1968 Starcraft Holiday 18' - V - O.B.- 1st time project - 97% finished

Rich11304

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Sep 9, 2010
Messages
189
Last November, I saw an ad on craigslist Free boat - 16' Starcraft - I contacted the guy and he told me thathe needed it out of his yard that day for a Thanksgiving party. I went there that night and picked it up. It had plants growing in the back by the transom. The trailer held up just enough for us to take it home. It turned out that it was a 1968 Starcraft Holiday V - O.B. on the serial plate. I needed the boat ready to go on vacation in mid-July 2011 to go to lake St-John, QC for a week, where I go every year and I like to bring a boat. The lake is 25 miles x 20 miles with huge waves during storms and this year we used the boat during one of the worst storm I've ever seen to rescue a friend and his wife on a sail boat. The boat and I got to surf 10 foot waves. It passed the test that day.
I started a thread last year but I'm not that good with post & threads and I was too tired from working on the boat. Drawing my inspiration from all of you, I started my project. The boat had been in salt water which complicated things. The hull had numerous leaking rivets and also pinholes from corrosion. I had to remove about 4 cross members with about 44 rivets each, I removed the knee that supports the transom tray and finally I had to remove the keel with about 100 rivets. I replaced all the rivets with stainless steel 10-24 phillips truss head machine screws, secured in the back with a flange nut serrated that I purchased online from Bolt Depot. For the transom In used 1/4 screws. The hole were patched with marinetek and an aluminum patch over most of them. I than applied "Gluvit". It took me months to make it water tight. I almost gave up when the boat fell to the ground during a leak test whenone of the stand broke under the weight of the water. The transom looked like swiss cheese. I patched the holes with marine tek. I cut a new 25" transom from 3/4 ac plywood $55 a sheet, I needed 2 sheets, glued 2 3/4 together for 1 1/2, epoxied it with 4 coats. I had a new aluminum exterior transom made and I had it wrapped over the transom all the way down to the tray that hold the transon, all held with 1/4 phillips truss head ss with flange nuts serrated. The Motor was a 115 johnson cross-flow that I just gave to "my marine mechanic" for spare parts. I replaced it with a 1998 Suzuki 140 EFI with 125 compression on all cylinders. I paid $750. The lower unit had a crack and had lost 1/3 of its skeg. The motor was making noise in the upper crank and we feared having to replace the upper bearings but once we took off the flywheel which was an experience by itself, we realized that the magnetos around the flywheel had unglued themselves and came apart, making the noise. Found a replacement on craigslist for $50. Anyway we had our official splashdown on July,19 2011. I know you guys don't really care for pictures & videos but I included a few.
IMPROVEMENTS:
1. 1998 Suzuki 140 EFI. 44 mph on gps without trim tabs
2. increased transom height to 25" with new aluminum skin wrapped all the way around to the tray.
3. New, larger custom-made corner caps
3. Deck made out of plascore/1708 fiber/epoxy + aluminum sheet backing.
4. Aluminum bow support with new wood/epoxied dashboard and other bow panel
5. Side panels made of plascore
6. 30 gallon below deck fuel tank
7. par2jr, phase separation. Vent line dryer. Keeps the humidity level at 8% in my gas tank.
8. Paint is an Interlux "VC Performance" with a Interlux primer "Interprotect 2000e
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NathanY

Commander
Joined
Mar 16, 2002
Messages
2,408
Re: 1968 Starcraft Holiday 18' - V - O.B.- 1st time project - 97% finished

None of the pictures work.
 
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