This is what the boat looked like when I bought it. I paid $2000 for the boat, and it was registered for approx. 6 months. It is a 4.3m (14") Cuddy Cabin with a 40HP Evinrude (Not 50HP like the cowling says). The boat ran really well on the test drive.

After many dramas, many motor problems, and a lot of money, I finally decided to pull the pin on the motor fix-up, and decided to go for a new 50HP E-Tec!!!! (She should fly with that on it!)

So the boat went down to the local boat shop and the motor came off altogether. The boat has finally come home to her new house for some much needed TLC...

This is the inside of the cabin. This is where all the floor troubles have started. The guy I bought the boat off (in his infinite wisdom) decided that there shouldn't be a hole in the side of the boat, so put a bolt and sikaflex into the hole to block it up! Problem solved...

...Well, would have worked well if it hadn't of been the anchor well drain! So of course, as the anchor well is internal to the cabin, the only place for the water to go is into the inside of the hull. The floor in the cabin has been replaced at some stage in the past, and they have done a poor job on it as the glass is delaminating (I think thats the word) from the hull.

You can also see that at the front of the cabin floor on each side, where they have glassed the cabin floor in is coming off. Whoever did it last, did a really crappy job! So the whole floor of the cabin is coming out, and some of the floor in the deck area with it. A whole new one will go in. And hopefully it will outlast the boat!!! The anchor well will also be re-designed, to make it bigger, and easier to keep seperate to the cabin. It will also have the drain "un-blocked"!!!! :)

Final one for now... This is the transom since the motor has come off.

The transom is in really good nick (Apart from being filthy dirty!), and is as solid as a rock! So just needs a clean up, a re-paint, and the new motor fitted.

I will be using the International brand Perfection Paint. I'm currently thinking of doing the sides in "Royal Blue" colour, and the topside, and very bottom of hull in a white colour...

OK, I've gone and bought the paint today... I've had a change of mind about the colour scheme. I was going to paint the hull blue and the top white, but I've decided to just do the whole boat white! I'll use black rubber stripping around the hull join, and will look at getting some custom decals (Either a pinstripe, or a thick "racing" stripe) in a blue or red to break up the white a little...

I bought the Interprotect Primer(1L), Perfection Undercoat (1L), and Perfection Snow White top coat (2.5L) for $300!

So firstly need to do the floor, then the re-paint. Then get the new ETEC fitted, then go catch big FISH!!!

Had a quick look at the boat this afternoon with the camera after a few discussions in the Ausfish Boating section. (http://www.ausfish.com.au)

I had a look at the mounting for the U-Bolt at the front of the boat (That you clip the winch cable onto) first. One of the first things I noticed about the boat was that the U-Bolt had come out the front of the boat a little. It was just not sitting quite flush against the hull. Behind the hull, there is a wooden block that the U-Bolt is bolted to/through. This wooden block is sitting in the bottom of the Anchor Well, and therefore has been affected by the water build up in the Anchor Well (Due to the drain being blocked up). This is a photo of the bottom of the Anchor Well with the wooden block in it. You can see the back of the bolts for the U-Bolt in the photo and they are rusted. This will all come out.

This Anchor Well will be changed completely. It is currently very small, and does not hold the anchor very well (As you can see). There is also only a small amount of rope on this as the previous owner only really went in rivers.

I will be taking the wood out completely, and changing the way it is setup. I am thinking of either glassing in a piece of wood running straight down to the floor starting from where it currently starts (Closest to aft and the top in this picture), or possibly just using a big plastic bucket (approx 60L) to store it in, and just keeping it in place with an occy strap�? Maybe that will be done temporarily until I figure out what I want.

I then lifted up the �hatches� for the storage in the cabin. The floor is level with the deck floor, and then a �raised floor� has been built in to provide some storage.

In this picture you can see that the �lower floor� in the cabin is not glassed to the hull very well. It is starting to �peel off� (I think it�s called delaminate) in a lot of sections. I have actually peeled back part of the glassing in this photo (Near the front) by hand. This lower floor will need to be inspected to see if it is salvageable. The �upper floor� was not sealed, and so has become rather brittle. This leads me to believe the lower floor may be the same.

