1980 Ski Nautique Total Restoration

Finished tabbing in the primaries and secondaries this week 2/4/8. Waiting on the biaxial to cap them, which will arrive from US Composites on Tuesday. In the meantime I have started cutting all the ribs. Hoping to finish them within a few days and CPES them along with the bulkheads so that I can be in bedding and tabbing them in as well.

   

thanks, HatterBee. Yes, I did do so.

Cut most of the Ribs, bulkheads, transom plates, battery box collar ring, and doghouse stringers. I put several coats of CPES on everything I have cut so far. I am traveling this week so I probably will not get much done until the weekend.

I am using 3" PVC waste pipe for the bilge ventilation conduits, and 4" PVC waste pipe for the steering cable/control cables/bilge pump pipe/wiring conduit.

Here are a couple of pictures of the original water pipe CC used during the original construction for the conduit to carry the steering cable, etc. It was simply a pipe of low cost ABS type water pipe that they slit longways and probably snapped over the cable(s). Where the conduit turned up toward the helm they simply cut it and overlapped it and secured the joint with masking tape! I cant imagine they would have though this was a good method to build a top-quality tow boat. I feel like this construction method led, along with the failure of the battery box drain hose breach and the dryer-vent hose used for ventilation breaches, to the introduction of water into the foamed areas and resulted in the failure of the stringers and floor. Probably back in 1981, a little over $50-$100 worth of additional supplies and labor would have prevented water introduction into the stringers and floor of this particular boat.

And for good measure they dumped some Gel-coat into the water pipe from above.

I was able to do some work on the SN this weekend; wish it would have been more.

I got all the PVC glued together and installed. Really happy about that. I also made patterns for the front flooring which I am fabricating out of 3/4 marine plywood. I am doing some additional work on the battery box to strengthen it before I am ready to place it and connect it to the respective drain and battery cable conduits. it was simply stapled into the existing 3/4 floor boards from the factory and the joint was only thickly gel-coated; no fiberglass mat of any flavor that I could tell. A huge water entry point into the foam below with no exit point.

I have cut a 3/4 marine plywood donut that I am glassing around the box to strengthen it and to help hold its shape. As I look at other rebuilds on this site I see that CC improved their boxes in subsequent years.

One of the problems with my existing box is that the battery box lid/cover is a different shape/size than the actual box. I would like to change it to make it the actual size of the box, but the bright metal (non-stainless) t-trim that is screwed to the existing lid is no longer available so I will need to reuse it, forcing me to make it the original size. I know that some have pointed folks to a supplier that offers a similar trim, but it is not the actual product dimensions and I have decided to try to reuse the existing part. I considered purchasing a new waterproof hatch cover from a supplier,which would be really nice, but when reviewing the pictures I took during the demolition stage on my boat I realized the observer seat support legs actually rest on the lid of the battery box cover when it is folded back into the resting position. I don't think the hatch cover I looked at could support that much concentrated weight.



Here is a picture of the floor section. It still needs the battery box access cut out and the cutout of the area where the pylon/cradle go. I am re-welding the cradle and strengthening it. It had some broken welds and I have also cleaned it up, removing all the crud from the last 33 years.





I am applying biaxial to both sides before installation.



I also got my new cutlass strut bearing and installed it.



And I have been systamatically been cleaning and repainting the bolt on components. I am going with metallic blue for the engine block, bell housing and Velvet Drive, and black on most of the bolt on components. I also removed the fins and drain port, since I already had the strut and rudder off. I am cleaning those items up as well and look forward to sealing them well during reinstallation.

When I pulled my engine out of storage a few weeks back I mounted it on an engine stand, thus freeing up the cradle. At that time I noticed several of the welds were broken on the cradle. I assume they may have been broken before I removed it from the boat and just didn't notice. There have been many times when we would pull up 3 barefooters from the deep-water start position with this Nautique and I wanted to make sure the integrity of the cradle/pylon are strong going forward.

I ground out the bad welds and while doing so decided to cut the entire cradle apart and strengthen it with the addition of the 1/2 end plates where the channel was welded to the angle.





When I placed it and the pylon in the boat for a trial it it was a tight fit between the stringers, but no beating or prying was required, and the pylon was really a close tolerance but I finally got it in without any grinding or heavy manipulation. I will clean it up one more time, clear coat it and lay it aside now that I know it is good to go. It is obviously a good feeling when you have spent a lot of time and money on a project like this and the moment of truth happens (placing the cradle back in)and it goes well!!

Looking forward to making the final cuts on the flooring so that I can begin foaming the forward areas.

Thanks, gR@HaM. I was out of town all of last week and did not get anything accomplished on the SN. I plan on beginning the foaming process this week as time allows. I am using US Composites 2lb for the area under the bow and seating front area and 4lb for the starboard and port sections along the engine toward the rear. Hoping that 6 gallons total will do it.

