It's been in the top boats offshore. Unfortunately, the fishing hasn't been super great for this time of year. We're seeing sailfish out there, but just a few a day, usually this time of year we're seeing 10 releases a day, so I'm waiting for the fish to come in to really compare it. When I first dropped it in, we had lots of Marlin in the area, and they released several nice 350-400 pounders, but for the last two weeks there haven't been many Marlin around. Any day now we'll start seeing double digit sails and I have faith my little boat will do just as well or better than the big boats around here :smokin:

Dang, i didn't see this question until right now. I'm not sure, there really aren't any scales here, but I'm sure we're cutting the weight in half or more. It should weight about 60-65 percent of what it weighed when it was new when we are done with it.

Oh yeah, and I bought a fighting chair! This is a scopinich. We will probably have to redo it, and depending on where I am at time wise, I might change the backrest to natural teak boards, but this will be a great addition to the boat!

http://www.queposfishadventure.com/fishingchairsr1.jpg

Well, today we mostly cleaned up the loose ends from yesterday, but here’s a pair of pictures. This is a picture of the rough cut foam where the fuel tank sits. I didn’t want it sitting on the hull because I wanted the bilge to be free flowing, so I raised it up 3 inches in the back and 6 inches in the front from the floor, and then we built this cradle for it to sit in. We got this all finished with glass before we put the tank in for the final time and the tank is in there really snug. We then put a good filet of thickened resin around the tank so that it can't vibrate and wear any holes. It is in there very solid now, but here's the shot before we put the tank in so you can see what it sits on.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/FinishedRailSR1b.jpg

And then we got out the sandpaper and cleaned up the gunnels that were very rough when we finished yesterday. Tomorrow the gunnels will be glassed in by noon, today it was mostly just sanding and cutting and shaping all day. We have the gunnel completely built now all the way around, including the transom, and all glassed in on the bottom. We also sanded down 6 inches onto the outside of the full to tie it in to the hull, tomorrow this'll be done!

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/FinishedRailSR1a.jpg

Ok, I missed a couple of days of pictures. Let's see where I left off.

So, here is a couple of shots of the gunnels after we faired them and then glassed them on top. It's so easy to write that, but it was hours or sanding to make sure the outside edge of the boat is straight. There were some areas that needed quite a bit of fairing, so I wanted all that under the glass, so now we don't have nearly as much to fair out on top and it'll be strong and won't chip off.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposa.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposb.jpg

And those were from last night, or maybe the night before, I'm not sure. It's been just a ton of little things, like we glassed the whole gunnel underneath, and we have been laying on our backs sanding the underside of it for what seems like forever. And then we built a place for the rope in the cabin, and we made a mold for hatches. The corecell hatches were very cool, but the fairing was impossible on the 28 footer. So we are just going to do glass hatches and jams, and add the foam to the middle back of the hatch itself after it's put together to stiffen it. Anyways, here is the floor that will go over the fuel tank with the door jam that came out of the mold we just made. This is glassed in on the other side, and then when we glass the top of the foam we'll tie this in better. This will make for less fairing, we lost a week on the other corecell hatches, and they still weren't perfect.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/hatchSR1.jpg

And then the big job. We started on the bridge wing, which I like to call the visor because that's what they call it in spanish. We started by finding the angles we were looking for. That meant going over to a friends boat in the marina and measuring everything and drawing pictures etc. Once we figured out the angles I wanted, we stuck some foam carefully to the top of the boat. Like carefully as in two days worth of tinkering just to have it sitting in place with thickened resin.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposc.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposd.jpg

And then after we got most of the angles right, and again don't try to get me to explain it because we just moved stuff around and kept looking at it, we went ahead and made the ROUGH cut tonight! The front crown I copied straight off of the cabin below it. We still need to long board the top of it until it's perfect, but we did make some progress.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Quepose.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposf.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposg.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/P...SR1Queposh.jpg

We might have this thing glassed tomorrow, don't know we'll have to see. We still have to pop out several hatches with the mold we made, and we need to put the floor over the fuel tank, and we're working on the "visor" at the same time, so it's several projects. That's good though, because we set one up, and while it's drying, we jump over to the next one. We have a guy working with us now that all he does is get materials ready for harold, so we can keep up the pace. More photos soon!

Looking great Gringo

We couldn't sand the top of the visor too much because it was just glued on at the bottom, so today we decided to glass the whole thing except the top three inches. So it's hard now, but we still haven't had a chance to clean it up yet. And then we got the floor over the gas tank put in. I was a bit worried about the floor, I didn't want water to sit in the middle so I gave the middle section a half inch of crown, but you can't really see it. I think it'll work out perfect.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...tankfloora.jpg

And then I tried to get a good picture of the visor in the daylight, but there's a boat next to mine so it's hard to get a good side view! There is still a low spot on the left and a high spot on the left, but we'll get it quick when we get a chance.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...tankfloorb.jpg

Just seems to be a whole lot of little things. We got another piece of floor in the back done. The very last piece we added a lot of crown to, so it'll drain fast. We have a 1 inch crown 2 feet from the transom and then that goes to a 2 inch crown in those last two feet. Normally that would be too much, but the middle is going to be a live well for 18 inches, so you won't walk on the crown, it's just for the very last of the deck water management.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQueposa.jpg

To get the crown right, we added some foam on top of the stringers in the back.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQueposb.jpg

You can also see in that picture above we are just starting to build the stainless support that we use to hold the steering piston and the top of the rudder. We have this same system on the other 3 boats and I really like it because when you are done, there is NO play in the rudder, which helps the fishing. Stray noises are the enemy of good fishing boats, the foam will help with some of the noises, but it's always better to start with less noises.

