Re: Newbie Questions About Project Boat
Thanks for all the input guys. My strategy has been to see if I can get the motor running before putting any money or time into the boat itself. Today I got the motor to fire off so I feel like it is finally time to really start looking at the boat itself. Before I left today, I peeled back a little carpet near the gas tank and saw what looked like a good piece of plywood. I was able to lift that and underneath I saw solid fiberglass. I was expecting to see the stringers (lumber) but don't really know what they are supposed to look like. Are they under the fiberglass that I was seeing? The deck throughout feels solid. The boat seems like it may have spent a lot of it's life in a garage and when it was outside, it likely saw little rain as I am in Southern California (desert). Can someone give me a brief overview of what the construction of the boat is like under the deck and provide input on what I was seeing when I lifted it near the stern? This is a trihull boat.
Unfortunately, without pix it becomes difficult to determine exactly what you're seeing under the plywood you lifted.
Q1: Was the plywood completely unsealed, directly below the carpet?
Q2: Is there any indication that the interior of the boat has had 'recent' work done on it? Anywhere?
Q3: You were able to easily lift the plywood, and there was NO fastening of any type holding it to the boat's structure?
Q4: How big a piece of plywood did you lift? And where did you lift it?
Q5: Did it appear that the 'solid' fiberglass you saw below the plywood was textured in anyway? Or more importantly, had an imprint from the plywood's down side (where 1 used to be attached directly to the other)?
^^^^ Do those 2 Q's in #5 make sense?
PC: Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am more of a 'former'-pert then an expert, by any means.
Back to Nick's boat:
W/out pix, it's a carp shoot to accurately access your boat, remotely via the internet. But you asked for opinions & info, so here's what I got so far:
Familiarize yourself w/ boat terms & their construction. It will help you ask questions that will get the best & most accurate responses.
Typical boat:
It sounds as though your boat has had an overlaid deck (floor) put down ON TOP of the original boat deck. When you said you pulled back some carpet & lifted a piece of plywood to expose 'solid' fiberglass under it, that doesn't sound typical.
Depending on where that plywood was lifted, you may have been looking at the hull out near 1 of the chines. Some boat deck plywood is supported by stringers near the long centerline of the boat, but out near the edges where the deck terminates at the hull sides, it may be resting directly on the upside of the hull bottom along the chine.
Look thru WOG's transom, stringer & deck replacement info:
"Fabricating Decks, Stringers, and Transoms"
He is certainly an expert. There are a BUNCH hanging out here in the dry dock. All are willing to help you get this boat back in the water safely, during both rehab (PPE required for a lot of what likely needs to be done) and done right so that you can be confident taking you & yours out safely & use (enjoy) the boat for decades. Then you'll also have no concerns selling it to someone else when you're ready to move on to another boat.
You can learn a lot about general boat construction, demo & put back by reading other resto threads.