In the meantime I am going to pull out the plywood section shown in the picture so that I can wrap the exterior edges and the battery box penetration edges with fiberglass cloth or mat before I install it permanently with thickened epoxy. Still debating on the need to screw it to the stringers but leaning toward doing so. It already has one layer of bi-axial on each side.

I still need to fabricate a piece of flooring to cover the pylon mount; thinking about Starboard for that and the battery box lid so that I will not need to spend the effort protecting the edges. I think it will work since those pieces are removable - not glassed in. I am also going to glass in additional blocking under the areas where the seating mounts attach to the floor for additional strength and mass; I have those areas marked with a Sharpie in the picture below.

Indeed for the love of god foam, or ribs and a plywood floor, not both!

It' s not really a question of the foam debate so much - I'll claim credit/disgrace for being the original guy to throw ribs into a correct craft - when I designed/engineered it I was specifically trying to not use foam. I had seen (bought) a cc with an epoxy coated floor installed and then refoamed it was terrible to say the least. Foam next to wood is bad, sometimes a necessary evil but it is bad. If you must foam that boat do yourself a favor and don't put a plywood floor anywhere you don't need it to screw a seat into - either you or a future owner will likely regret it, and with 4 lb foam you don't need it.

Edit... upon reexamination it sounds like you are not going to use a plywood floor in the back just refoam and glass.. well that's better anyway. For future concerns of documenting best practices.. those ribs in the back will do nothing positive for the structure of a foamed boat. Under normal loading they will not add any strength to the system and under extreme loading (beaching,log, etc) they will be an unwanted stress concentration that will likely result in a hull tear. But that is unlikely, so likely they are no more than waste of time and money. Doing the floor under the seating area in plywood that will have foam under it is about worst case scenario. If I was going to foam and use wood the 1x6 ish douglas fir or something similar will always last longer than plywood where the water tends to wick up the layers. Be very careful to cpes and seal all the screw holes you make. -not trying to bust your balls here, you are doing spectacular quality work and will have a boat many times better than factory. But some things aren't a debate, they are facts.

Fairing surface imperfections. I really like the Total Fair from Jamestown.

Hi John,
I have been to Haiti dozens of times; you too will enjoy your time they and come back with a new perspective on just about everything. Immediately after the Haiti quake I moved there for the first 100 days to set up operations. The PAP airport was closed so we flew into The DR and crossed the border into Haiti in the middle of the night, scary for even me. I have responded to 5 major events there, but also go for non-disaster related ministry. Part of the reason that this SN rebuild got off to a slow start is because of Haiti and Sandy, both all consuming. Just remember that your purpose there is people, not projects, and you will do just fine.

Every day in Haiti is a hard day, but it's hard for the Haitians too. Sometimes we get sick when we go there, but Haitians get sick too. I got dengue fever during the quake response; that was hard to shake. So hard to believe that PAP is just 1.5 hours from Florida and the country is still about 1 level above Stone Age.

Fortunately we have not seen a major hurricane this year, therefore I have been able to spend more time on the boat, although we are still active at 8 locations in 6 states at the moment. I hope to finish the glass work within the next few weeks and move on to the engine.

Arklie,
Nice work. You're almost there. Keep going!!

[QUOTE=Watauga] I was out of town most of the week and did not work much on the SN. I did manage to get 3 layers of glass on most all of the floor areas. Still a lot of detail to do, although. A major accomplishment is making good progress on the air box under the bow. It will be a good day when I crawl out from under the front deck for the last time. This boat had removable 3/4" boards, covered in carpet, screwed to the side and front foot-rest of the air box. Although it looked nice, the screws penetrated the fiberglass skin of the air box. I could not say for sure that water entered the interior though the penetrations, but I am thinking about simply applying carpet directly to the air box without the 3/4" boards. Any opinions?



I epoxied some pieces of fibreglass to the air box to screw the wood pieces too - I didn't want any screws anywhere as that seems to be where water got in......

I have been making some progress. I dug out my mufflers, just trying to stay ahead on the rebuild.

They were wrapped in three strips of the original floor carpet, held on with zip-ties. I have removed all of that and sanded them down so they could be repainted. Does anyone have a recommendation on priming and painting them? I was simply thinking of Rustoleum primer and paint. Will that work okay, or do they need gel-coat?

While inspecting them I realized that there was a large hole in the neck of one of them. I drilled it out and will fill it with thickened epoxy and one or two wraps of cloth. Does anyone have better advice?

MrMcD wrote: When mine rotted out and started leaking I was in a hurry, a muffler shop sold me 3" stainless pipe, it was louder for sure but worked.

Many have replaced their mufflers with straight pipe. It's certainly a good option. If you go this route, be aware that muffler shops typically use 400 series stainless. It's not a good choice for material. It will rust with time.

If you add cloth or a mat wrap you may just then have trouble getting the hose on. I would just countersink the hole and fill with thickened resin and sand smooth. When the exhaust hose goes back on just make sure it extends back over the hole covering it,the clamp will take care of the rest. Pete likes to modify boats changing them completely from what Correct Craft intended,I personally would keep the exhaust original.