This is a shot towards the bow in the storage area in the cabin. You can see that there are nails sticking up from the wood, and the shoddy job of glassing along the sides. This top floor will definitely need to be replaced, and depending upon the condition, possibly the lower floor.

The upper floor will be pulled out in one piece (If possible) and it will be used as a template for the new one. I was considering making 2 �benches� along either side of the cabin, but as it is only a 14� boat, there is not a lot of room, and the centre space would be very narrow, I may not do that. I need to do some proper measurements to find out if it is a valid move. If I can fit a portable toilet into the space in the middle for the better half, then I may go with that option. I may even just set it into a completely sealed section under the floor. Then if I�m going for a serious fish, then I could take the toilet out, and use it as an esky, or kill tank.

After lifting up the carpet to look at the deck floor, it is not in the best condition. This is not the best photo (It�s getting dark), but will get better ones later. Joins are not completed well, and the glassing job is just falling apart. Most of the floor is relatively solid, but the floor is one whole piece of wood dropped in and glassed down. It may just be easier to do the same thing. After seeing the glassing job elsewhere, it should be an easy job to remove it! The current floor will then be used as a template to get the best fit for the new floor. The new floor will be completely sealed in epoxy to make sure that this never needs doing again. This will seal the wood, and when glassed in, should work perfectly.

There was even a nail sticking through the floor in one spot!

Last one for now� This is the floor in the area where the driver stands. As you can see, it�s delaminating very badly. The nail through the floor is not far from here too�

The floor under the driver is a little soft. This may be because the cross member has worn out, or could just be the floor has given way a little. The floor will have to come out before I will know exactly what is causing this.

The Following was done on Sunday 4/9/2005 -

This is the offending bolt through the Anchor Well drain� The red bits you can see is some kind of silicone type stuff� This was cut off with an angle grinder, and the Anchor Well now drains out!!! The cover for the drain hole will need replacing as it�s a little bent.

As you can see from this picture, the wood that is the Anchor Well is a little worse for wear� This will be cut out.

It�s surprising how long it takes to cut these things out� I left it this stage as I wanted to focus more on the floor� (Take note of the screwdriver in this picture�.)

This is not the best photo, but you can see how big the gap is where the U-Bolt has moved due to the wood backing rotting�

This is the old winch� This is being replaced�

�by this! A multi-speed winch. 10:1, 5:1, 1:1.

Now we�re getting into the serious work� I literally pulled the fibreglass from off the floor with hands and the screwdriver (That�s why I said take notice of it)! That�s all I used!!!

What it looks like is that whoever replaced the floor last time used silicon to hold the floor in place, then laid fibreglass over the top. It looks like it was only one coat, but I can�t be sure� This picture shows what I was greeted with when I pulled the glass edging off. After I pulled the edging off all the way around, the whole floor lifted out!

This is the top floor of the cabin taken right out. It came out together which I�m happy about, as it makes it very easy to use it as a template if I replace it (Still not sure what I�m doing yet)

You can see the messy joins they did� You may also notice the gaps in the join of the bottom floor (Main floor) in the bottom right corner of this pic. These gaps were around the edging in a few places!

This was the state of the main floor� Not looking good�. Glad it�s coming out!!!

The main floor was in 2 sections. One right at the bow, and the other was the rest of the floor. I took the bow section out first, and this came out pretty easily� The wood was fairly rotten, and most of the screws holding it down just lifted up. You can see the bottom of the section on the right hand side leaning up� It�s pretty damp on the bottom of it!

And this is why it was damp underneath!!! That�s about 10cm of water sitting under the floor in the bow� It was quite dark, so it�s been there for a while�. The �chipping� on top of the main stringer there was me running my finger along it� It just fell apart!

Last one for now...

I then took the rest of the floor out� There is only 1 stringer for the whole boat, with several cross members. The cross members will need to be replaced as well. You�ll notice that all the water is in the bow of the boat. This is because the drain holes between sections were blocked. I poked a screwdriver through them to try to clear them out, but they keep blocking up again. Once this dries out in the sun, and the cross members & stringer are removed, I will wash the hull out completely. Then the new stringer & cross members will be put in. Then a new floor over the top, and we are away!

