Boat Rebuild?

[Josh Smith]

Hi Folks,

 

During my early teenage years my dad bought a boat called the Big Fisherman.  It's a nice deep v hull with a livewell and a few other goodies.  Nothing real fancy, just a good solid fishing boat that's stable in the water.  Lots of good times there.

 

Fast forward.

 

I moved out, Dad fought cancer and won, but mostly lost interest in fishing because he's older and has bad knees.

 

The boat was neglected.  Old leaves and such accumulated, turned to soil, and nurished plants.

 

A half-hearted attempt was made to resurrect it a few years ago, and we took it out.  I noticed the carpet and wooden flooring was mushy, and it sat some more.

 

I finally have some time to do something about it.  The wood is pretty much shot.  I need to tear it out.  The hull is sound, as is the trolling motor.  The 15hp kicker (it's only rated to 35hp, and Dad didn't want even that much) is leaking from the lower, so that will be going to my old highschool music teacher, who now has a outboard repair shop for his retirement tinkering.

 

I need to know how to get this wood out of there.  It's riveted in place.  I can pull up a lot of it, but other parts present a challenge.

 

I do not know if I'll be putting new wooden flooring down or if I'll keep it bare.  I sort of think I might find a way to put plastic flooring down; something that won't rot.

 

The boat looks like this:

 

Stock picture from Smokercraft

 

What's the best way to remove the wood?  Just keep pulling it from the rivets as I've been doing?

 

I've restored cars but never a boat.  Tips would be helpful.

 

Thank you,

 

Josh

[slonezp]

Can't you just drill out the rivets?

[Josh Smith]

That's one thing I'm looking at.  Some of the rivets are covered by swelled wood.  I've been hoping that we'd get hot and dry conditions for about a week, but man, this is Indiana.

 

I guess I'm also looking for a general idea of how to go about this.  Like, does anyplace make replacement flooring?  Things like that.

 

Figuring out the way to do it isn't a problem.  I just figure someone has been through this before and I can save some time.

 

Thank you,

 

Josh

[sparky241]

Look on YouTube, under boat floor replacement or boat repair

[Christian M]

Taking up the flooring is gonna take a lot of elbow grease. As far as new material for the flooring goes, besides marine grade plywood, aluminum is a great option, theres also a polyethylene called Starboard. Its a bit pricey, but it basically lasts forever. It has all the advantages of marine plywood & none of the downsides. You can cut it to size, sand it, drill it, glue it...etc. It comes in different widths & is very light. Definitely worth checking out.

[slonezp]

tinboatsDOTnet is a great resource for restoring and building small boats

[Triton12]

X2 also try the i boats restoration forum

[tbone1993]

My friends dad got a similiar boat for free as a project boat and has dumped 1,500 into it so far. He wanted to spend 700 but he likes to do things correctly. At any rate he has about 5 days into the boat and its practically done. From a complete deconstruction to an entire rebuild of the flooring, rod locker, electronics, new seats with pedestals, front deck, etc etc. He even put in cupholders and new nav lights. The best way to do it is to take pictures and take the entire thing apart. Drill out the rivets and pull out the unnecessary stuff. Just use underflooring plywood ( used for under hard wood flooring) and coat it in polyurethane. Marine grade is the same **** just laminated differently and the price increased because it says marine.