1976 Ebko Surfmaster, long history and starting a minor restoration

Dot's Yot

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Hi everyone! Just found this forum after re-acquiring a boat that has been in my family since it was built in 1976. In the late 1960s, my grandparents bought a cabin in a little hamlet called Heeney, on the shores of Green Mountain Reservoir near Silverthorne, Colorado. It's a quirky little place, made up of about 100 small cabins, and was famous in the 70s and 80s for the Heeney Tick Festival, which included a parade, the crowning of the Tick Queen, and the occasional drowning of a drunk person trying to swim across the lake.

My grandfather purchased this boat from Corbin Marine in Englewood, Colorado in 1976, and it was named after my grandma Dorothy... Dot's Yot. My parents inherited the cabin (and boat) in the 90s, and I've been the caretaker of both ever since. Unfortunately, we had to sell the cabin about 5 years ago, though my grandfather had a gentleman's agreement with a neighbor who had a garage, and the boat remained in that garage up until last week.

I had always intended on towing the boat home and fixing it up, but hadn't even checked on it in 3 or 4 years. I drove up recently to make sure it was still there, and to my surprise, saw it parked in a neighbor's yard with a for sale sign on it! *gasp* Apparently the gentleman's agreement my grandfather had with the neighbor expired when they both passed away, and the grandchildren of the neighbor who inherited their cabin didn't even know who the boat belonged to, and assumed it was abandoned. Luckily when I called the number on the sign, the "seller" picked up and was more than happy to return it to the original owner.

The trailer was registered in 1976 when the boat was towed from Englewood to the cabin, but hadn't left Heeney in 42 years. I didn't bother to re-register the trailer before I drove it 60 miles to my house, and just hoped the State Patrol would have a sense of humor that my plates were a wee bit expired (42 years expired). Got lucky though, and wasn't pulled over!
 

Dot's Yot

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Jul 8, 2019
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So now the boat is home, and I started digging into it a bit. I put water muffs on it and was surprised that it fired right up, and sounded amazing. I think the guy trying to sell it did some work to make it run, he must have at least charged the battery. The last time I had it on the water about 8 years ago, I came into our dock and threw it in reverse to slow down, but reverse was kaput. A slow speed crash into the dock was how Dot’s Yot ended its run on Green Mountain Reservoir. So I know that needs to be repaired, and here are some of the other things I’m starting to investigate on the forums, and would love any advice, tips, and tricks for how to tackle this mild restoration.
  • Reverse: Talked to a local marine shop, and they said to see if it will go into reverse manually to see if it’s a cable problem, but I’m not quite sure how to do that. I see where there are 2 different rods that the cables engage, and I’m a little bit engine savvy, but just enough to be dangerous.
  • Steering is very tight: I remember my grandfather always fussing with the steering to try and loosen it up, but as far as I know, it’s just always been hard to turn. Maybe that’s normal for vintage outboards?
  • Paint: I remember when I was kid admiring the amount of glitter and sparkle in the baby blue paint, but the boat was probably outside under punishing sun and brutal winters for 20-25 years of its life. The gel coat (or clear coat?) over the sparkle is completely gone, and you can almost pluck out individual pieces of glitter. I’m pretty good with an HVLP spray gun, and have repainted a couple old Schwinn bikes and a 1974 snowmobile to nearly perfect finishes, but I don’t know how to get that much glitter into the paint. I’ve been reading up on gel coats, and it sounds like they can be sprayed as well, but I’d love any advice on how to repaint at least the upper portion and interior that has the blue color. The below water portion of the hull is off-white and has very few dings, seems like the gel coat is still acceptable there. But I’m not against respraying the whole thing.
  • Carpet and upholstery: There’s a long fabric-upholstered trim piece that runs the length of the cabin that I’ve removed and will build new wood backing and foam for, and find a local upholstery shop to recover them. The seats are still really nice, I think my grandfather re-upholstered them in the early 90s. But I still want to re-do them just to have a fresh start. Again, I’d probably have an upholstery shop to redo the seats, unless there’s miraculously a place that sells 70's boat interior kits? The carpet is also in decent shape, but I’m still planning to remove it to clean underneath, and check for cracks or soft spots in the deck. I’ve done a lot of fiberglass work so I can handle any of those repairs that might be needed.
  • The canopy is also in decent shape, but if those are still somewhat universal and available, I might look at replacing the frame and fabric, and if the snap locations have to change, I can fill in the old snap holes and drill in new ones.
I think that about sums up the story of Dot’s Yot! Looking forward to getting this restoration off the ground/water, and I’m really excited to be back into Yotting!

I'll post photos soon.
 

Dot's Yot

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Dot's Yot

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Panoguy

Petty Officer 2nd Class
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Jul 29, 2011
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Welcome aboard, Dot's son(?)!!

What a great boat - is it a re-badged MFG? The interior looks pristine - I like that retro-look, & I bet that if you were to fine sand/compound/polish the hull, it would shine-up looking like new. Spraying gelcoat will require a bunch of buffing afterwards, so if you like to glitter look, I'd say try restoring what you have.

You're boat's a beauty... Good luck!!
 

Dot's Yot

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Thanks! I'll try restoring part of the existing glitter, but it's pretty rough. It photographs well, but it's very dull and like a 60 grit sandpaper.

I don't believe it's rebadged, I have a pretty amazing folder of provenance including original Evinrude registration, receipt for the trailer, and all the documents say Ebko Surfmaster 1700. Fairly certain it was purchased new in '76. But I have read up on Ebko a little, and I think they were part of another company called Phillips (maybe?) and were based in Hastings, Nebraska.