The following was carried out on Saturday 15/10/2005

This is the cover over the transom. I have been told by a few people to take it off, as older boat builders never sealed the transom underneath them. So off it comes!

Underneath the cover was quite dirty� If dirt builds up under here, then water must be able to get in as well� So this will be cleaned up and completely sealed with fibreglass. When the boat is repainted, it will come up a treat.

It was time to start the work I really wanted to do�. So into the boat, and started the removal of Cross-Members. These came out by just pulling on them, except for one� That just needed a little nudge from my foot! Still came out very easily though� A little bit of a worry.

I was rather nervous about this step. I was not sure if the trailer would support it well enough with my weight wandering around inside the hull. I was trying to work out if it would be better supported on car tyres. However, I spoke to quite a few people, and they all said to leave the hull on the trailer. I was warned that the hull will �flex� a bit as I�m wandering around, so I was not too worried when it happened.

This photo was taken just after the last Cross-Member was taken out. That floor at the back has to come out as well�

Last one for now...

The stringer took a little bit of persuasion to come out (I had to go and buy a bigger hammer from the hardware)!

Underneath the stringer I found that there was still the original stringer underneath. It was glassed into the hull, and the people had cut the top off it, and glued it on top. Once the dodgy stringer came out, I then had to chisel out the original one. This took a little bit of time�

The Stringer and Cross-Members are now all out, and the hull has been swept quickly and given a quick hose out. I now need to take out the floor underneath the batteries, and then get stuck into the hull with the orbital sander! I�m a little worried that will be a LONG process! After that, I can make up the new Stringer & Cross-Members and glass them in. Then it�s all downhill to putting in the new floor!!!

Saturday 1/4/2006

Well it has been a LONG time coming…. But I finally got stuck into my boat again! It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you are busy… Between work & fishing, I haven’t had a chance to do anything on the boat! So after not feeling itchy for quite a while, it was time to get stuck back into it…

First thing I did was to pull out (Literally pull out by hand) the rear section of the floor that was left. I then cleaned up the bits left over with the angle grinder with the diamond blade

I then worked my way from the back of the boat to the front cleaning up the floor as I went. Whoever had put the last floor in had really done a bad job, and so I have a lot of bits to clean up as I go… So the angle grinder got put to work cleaning up rough fibreglass parts as I went…

It was then time to get stuck into the bit that had been annoying me for a while… The wooden block that the U-Bolt is held in with was rotten, but I had found it quite difficult to get into it last time… So I got stuck into it hard with the angle grinder, and finally managed to get into it!!!

It came out in crumbling pieces, and a big screwdriver helped get the bits out. Finally, it was out, and after a hose down, the boat looked a fair bit better. I’m feeling quite good about getting back into it, and I won’t let it get away from me again!

Monday 12/06/2006

Did some work today on the boat… Got stuck into it and took off the windscreen that was on there. I am considering replacing it with a hardtop cabin type idea…

I then used the angle grinder to take the old crappy rod holders (pvc tubing) off the back corners of the boat. You can see the rust stains as they were put on with non-stainless bolts!

I then took the angle grinder to the Side Pockets and removed the actual “pocket” part… These were in pretty bad shape, and most of them could be broken away with a little bit of force… I will also take out the supports when I am ready to do the final sanding before putting the new floor in.

After taking both side pockets off, I removed all the wiring from the boat. This included the sounder mountings (including transducer, speed sensor), compass, mobile phone holder, navigation lights, switches, etc, etc, etc… There was a lot of unused wiring I found taped into used cables. Can’t wait to re-wire the whole thing properly!

After that I got stuck into the final stage of my arch nemesis….. The anchor well!!! It is now out completely (although it managed to draw a fair amount of blood from my leg in the process!), and is ready to be replaced. I also got the U-Bolt out so I can go and get one the same size from the chandlery.

That was pretty much the end of my day today, so I gave the boat a real quick hose-out, and it is starting to look like its ready to get put back together. Not too long now before it all starts to go back in!

Hopefully I will get sometime this weekend to do some more… Otherwise some work holidays may be in order!!!