Here's a shot of the holes in the transom. We couldn't make them 100% even because of the stringer on the inside, but this will be glued in with thickened resin on the inside, has 6 bolts and then we'll put a layer of glass over the support on the inside as well so there is 0 movemment.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQueposd.jpg

And then we put in another one of the deck hatches. This one is where the life vests will go. The square on the right is nothing, that is where they set down a piece of plywood that had compound on it. There will be another hatch that will go to the right of this one, and that will be to the ice chest, but it's going to be in line with this one. It's drying right now, we have it in the mold.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQueposc.jpg

And then we are finally getting rid of those ugly square vents in the side of the boat. I put those in a long time ago and first put in SS chrome vents, but they started rusting and then I put in plastic vents and they broke. So now, I'm taking those out all together and I'm going to do a small oval in the back by the tail pipe and I'm going to use a squirrel cage blower to vent the motor by the tailpipe. I always am worried about keeping the boat upwind from the tailpipe, and when there is a motor breather on the side of the boat, i always try to keep the customers up wind of that as well. With the tailpipe and the motor breather on the same side of the boat in the back, that'll be alot easier to make sure everybody is breathing fresh air.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQueposf.jpg

And then all the bridge wings here have a part on top where they are thicker. It looks funny now because of the different colors, but when it's all the same color, you won't notice. I don't think it looks better this way, and if when we gelcoat it, if I don't like it I'll grind it back off. The thicker top gives it a lot more strength, I just don't know if it needs it. We'll see

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...artQuepose.jpg

Well, not too many interesting pictures, we have a 4 man sanding crew running now full time, and then me and Harold are slowing finshing the rest of the building part.

We finished the hole on the right to be the ice chest, with 2 inch diviny cell all the way around, but then I decided it was too small so we went back in and made the hole on the left 2 inch diviny cell as well. So now we have a huge ice chest! This is a picture before it was faired, it's white now and actually pretty close to being ready to gelcoat. Today was very productive.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowingd.jpg

We changed up the plan here as well. The top part I'm going to put hinges on so it lifts up and then stays in place with a spring. And then we'll have double doors in the front:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowingf.jpg

Got the section of floor down behind the motor. I wasn't sure how to do this with the fighting chair, so I put 4 layers of 1708 on the top and bottom of the floor, and then we built a big aluminum washer for the bottom of the chair mount and then we will through bolt it. There is a hatch in the floor right in front of where the chair goes, but the pictures can't keep up with production :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowingc.jpg

And on the above picture I don't know if you can make it out but there is a 1 inch crown in the back that came out very nice. The last section will go to 2 inches, but the live well will be in the middle so you don't walk on the more extreme crown.

And then this is the gunnel in the back. It's getting pretty fair. We actually made another pass after this picture was taken

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowinge.jpg

And then here are some outside of the boat shots. We've have made a pair of passes after these photos as well.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowinga.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowingb.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...osSnowingg.jpg

We're getting closer. Going to take off the first, I might go out there to shoot some pictures, and then on the 2nd we're going to hit it hard some more!

Looking great.

wish I had the knowledge you guys have. looking good though!

Thanks guys, we try hard. I don't know about knowledge, but we are getting better at making it up as we go :D

Mostly we have been sanding and resanding and resanding. So that doesn't make for very good pictures. But, in addtion to sanding ALOT, we have done a little building. Harold installed some tuna tubes:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposc.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposd.jpg

They aren't done yet, but that are where they go, and they are stuck on there!

Then we put the rim around where the motor box goes.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposa.jpg

And we built the motor breather where we are going to expel the motor box air. This is very unorthodox, but i piped the air back there to get it next to the tailpipe so it's easier not to get downwind of fumes.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQuepose.jpg

And then we put in the speaker boxes. One on each side. Going with 6.5 fusion speakers. I put them under so they don't get wet and so you don't see them as much.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposg.jpg

And then here's the ice chest with the hatches installed

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposb.jpg

And a quick inside shot

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/S...unaQueposf.jpg

Like I said, nothing super exciting, but these are the details that take TIME. Tomorrow we are adding four more guys to sand, we lost two last week, so we need some new ones! I want to get through this fairing stage quickly, but it's a big boat with lots of sanding needed..

Never heard or seen these..... what are these used for?

"Harold installed some tuna tubes:"

To hold live bait, hooked up and ready to go. Think a live fish wit a hook in his nose head first in the tube. The tubes will have water of course

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

Yes and...

There are a lot of baits here, like any type of small tuna or bonito that can't survive in live wells because they don't get enough water through their gills. This tubes have a big pump on them and force the water through the gills and keep pretty much any fish alive. The only problem with tubes is if the bait is to small, it'll turn around and the tube will throw it back into the ocean, but after a while you get used to what works and what doesn't. For that reason, I see a lot of guys that have different sized tubes for different sized fish, but we have these all the same because there is a size of bait that the Marlin really like and that's what we are after!

Looking Awesome!!! Question about your double hatch ice chest. Will it be a fish box? If so, what's your technique for cleaning it. I really have to scrub my fish boxes well for them to smell decent.

No fish in the boat ice chest up front. Just drinks and food. We will have a yeti in the back of the boat for bait and bagged filleted fish. That way the stinky cooler is far from the seating. Sometimes when we get a lot of fish to bring with us, we will filet it up and double bag it and put it in the front ice chest, but we try not to do that too much. We can filet fish on the boat here, you guys can't :eek:

So much for putting it on a diet.

Yeah, I know. Why in the heck are those things soooooooo heavy? They work so well I make an exception for them, but really, I don't think they need to be so heavy.

:pissed: