Hi Everyone! I just purchased my 1st boat, a 1972 Sea Star fiberglass tri-hull. The boat mainly needs some cosmetic work. It needs new paint, new carpet, & there is a small section of the floor that has to be patched due to rotting plywood. One of the seats also has some rotting in the plywood underneath-thinking maybe it can be reinforced. Anyways,hoping I can get some valuable suggestions as to the best( and cheapest!) way to handle these projects. Thank you for any help, Rocksp.s. Changing my name to Fish Beware soon
If you are reasonably competent with power tools, you can handle this job. The first thing you need to do is tear out the old plywood to see how extensive the rot REALLY is. Use and icepick to test all areas of wood. If it sinks in, there's likely rot.Once you've torn out the bad sections of floor, you need the check the stringers. They're the longitudinal braces that support the floor ... and help maintain hull integrity.Once you've done this, you can decide whether to continue, have a profe$$ional do it, or go buy a copy of Runabout Renovation by Jim Anderson -- Amazon has it.If you get this far and want to know more about replacing a floor, come back and ask here. We'll provide plenty of advice!PS: I've done this, so I can tell you now it's challenging, but very rewarding.