Boy am I glad I found this site. What a ton of info I have already found to help me out with this project. I just wish I had found it earlier and started taking pics of the process when I started.
First a little about my boat. A friend of mine gave me the boat because he just didn't have time to work on it and his pontoon at the same time. He even towed it to my house for me. I found out later that this was a lot more of a project than I initially thought. Upon getting it home I immediately got out the pressure washer and washed it down (Now this is the first boat I have ever owned and I am not real familiar with the do/don'ts of boats yet but I am learning real fast). My friend had warned me that some Raccoons were living in it in the past and had made a good mess inside. Boy did they.They had torn a hole in the cover and left their markings everywhere.
As I was washing down the interior I started to remove the seats and cushions to get the inside a little cleaner. Upon removal of the front center cushion I immediately noticed that the coons were still living in it and were still in the boat. The two HUGE coons were huddled together in the well under the cushion and stayed motionless unlike me jumping out of the boat as fast as I could. They stayed still until I got my wits together and took my pressure washer to them(2000psi). They got pretty pissed and ran up into the hull. I screwed myself because now they weren't coming out for anything. I ended up battling them for a few days until another friend of mine told me to get some pepper spray and douse them. That worked perfectly and the residue kept them from coming back.
So now it came to determining the extent of damage to the boat. The exterior looks great considering the age. Not any real deep scratches or dents. Even the vinyl looks somewhat decent with only a few tears hear and there. The deck though was very squishy and week in multiple places so I tore up the carpet to see what it looked like. Almost all of the deck had rot. Most of the stringers seem to be ok though. I may need to replace a couple supports but at this point it looks adequate. I have removed a majority of the deck and now I am trying to figure out how much more I need to remove. I am getting the uneasy feeling that I do need to remove a lot more.
I would love to get some feedback on how much more you guys think I should rip out after you take a look at the pics.
First a little about my boat. A friend of mine gave me the boat because he just didn't have time to work on it and his pontoon at the same time. He even towed it to my house for me. I found out later that this was a lot more of a project than I initially thought. Upon getting it home I immediately got out the pressure washer and washed it down (Now this is the first boat I have ever owned and I am not real familiar with the do/don'ts of boats yet but I am learning real fast). My friend had warned me that some Raccoons were living in it in the past and had made a good mess inside. Boy did they.They had torn a hole in the cover and left their markings everywhere.
As I was washing down the interior I started to remove the seats and cushions to get the inside a little cleaner. Upon removal of the front center cushion I immediately noticed that the coons were still living in it and were still in the boat. The two HUGE coons were huddled together in the well under the cushion and stayed motionless unlike me jumping out of the boat as fast as I could. They stayed still until I got my wits together and took my pressure washer to them(2000psi). They got pretty pissed and ran up into the hull. I screwed myself because now they weren't coming out for anything. I ended up battling them for a few days until another friend of mine told me to get some pepper spray and douse them. That worked perfectly and the residue kept them from coming back.
So now it came to determining the extent of damage to the boat. The exterior looks great considering the age. Not any real deep scratches or dents. Even the vinyl looks somewhat decent with only a few tears hear and there. The deck though was very squishy and week in multiple places so I tore up the carpet to see what it looked like. Almost all of the deck had rot. Most of the stringers seem to be ok though. I may need to replace a couple supports but at this point it looks adequate. I have removed a majority of the deck and now I am trying to figure out how much more I need to remove. I am getting the uneasy feeling that I do need to remove a lot more.
I would love to get some feedback on how much more you guys think I should rip out after you take a look at the pics.
