AmSkier Construction

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   I know how you guys can be when it comes to your beloved CC’s but you're also interested by other boats construction. Especially at this this time of year when there isn’t a lot to talk about and everybody is putting their babies to bed for the winter...unless you live in the south. Thus the reason for this thread.

As most of you know, in March we had HW and Adam here in FL for Wrecking Crew 2. Kind of a mini CCFan reunion. We went out skiing and had another friend come along so we took both boats (JBears and mine) to have a little more room for everybody.We were skiing the upper chain near WBC and Ben Groen came out with a couple barefoot clients to ask how long we would be. We had pretty much just started our set so we would be a while. He was more than understanding and was willing to go elsewhere but I told Ben that we would move to give them the water. They make a living doing this after all and I was sure that we could find more water on another lake. So John finished up a set in my boat with Adam and our other local friend Rob at the helm. HW and I took Johns boat through a canal to another lake to find another spot. We had the boom and extended pylon on and the canal had a bridge that we had to pass under. The water has been pretty high this year so we took the boom and pylon off before going under the bridge. You can see where this is going, right???? I don't know why but I just had this weird feeling that something was "off". Three experienced boaters (well.....two and a half with Adam), a bridge...high water...social chatter...Adam's impeccable track record with boats...you get the drift? 
HW and I sat on the other side of the bridge to make sure that the guys took all the “stuff” off my boat before coming through the canal. Anyway, they came up and stop short of the canal and I see someone crawling out on the deck to start removing “stuff”. No problem, right? So HW and I continue on through the canal and wait for them. As I see the nose of my boat coming under the bridge, I see John standing next to the extended pylon holding onto it giving his best impression of “Show us your Captain” while being the chatty Cathy social butterfly that we all know and love so well.

Turns out they took the boom off but not the extended pylon. 
Even at idle speed, both extended pylon cables snapped and pushed the pylon backwards buckling the engine cradle as it pivoted right where it comes through the floor. I couldn't open the cover until I removed the boom clamp and Tachyon SDBM. There isn't a lot of clearance between the pylon and the crank mounted RWP when the pylon is straight. This just added to that aspect. Neither the extended pylon nor the regular pylon was bent. Just the buckled cradle and snapped cables as well as a little scuffing on the extended pylon where it actually hit the bridge after the cables snapped.

I didn't expound on this to throw anybody under the bus. I was just going to skip over the details and let it go but I know you guys are like an itchy hemerroid and would never leave that alone without some sort of explanation. I jokingly make fun of it but John felt completely horrible thinking it was totally his fault. S**t happens sometimes and it was just an unfortunate accident with really no one person to fault. By far the most important thing is nobody was hurt. The boat can fixed. It was at least comforting to know that by the time we got home my wife said that she got a call from Swampy at WBC to thank us for the gesture of giving them the water.

So now I have to figure out how to fix this thing. I know that the engine cradle has to be removed to repair it. This isn’t a CC. The cradle isn’t lag bolted to the stringers. That would be way too easy. American Skier through-bolts their cradles with 3/8” SS bolts, flat washers and nyloc nuts. The ONLY way to fix this is cutting up the carpet, drilling holes in my floor and digging out the floatation foam to get a wrench on the nuts from the backside of the stringers. I can’t tell you how disconcerting that was for me and I had a really, really hard time justifying cutting up perfectly good carpet and coring holes in the floor. 
First, a little history to explain my fears. I had replaced the floor, foam and carpet some 16 or 17 years ago. At the time, I didn’t have any idea how to do that. The internet was really still in its infancy. There was some manufacturer and business websites available but no forums like this one to help out. I had to do it the old fashioned way. Phone calls and reading. So I found Rot Doctor and called them. They were wonderful to talk to, extremely helpful and their products turned out to be awesome. Expensive but AWESOME!!!!!! My plan was to not just to replace the floor and foam but to treat it with CPES and then completely seal the floor so it cannot ever leak and soak the foam again. Kinda what I’ve been saying to all those guys out there that insist on composite boats so they don’t have to go through the stringer repair. The way that CC builds their floors I absolutely insist that at some time, the floor will still delaminate and the foam will still get soaked which means that the floor has to be cut out and the foam removed and replaced. You don’t have to replace the stringers (I didn't have to replace my stringers either) but it’s not completely maintenance free like everyone thinks. I went through extra measures to seal the floor so no water could get at the foam. I used Rot Doctor epoxy putty to seal joints in the floor and the edge of the floor to the hull. I used an epoxy bedding compound on top of the stringers before I laid the floor down. After I had completely screwed the floor to the stringers, I removed each of them one at a time and squirted Rot Doctors CPES into the holes and then replaced the screw. Then I put three layers of glass over the top of everything. I swear you could have ten guys the size of Quinner jumping up and down on my floor and it won't hurt it at all. Can you say the same about your CC's? 
So now that I had to drill holes in my floor was I going to find wet foam and have to plan on redoing the floor and foam all over again????? Thus the extreme reluctance to do this. So, I kept putting it off kinda hoping that it would miraculously fix itself. Of course that didn’t happen. I finally started tearing into it in August (yeah, some six months after it happened). I removed the engine, cut the carpet, cored the floor, chiseled out the foam and removed the bolts. Removing the cradle was a PITA but the engine mounts were bolted on with the through-bolts so I cut a piece of 2x6 lumber and bolted it in place of the tranny mounts and beat the hell out of it with a 3lb. hammer. It came out but it took some doing.

As you can see, the foam is completely dry. THANK GOD!!!!! The pics make it look wet but the dark tints on the bottom of the foam are actually the change in color from the foam to the glass layup of the hull and stringers.

I decided to refinish the bilge while I had everything apart. Something I probably should have done when I did the floor originally but didn’t know any better at the time. Then again when I rebuilt the engine a few years ago but I had too many other things that snowballed out of control…..like wetsanding and polishing the hull.
I removed everything except thru-hull hardware….cooling hoses, exhaust, propshaft, gas tank, fuel lines, wiring harness and the steering/throttle/shift cables.

 Now I had to get the cradle fixed. I did some checking around and found a local guy named Rob Bemman who had a shop that came highly recommended. That would be the same Rob Bemman who makes Bemman booms, pylons and jump ramps.
He did an amazing job repairing the cradle and replaced the extended pylon cables. 
He straightened out the top piece of aluminum which wasn't bent that bad at all. The bottom piece he removed completely and welded in it's place a piece of 1/2" flat stock that he drilled out for the pylon and also added back in the bracket for the U-bolt that clamps around the pylon. I also asked him to weld the motor mounts to the cradle which AmSkier started doing in '87.
I couldn’t be happier with the end result. 

With the cradle repaired, I got it reinstalled and bolted into place. Then I put the core hole plugs back in the floor and used Rot Doctor epoxy putty once again to seal them up. 

That's where it sits right now. I just had an outpatient surgery so it'll be a few weeks before I can get back to finish it up but the worst of it is done now. Believe me, it looks a lot worse than it really is.
I'll definitely be showing you the rest of the progress as I get it done.

AmSkier Construction

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