Widen Fiberglass Boat

[Newfielad]

Hello people. I'm thinking of widening my 19-foot fiberglass boat, by ripping it from stem to stern, along both sides of the keel. My main concern is the proper way of installing the additional fiberglass to fill the void space, and reattaching the keel.

I was thinking of making it an additional 16 inches wider. The current breath is 72 inches in the center, but only 58 in the stern. The boat is an older model, and is more round, than flat-bottomed. The only flat section of deck is in the stern. The remainder curves progressively as you go forward. Has anyone done this type of modification before? What type of issues did you encounter? Any suggestions are kindly welcome. Thanks.

 

[Scott Danforth]

I siggest you read Oops thread on making his boat longer. Its a long long project.

I would suggest selling the boat you have and buying what you want

 

[Scott Danforth]

Here is a link to the thread. http://forums.iboats.com/forum/boat...r/240340-hull-extension-in-progress-with-pics

 

[GA_Boater]

For the cost of materials alone, you could buy a bigger boat that won't be in danger of splitting in half when hitting a wave or wake hard. 4 joints to re-bond, two 8" wide strips to make and making a mold doesn't make for a short job. Not saying it can't be done, but our glass pros have to give their take on this one.

What boat are you thinking of performing the surgery on? Some may be impossible because of the construction method.

 

[ondarvr]

It can be done, anything can be done with fiberglass if you want to go through the hassle of doing it. The most difficult and time consuming part is keeping the rounded hull shape, making it 16" wider with a flat surface (side to side) down the center is much easier. The boat will also be longer after the modification, how much longer depends on the current lines and how much you want to follow that design.

​I widened one of my boats, but it was a simple design and I did it while I was building it.

Doing it to gain 16" is a lot of work for not much additional space. A pic of the boat will help.

 

[Ned L]

As everyone else said, yes it can be done ( and is something that is done on things like 90' steel fishing boats). It is much more complicated than making it longer.

Complicated, expensive and time consuming. Why do you want to do it?