So here I am, getting ready to do some minor stuff to my boat while I'm fishing a little less during the winter.
I pull the deck out (one of the previous owners had put in a lift-out plywood deck above the regular deck to mount seats and stuff to) so I can get under the dash to see what I need to rewire the accessories. As I step into the boat, the deck (actually a part of the boat) feels soft. Real soft. As the deck flexes, I can hear air hissing somewhere. Not good. I start looking around and see that someone has drilled a hole through the stringer about midway through the boat where the deck steps down into the stern. Picure a hole in the front of a stair riser. Slowly I realize that a hole here would have allowed water from the bilge to run between the deck and hull. I'd never noticed because there was also a piece of plywood deck there to make a level surface and provide a bilge space. About this time I start swearing.
I cut out a chunk of the deck to see how bad it is, and yep, the plywood deck under the layer of fiberglass is rotten and there is water standing between the deck and the hull. I cut a bigger hole to look around some more. Even better, the keel and all the stringers are saturated with water, rotten, and there is standing water in a space that should have been permanently sealed.
My little project just got bigger. I cut the deck and all the rotten wood out and so far have made a new keel and stringers, installed them, and am just about finished glassing over them (so if water gets back in there, the same thing won't happen...)
Only good thing is now I know the constuction of old (early '70s) fishing boats better and have an excuse to put in a livewell like I've been planning to do.
Guess the point of this is, if you buy an old boat, make sure some previous owner hasn't drilled holes where they shouldn't have. My fault for not looking it over better, but I would never in a million years have dreamed that someone could be so dense as to drill a hole in a location like that. It was only about a half-inch diameter hole, but it's going to take a couple of hundred bucks in glass and wood and a lot of my time to fix what it caused.
I pull the deck out (one of the previous owners had put in a lift-out plywood deck above the regular deck to mount seats and stuff to) so I can get under the dash to see what I need to rewire the accessories. As I step into the boat, the deck (actually a part of the boat) feels soft. Real soft. As the deck flexes, I can hear air hissing somewhere. Not good. I start looking around and see that someone has drilled a hole through the stringer about midway through the boat where the deck steps down into the stern. Picure a hole in the front of a stair riser. Slowly I realize that a hole here would have allowed water from the bilge to run between the deck and hull. I'd never noticed because there was also a piece of plywood deck there to make a level surface and provide a bilge space. About this time I start swearing.
I cut out a chunk of the deck to see how bad it is, and yep, the plywood deck under the layer of fiberglass is rotten and there is water standing between the deck and the hull. I cut a bigger hole to look around some more. Even better, the keel and all the stringers are saturated with water, rotten, and there is standing water in a space that should have been permanently sealed.
My little project just got bigger. I cut the deck and all the rotten wood out and so far have made a new keel and stringers, installed them, and am just about finished glassing over them (so if water gets back in there, the same thing won't happen...)
Only good thing is now I know the constuction of old (early '70s) fishing boats better and have an excuse to put in a livewell like I've been planning to do.
Guess the point of this is, if you buy an old boat, make sure some previous owner hasn't drilled holes where they shouldn't have. My fault for not looking it over better, but I would never in a million years have dreamed that someone could be so dense as to drill a hole in a location like that. It was only about a half-inch diameter hole, but it's going to take a couple of hundred bucks in glass and wood and a lot of my time to fix what it caused.