-Dot's grandson, Sam :)
 

Woodonglass

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Good News is...She's a Beaut!!! Bad News is...If you want the Blue Sparkles back, you'll need to sand All the old GelCoat Flake off and re-Shoot it. I wouldn't Touch the interior except maybe new Carpet. Those old Evinrudes are tough motors and should be easy to get running like new.
I'll be tagging along for this one!!!;)
 

matt167

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little trick. If it looks good when you get it good and wet, you can lay a few coats of clear coat ( urethane will work ) and it will bring it back to some degree. YMMV
 

sphelps

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If there’s room in Dots Yot I’d like to tag along !
‘Welcome aboard ! :welcome:
 

Dot's Yot

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little trick. If it looks good when you get it good and wet, you can lay a few coats of clear coat ( urethane will work ) and it will bring it back to some degree. YMMV

Great idea, I'll give that a shot. I'm used to, and actually enjoy detailing cars to immaculate condition, maybe a good polish and buff combined with new clear would be all it really needs. And about the right amount of work I want to bite off for this project. When I learned how to wet sand clear coat, it really stepped up my paint spraying game, and that could get rid of the roughness. Then it's also still somewhat original, which I like. If it ain't broke, and still looks sorta good with a nice patina... why fix it!
 

Dot's Yot

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Bad News is...If you want the Blue Sparkles back, you'll need to sand All the old GelCoat Flake off and re-Shoot it.

That's what I was planning, but now I'm rethinking how much work I want to put into the paint. The carpet will be easy, and give me a chance to inspect more, but the seats really aren't that bad. Only problem is the rear seat plywood boxes are trashed under the pretty vinyl. They have a fascinating double hinge system that lets you flip the seat bottom out and up. I can't tell if that's a common thing, or something my grandpa came up with (it looks pretty homemade). And he was certainly a tinker-er and fix-it man. He once decided he didn't need to go to the dentist for a crown that fell out, and super glued it back in himself. :facepalm:
 

Dot's Yot

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I think these are definitely due for re-upholstering though. Just a little fade where the throttle goes!

Assuming I should at least be using marine grade plywood for any necessary wood parts? I'm probably making a new dashboard (whatever it's called where the gauges are mounted) and glove box cover, maybe using walnut with an epoxy coating. And just a little danish oil and poly on the wood steering wheel, it has a perfect amount of patina and the chrome REALLY cleaned up.
 

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Woodonglass

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That's what I was planning, but now I'm rethinking how much work I want to put into the paint. The carpet will be easy, and give me a chance to inspect more, but the seats really aren't that bad. Only problem is the rear seat plywood boxes are trashed under the pretty vinyl. They have a fascinating double hinge system that lets you flip the seat bottom out and up. I can't tell if that's a common thing, or something my grandpa came up with (it looks pretty homemade). And he was certainly a tinker-er and fix-it man. He once decided he didn't need to go to the dentist for a crown that fell out, and super glued it back in himself. :facepalm:

Re-doing the seat bases is an easy straight forward job. Build it back like you found it!! Sounds like your Dad would have been a welcome member on this forum
 

Dot's Yot

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Got a little ambitious over the weekend, and stripped out all the interior bits so I can rebuild the seats, replace the carpet, etc. Overall, the deck is in really good shape (to my mostly untrained eye, anyway). I only found a couple small soft spots, about 4"x4" and it actually appears that in those spots, the fiberglass is bonded to the top couple layers of plywood underneath, but has separated the plywood and when I push the spots back down, you can feel the lower layers of plywood are still rigid. I wouldn't even call it a soft spot, but more of a spot that's popped up 1/8" or so, and can easily be pushed back down to the stable layers of plywood underneath.

Both the spots are underneath the driver's and passenger's seats (a portion of the white areas you see in the photos) so they won't have weight or foot traffic on them. Regardless, do you think I should cut out those areas and replace them, add a layer of fiberglass mat over the top, or do nothing? It would also be really easy to adhere a full sheet of 1/2" marine grade plywood over the deck to cover everything and make a really rigid surface, which would also provide a great way to anchor the seat rails and gas tank bracket without drilling holes in the subsurface, but that seems like overkill. Thoughts?
 

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Woodonglass

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I'd probably grind the Delam's out to see what was going on and then if all is well, fill them with thickened resin
 

Dot's Yot

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I've been busy making parts! New marine grade plywood interior bits and rear benches, soon to get foam and vinyl upholstery. I'm also fussing around with walnut inlays for the glove box lid (spending way too much time on that, but I love covering stuff in epoxy resin)

Also trying to decide whether or not, and how, to repaint the hull. I want to keep the same colors and would love to reproduce the glitter effect as much as possible, but don't have the skills for gel coat and glitter sprinkling. So I see a lot of sanding, priming, painting, clear-coating coming up, just with a metallic automotive paint.
 

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Dot's Yot

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Question on painting... if I want to duplicate the blue and white stripe, on a hull that's white, if I sand the blue off and some of the hull color, can I just repaint the blue stripe over bare hull and clear over both, or do I need to paint the white back on and then blue stripes on top of that? Basically, is the hull color embedded in the gel coat and fiberglass, or am I going to sand off color? I don't know if that makes any sense...
 

Woodonglass

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Gel coat is like Paint. Color is total. If you sand it off you'll be on bare fiberglass. Just tape off the stripe and paint it.
 
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