1980 Ski Nautique restore

I asked for a project and thats what I got! Here is my 1980 Ski Nautique that I recently purchased from another CCF member.


I pulled the engine Monday and started to take the boat apart.



It appeaers that somewhere along the line someone attempted to repair the floor, I found expandable foam (from home depot) and drywall screws used. This is my first restore, so maybe that is common, but I would guess that it is probably not. The rotted stringers and foam are totally soaked. I have been glued to the stringer forums the past few days trying to put together a game plan, lots of great useful info but any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the blurry pics.

thought maybe you were gonna do some duck hunting

Wow! That should keep you busy through the winter

Yes it definately will. I think it will be a good first restore for me...I have some experience with wooden boat restore but not fiberglass, I will probably have a ton of questions...Im located in West Springfield, my boats are kept at my house in Holland in the summer though.

You can't go wrong following Keegans stringer repair

thanks for the link, ive spent a good part of my Thanksgiving reading it over...I think I will get a grinder from HF tomorrow to grind the remainder of the glass out.

good to know I was actually just pricing everything out. Stupid question, but when you say composite, do you mean 1X6 decking material you can get from home depot or is this special stock built spec for boat stringers?

My wife has restricted me to working on the boat for only a few hours a day but I think I made good progress. Got all the soaked foam out, I think this boat must have sunk, either that or was never covered....ever.

Great pics! Glad to see you save another CC as well. I would have to agree with the others, Tim and Keegains stringer rebuild where step by step. Good Luck

Well im glad to clear that up, before i started taking my deck apart,haha...I didnt think so but I figured i'd ask...So far I have been advised to use Douglas fir or LVL...are these the only acceptable types of lumbar? I ask because I have a large ammount of unused cedar i would like to do somthing with, any thoughts?

from everything i have read here fir is the way to go,lvl is a good option.other woods are not strong enough or the resins dont adhere well.

yea sounds about right, well at least you will have a good pattern to trace! Any pics? I was trying to find your project didnt have any luck.

my first few i couldnt figure out how to resize them, but it was just an adjustment on my camera...other than that just a few min, I also get that notification.

.in case yourstill curious.this took forever to load,gotta work on the photobucket deal.3+hours of grinding tonight.

nice! your ahead of me, I probably wont start cutting the stringers out until tuesday.