Newbie here - and I already feel at home! This site is incredible!!
I ran into a "good deal" on an old inboard ski boat and it got my juices flowing...so I started researching. I learned that Ski Supremes were not the best built ski boats back in the 80's but that they ran and handled well. I was warned that the quality of the glass work on the stringers and floors was suspect during this era - so I proceeded with caution. I looked the boat over on two occasions and made an offer - which was quickly accepted. I picked the boat up and towed it home (6 miles) to my heated garage. Then the fun began...
The seller is a friend of a friend so I took him at his word on a few things. I checked other things out and felt I undstood the shortcomings of the boat pretty well. She'd need some work to be solid - but how much work I hadn't imagined. I originally checked for rot in the deck and stringers...while the boat sat in an unheated garage. They were frozen - AND ROTTEN. I didn't realize the extent of the damage until I got the boat home, thawed and taken apart to a fair degree. The more I looked at it the more I didn't like what I saw.
The original floor had started to fail at some point so a PO had screwed untreated plywood over the top and gluied down new carpet. Below this, the stringers were failing. New cross members had been added (using nails and deck screws). The main stringers were mush - the largest intact piece of what resembled wood I got out of two 12' lenghts of stringer was about 3'. Most came out in chips or resembling potting soil. Foam in the hull was water-logged. Water was trapped in the cavities outboard of the starboard stringer. The only passage for water through to the bilge was at the transom and would have only happened with the boat under way. Yuck!
I have two weeks into the project and have two new Douglas Fir stringers cut and sitting in place. Obviously the entire interior, deck, engine and old stringers have been stripped out. My order is on its way from US Composites and I am eager to begin the rebuild. I have spent at least 30 hours on this site researching how to go about various aspects of the project as I have never done anything like this with a water-going vessel. I have built cars, Jeeps and snowmobiles, but never a fiberglass ski boat.
I intend to update the thread as things progress - and I will try to learn how to instert images into the text of upcoming posts. I am all jazzed up about this - it is kind of like re-building an old ratty muscle car!
I ran into a "good deal" on an old inboard ski boat and it got my juices flowing...so I started researching. I learned that Ski Supremes were not the best built ski boats back in the 80's but that they ran and handled well. I was warned that the quality of the glass work on the stringers and floors was suspect during this era - so I proceeded with caution. I looked the boat over on two occasions and made an offer - which was quickly accepted. I picked the boat up and towed it home (6 miles) to my heated garage. Then the fun began...
The seller is a friend of a friend so I took him at his word on a few things. I checked other things out and felt I undstood the shortcomings of the boat pretty well. She'd need some work to be solid - but how much work I hadn't imagined. I originally checked for rot in the deck and stringers...while the boat sat in an unheated garage. They were frozen - AND ROTTEN. I didn't realize the extent of the damage until I got the boat home, thawed and taken apart to a fair degree. The more I looked at it the more I didn't like what I saw.
The original floor had started to fail at some point so a PO had screwed untreated plywood over the top and gluied down new carpet. Below this, the stringers were failing. New cross members had been added (using nails and deck screws). The main stringers were mush - the largest intact piece of what resembled wood I got out of two 12' lenghts of stringer was about 3'. Most came out in chips or resembling potting soil. Foam in the hull was water-logged. Water was trapped in the cavities outboard of the starboard stringer. The only passage for water through to the bilge was at the transom and would have only happened with the boat under way. Yuck!
I have two weeks into the project and have two new Douglas Fir stringers cut and sitting in place. Obviously the entire interior, deck, engine and old stringers have been stripped out. My order is on its way from US Composites and I am eager to begin the rebuild. I have spent at least 30 hours on this site researching how to go about various aspects of the project as I have never done anything like this with a water-going vessel. I have built cars, Jeeps and snowmobiles, but never a fiberglass ski boat.
I intend to update the thread as things progress - and I will try to learn how to instert images into the text of upcoming posts. I am all jazzed up about this - it is kind of like re-building an old ratty muscle car!
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