Add to that the fact that my house is up for sale, I'm starting to think that I may just try to do the restore on the trailer. The area where my boat is runs slightly downhill and is not flat at all. That's not obvious from the pic but that is the case.

Can anyone give me good reason why I should should build a cradle as opposed to using the trailer?
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

The weather is nice today so I've been doing some work. I got about half of the floor removed. There's good news and bad news it appears.
First the good. Although the back of the boat is water logged, it looks like they did a poor job of pouring the foam in the back so there is no foam up against the transom and the weep holes allow any water in there to leak out. Therefore, I think the transom is in good shape.

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The bad news is that I think the stringers are bad up under the console which means the caps will need to come off.

Going back to the windshield and the misalignment, I think the trailer bunks are too low. The floor is somewhat bowed as you can see below where I placed a straightedge across the stringers. I'm either going to readjust the bunks on the trailer to straighten out the bow or just move it to a cradle. I haven't quite figured out what to do yet. If you have any advice here, I would be more than happy to hear it.

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mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Well, I've been at it all day and frankly I'm worn out. I got the motor off the boat and in the shop. Y'know, the worst part about working with boats for me is working with big or heavy things, in the dirt, with no help. I sure wish my son were just a few years older cause I could use an extra set of hands from time to time.

Anyway, I did something today that I have seen several folks do and that I told myself I wouldn't do. That is cut through my hull with the skil saw. The first half of the floor was ok. I decided sometiime today to level the boat and had to cut some 2X4's. Later I proceeded to cutout the rest of the floor and of course forgot that I had changed the depth. !@#$$%. Anyway, it's done, all I can do now is fix it.

Anyway, if you have a chance to read through the above and regarding the hull and bowing. I'm not sure how to go about correcting it.
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

So I have a couple of questions:
1) How do you separate the cap from the hull in there rear where it connected with some kind of glue. Do you just have to chisel/grind it out?
2) My windshield doesn't close correctly. Woodonglass mentioned that I could remedy that. Is just a matter of trying different ways to get the hull in the right shape. With the hull on the bunk of the trailer, I pulled the rollers off thinking that maybe that the rollers were too high which was causing the issue but it didn't make any difference.
 

redneck joe

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

i'd be interested in the 'spreading' correction as well. I have a 23' Carver, but all good stringers and no foam or anything but my cabin doors have about a 1" spread at the top.
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Been pretty cold. Hope to pick things back up in the next couple of days.
 
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mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Anyone?
 

Woodonglass

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Sorry MM. Holidays kept me busy!!! Your deck does not have to be flat and true. Most are not Some slope to the sides for drainage, and some to the middle and some to the rear. It's not all that critical. From what I'm hearing and seeing It looks to me like you're going to need to do a full restore on her. This means all the foam will need to be removed, the stringers cut out, the hull ground down and new stringers put in. If in fact the transom is in good shape you will Not have to replace it and That's a Bonus cuz you WON'T have to remove the cap. To check the Windscreen issues, lets do a little experiment. Get a tie down strap and put it around the boat and crank her down. I'm betting you'll be able to pull that wind screen in until it lines up just about perfect. If so, then we'll be able to so make the same adjustments when we replace the stringers and deck and do the glass tabbings to the sides of the hull and where the interior of the hull attaches to the deck. I'm also betting you'll find some glass fractures on the interior where these attachments are. We'll work on those later as well.

Cold, Cold??? Heck yeah!!!! 2? in Tulsa today!!!!!
 

mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Thanks so much WOG. Yes, I would like to not have to pull the cap but I did not think it was possible due to the front portion of the boat, y'now that part in the front between the cap and hull where the seats are? Does that not have to come out to get to the stringers up front?
 

Woodonglass

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Oops my bad. Yeah it prolly does. Sometimes you can cut the deck out with out removing the cap though. Post up some pics of the bow portion of the boat so we can get a look at how she's put together up there. You Migh be able to still get away with leaving the cap on. If not then you will need to use a Sawzall back at the transom area to cut the cap free where it's been glass together with the hull.
 
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mercurymang

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Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Re: 1974 Ebbtide Restoration

Ok, I'll snap some tomorrow and post them up.

Thanks.
 
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