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Well, it was time for a new project now that the HMD19 is pretty much sorted. I thought long and hard about starting a boat from scratch, but couldn't make up my mind on what to build. So I picked up this little cruiser for dirt cheap on Facebook Market place. The owner had passed away and the son was helping mom sell it. They were the 2nd owners, bought it when it was practically new in 1983 from the original owners. The original owners named her, and the folks I bought it from have no clue what the name means. Lol. It is kinda silly, so i think I'll keep it.




It is 20' long ~8' wide. It has a V berth forward, a small toilet room, a sink and stove, pretty decent accomodations for a boat of this size. It has a hard top with about 5'9" head room. Volvo Penta 280 Sterndrive and the AQ200D, which is a Chevy 305 with a 2bbl rochester carb. The motor fires up no problem, but needs some tuning, timing, etc. Outdrive seems to turn over fine, i have new bellows on their way already.

The goal is to get her running in tip top shape and use her for river trips, swimming, fishing, overnight camping. Right now the list is:

Build a new hardtop/modify the existing one to have at least 6'2" headroom (I'm 6'1")
Build a full width swim step with an integral kicker mount.
Add a kicker motor
re-wire the entire boat.
clean out the 40 gallon aluminum fuel tank.
buff the gelcoat
patch about 20 little dings in the gelcoat
re-bed all the rigging and hardware
remove and reinstall the windows and restore the black color on them.
New seats on swivels of some sort.



However, the first order of business is to put the cockpit floor back together. At some point some water got into the floor on the rear port side and rotted out some of the "Stringers" i use that term loosely as they seem to be 5/8" plywood stringers that are barely tabbed to the hull, it seems like they are more for supporting the floor than anything. The P.O. started cutting out the damaged areas, then said "Not my problem" and instead of fixing it, they just covered it up with plywood. I removed the plywood today uncovering the mess below. I feel like this is a blessing in disguise, as i get to fix it properly and not have to remove someone elses half-a$$ed attempt.



I have a few questions though. The starboard side looks like it hasn't been touched, and i have no reason to believe it has, however, the 4ea stringers (2ea on each side) stop right before the transom. It almost seems like this was done to facilitate through-bolting the trim tabs on. I am thinking about extending them all the way to the transom, tabbing them in really well and then mounting the trim tabs with screws into holes that have been drilled oversized, filled and re-drilled. Then i can run the floor all the way to the transom for even more strength.






Does that seem like i'm on the right track? There are other bits of raw, uncoated plywood under the floor that is in perfect condition, so I don't think the boat ever sat with water in it, most everything else seems to be rock solid. I didn't take any pics inside the cabin, but it looks like a time capsule from 1982. I have all the original seats too that are in surprisingly good condition for their age, the vinyl is still soft.

I am planning to use epoxy for everything in the floor, it will all get painted and probably KiwiGrip on the deck when i'm done.

Phil

Well you found a project to keep yourself busy for a while Are you planning on pulling the engine to look it over? Your plan for the stringers and deck will go a long way to making things a lot stiffer.

Fuzz,

As of right now, I am trying to avoid pulling the motor. I am hoping I can do whatever is needed by working around it. The plywood on the transom is still solid.

Phil

Cowbro wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:15 pmThe original owners named her, and the folks I bought it from have no clue what the name means. Lol. It is kinda silly, so i think I'll keep it.

Per the big G, Aqua Huie is latin that translates into "Water Today". My redneckian background (confirmed with my redneckian neighbors) says "Water Helio". Your call on what it means going forward.

Jaysen wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:25 am Per the big G, Aqua Huie is latin that translates into "Water Today". My redneckian background (confirmed with my redneckian neighbors) says "Water Helio". Your call on what it means going forward.

That is significantly less cool than i was hoping. lol. Good thought on the latin translation, when I search it just comes up with a bunch of people with the last name Huie.

Cowbro wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:57 am

Jaysen wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:25 am Per the big G, Aqua Huie is latin that translates into "Water Today". My redneckian background (confirmed with my redneckian neighbors) says "Water Helio". Your call on what it means going forward.

That is significantly less cool than i was hoping. lol. Good thought on the latin translation, when I search it just comes up with a bunch of people with the last name Huie.

In your defense, I cheated. HTTP://translate.google.com, select "auto detect" on the left, English on the right, and type in the left. The only useful IT trick I know.

No expert here, but it looks to me like there is a cut off stringer and a cleat on the transom for the sole in one of the pictures showing the transom. It also appears the transom isn't bedded to the glass nor tabbed over on the sides. Just looks odd to me. Maybe the picture is not what I think. It's the first one after your drawing. Maybe the boat has been modified?

Barry_CF wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:14 pm No expert here, but it looks to me like there is a cut off stringer and a cleat on the transom for the sole in one of the pictures showing the transom. It also appears the transom isn't bedded to the glass nor tabbed over on the sides. Just looks odd to me. Maybe the picture is not what I think. It's the first one after your drawing. Maybe the boat has been modified?

