1993 Celebrity Status 208 Stringer and Deck Replacement

[fireworks000]

Hello to all those on the forum! I've been looking at forum threads for some time now trying to learn and decide how to go about fixing my boat. I picked up my first boat this May, a 1993 Celebrity Status 208. When I bought it, I was not as educated on boats as I may be now. I knew on purchase of the small soft spot in the rear port corner. But it had the 350 Mercruiser, and a second owner who wasn't trying to screw me, so I jumped on it. We had a successful season this summer, and I told myself I'd pull up the deck covering and find the issue in the winter when I couldn't be on the lake anyway. I started the demolition process, and like so many others, found it was much worse than originally thought. It seems to be that all wood forward of the gas tank is completely shot, as well as the stringers on the port side. I am hoping for a solid transom and motor mounts, but have not dug deep enough. The very rear stringer on starboard side was protected from rot by the factory bulkhead. The problem that this boat has, the more I take it apart, is that the original owner had redone the interior, and either himself or a company did an extremely poor repair of the deck. New, untreated 1/8 inch board was laid on top of the factory deck which had started to rot. The ski locker was turned horizontal, and was completely foamed in, not allowing any water forward of the captains chair to the bilge. Then, a 2×4 frame was placed inside the ski locker and the thin "deck" was laid over that. The engine cover was not bolted down at all, and the non stainless screws holding in the interior were totally rusted. In fact, this season we lost the captains chair pulling out of port one time, and thats where I really knew the rot may be bad. This celebrity boat has the bowrider section part of the cap as I understand it, and the rest of the boat is in pretty good shape. I have began preparing for fiberglass work, and I thought I'd join the forum to document progress and get some much needed advice/help. I just finished FriscoBoater's SeaRay rebuild on youtube. Very informative. I'll post pictures as they come, and will have questions as I demolish further, I'm sure. Thanks!

 

[todhunter]

Go ahead and pull the drive, engine, and transom assembly so you can assess the engine mounts and transom. If you're doing one stringer, you might as well do them all. You can do this!

 

[Scott Danforth]

welcome aboard.

before FriscoBoater was on youtube, he was on iboats where he learned from members like oops and ondarvr

lots of good information in the stickies at the top of every forum page.

suggest starting here https://forums.iboats.com/threads/how-tos-and-other-great-information.283508/

look at links 14, 15, 18, 2, 3, 4a, and 4b in that order. and yes, link 14 is Frisco's thread.

as Tod mentioned, start by pulling the drive, motor, and interior.

we all have been there.

 

[gazza2007au]

Stringers have to be the most difficult part of a boat repair so take your time

If u can gut the whole hull now it will give you assurance in years to come it was all rebuilt, what you don't want to happen is to do a part repair one stringer than put a floor down to find out in 2 years the stringer u left in and transom are rotted

If u start all fresh you'll have confidence in your work for many years of fun ahead

I found the stringers the hardest to shape and glue in than glass down as all the work is at foot level or below foot

Floor and transom are pretty easy to do, the whole rebuild is very labor intense tho so pace your self and you'll get through it