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- Thread starter hawkeye
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I didn't have a digital camera until recently and 1/2 the work I don't have any pictures of in process work. 1st thing I did was the transom and gunwales and got the boat on the water. I used epoxy from both Raka and US Composits. The glass used was mostly 17/08 oz bia axle. I recored the gunwales with 3/8 ply and 4 layers of glass. Last layer goes all the way to the floor all around the cockpit. Transom was next with the 3 knee braces and horz shelf across the back. This made it super strong. From the helm bulkhead to the bow was all recored and beefed up. Glassed the rest of the cap to the hull around the bow. No more cap to hull seam to leak or get loose. I ran the boat a couple years and found some stress cracks along the stringers. Cut the floor out found the wet rotten stringers. Turned out it was only the bottom 2" of 3 of the 4 main stringers. I elected to repair this because everthing 2" an up were dry and good. I made custom cut pieces of ex ply wood and bedded them in a thickend epoxy puddy. Then glassed over that with the 17/08 at the same time to make a humongous bond to all the new work. Then I added the cross braces leaving a opening at the bottom to drain to the rear is any water did get in there. I foamed all this in. The tank hole is fitted with a 100 gal poly tank. I custom formed a kind of rib pads for the tank to sit on. Lined them with firm 1/2" neoprene and blocked the tank in. I raise the floor 1.5" basically and use 2 layers of 1/4" ex luan soaked in epoxy. I overlapped the seams and glassed it over with 1 layer of the 17/08. I left the fg of the original floor around the edges as a gutter all the way around the cockpit. Of course this was recored and glassed to under side of the hull 1st. Actually the floor its pretty light and strong. All holes in the wood are sealed with epoxy. I had the hardtop custom made with 18' HD outriggers. There is absolutely no stress cracks in the 840 hours I have used it so far since 2000. This included a 32 mile, 10' - 14' seas, gulf stream, ride from hell trip back to Hatteras. Got caught in a long winded squall that was suppose to be 15 to 25 in the afternoon but turned to a 30 to 40 at 10 am. Boat handled it well even with head on seas the whole way. We only made 7 to 8 mph the 1st 16 miles. The last 16 we were out the current and seas dropped to 6'. As soon as I got in those 6' sea I turned down sea and took a 15 min break until a charter boat came by and waved us in. We followed him tight at 16 mph in those 6'ers the rest of the way in. We had been hammering for 2 straight hours in up to 14' seas. I use this boat to fish anything from catfish in the local rivers, Potomac/James to 40 miles off Cape Hatteras. Here is a link to a web page with some pictures of my adventures. One day I will get them organized.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/formula2332000/my_photos
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/formula2332000/my_photos
sawyer f-23
New member
AWSOME JOB! NICE TO SEE HARD WORK PAY OFF.