Barry,

I noticed the same thing too. The part that is odd to me is that the transom looks "factory" with paint that matches all the other bilge areas of the boat. And as far as i know there hasn't been any major rework on the boat. Since there is plenty of room with the stringers cut back, there is no reason i can't tab that in to make the whole thing stronger. I don't have tons of reference for the building methods of lower end inboard boats from the early 80s and their typical construction methods. Most transom re-builds that i have seen online are ones where folks rip out the sterndrive and beef up the transom for a bracket and outboards.

Phil

Phil,

Unless the picture is just misleading, I'd bet that boat has had some previous work. In any event, you can make it the way you want it now. Best of luck with it.

Barry

Barry_CF wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:15 pm Phil,

Unless the picture is just misleading, I'd bet that boat has had some previous work. In any event, you can make it the way you want it now. Best of luck with it.

Barry

The more I dig in, the more I agree with you. I have the fuel tank out, and have started pulling the outdrive. I'll pull the motor this weekend and then I can go to town on the transom/stringers/floor. I have all winter. I might as well do it right.

Phil.

Teaser update. I got most of the "demo" complete. motor, sterndrive and all transom rigging is removed. Foam and rotten stringers are out. Transom has been templated and new layers of 3/4" AB marine Fir is cut and ready to go. This weekend i'm hoping to glue in the new plywood on Saturday and then tab it in on Sunday. I'll end up with 3 layers of 3/4" plywood on the transom. I found evidence of the original fiberglass layer over the original transom, and I am pretty confident that the factory installation was just 1 layer over the whole thing, with a little extra reinforcement around the sterndrive. This should be much sturdier, and if I ever decide to hang a bracket and outboard on the back it should be a good foundation for that.



Phil

Nice start Cowbro!!! Jeff

Good start Cowbro. May I recommend that you coat each piece of plywood before attaching them together. That fir marine ply will suck up the epoxy and if not precoated give a poor bond between each layer of plywood.

Tom

TomW1 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:20 pm Good start Cowbro. May I recommend that you coat each piece of plywood before attaching them together. That fir marine ply will suck up the epoxy and if not precoated give a poor bond between each layer of plywood.

Tom

Totally. The fir plywood looks thirsty just sitting there. lol. My plan is to get 1 or 2 coats of neat epoxy on it first thing tomorrow morning, then once that starts to gel up, i'll spread thickened epoxy on it and clamp it together on the transom, then follow that with the same procedure for the next layer. I am horrible at remembering to take pictures, but i have a helper coming over, so i'm hoping i can task him with helping me document the work.

Phil

TomW1 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:20 pm Good start Cowbro. May I recommend that you coat each piece of plywood before attaching them together. That fir marine ply will suck up the epoxy and if not precoated give a poor bond between each layer of plywood.

Tom

It is actually really required..good advice Tom.

That plywood for the transom is an amazing, precise, fit! Impressive work.

Fuzz wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 2:16 pm That plywood for the transom is an amazing, precise, fit! Impressive work.

Thanks. It turned out about as good as I had hoped. im hoping that the "Squeeze out" from between the ply will be enough to fill the gaps around the perimeter. I forgot to take a picture of the template before i cut the plywood, so i threw the template back in last night to show what it looked like. All 1/4" underlayment plywood and hot glue.



Something else i wanted to throw out there. I picked a few new tools for the project. 1 of which i haven't seen mentioned here. The Makita 1-3/16" x21" belt sander is amazing. It burns through fiberglass like a grinder, but shoots all the waste out in one direction for easy clean up, it is also perfect for sanding fillets and getting into small corners.

https://www.amazon.com/Makita-9031-8-In ... 0947&psc=1

The other one is the DeWalt 5" Rotary Sander. The dust collection on it is 1000x's better than any grinder and it is nearly as powerful, with variable speed it is much more controllable than a 4.5" angle grinder when doing heavy demo.

https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DWE6401DS ... 9649&psc=1

I agree with you on the Dewalt and depending on the grade of sandpaper you use it can vary from a destroyer to a finisher sander. Tom

I have a 3/4" X 18" belt sander and YES, it does the best job of cleaning up fillets. For the hard-to-reach areas, I use a 6" long mandrel with little cone sanding drums. Both tools need a very delicate touch, or you remove to much.

I too have one of those Makita belt sanders and find it just about right for corners and fillets. A few years back I bought myself a Fesstool vac and a couple sanders for X-mas. After I got over the wallet pain I have loved them. But the grinders are much better when you have heavy work to do and don't mind the mess they make.

Weekend update. The new transom is in, the plywood got glue'd in Saturday morning, along with fillets all around. Sunday I sanded the fillets (With my handy little belt sander) and laid down 2 layers of 12oz biax tape all around the perimeter followed by 2 layers of fabric over the whole transom. I'm pretty happy with it, there are a few minor little dry spots, almost all of which are at the floor where the chine flats are, luckily all of these locations are going to get sanded and multiple additional layers of glass over them when I reconstruct the stringers.

I also used silica to thicken the epoxy for the fillets, and i feel like it worked WAY better than wood flour which is all i've used in the past.

Looks really good and well done.

OrangeQuest wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 3:44 pm Looks really good and well done.

Yes sir it does look good.