Putting my 1991 31 foot Ocean Master on a SERIOUS diet!
 

Well, here we go. Just got my new 28 footer in the water, if you didn't see that build, you can check that out here:

Next project is my 31 Ocean Master. This is the boat I started on down here, and this is the first boat I really started modifying, but since it was my only boat for my first 5 years here, I really couldn't take it apart and set it up like I want it because it paid the bills. But now with the new "Quepos 28" in the water, and the gamefisherman and my other 28 foot Apex fishing everyday, I finally get freed up and get to fix this boat like it needs to be done. Now before I start posting pictures of what we are going to this thing, I have to make a quick disclaimer for Ocean Master. This boat was built in 1991 and has been a great boat. Back when they built this thing, the trend was towards heavy boats, and they accomplished that. And although this boat was 100 percent water logged, it is 24 years old. When I first bought this boat, I called Ocean Master as I had to convert it to diesel to see any kind of billfish action, and they were SO SO helpful, even though I bought one of their relics and they didn't make any money off of me. Here's a picture of what we are starting with:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/1sr1A.jpg

I love the lines on this boat. Its almost carolina style, although it's not cold molded, I really like the shear break.

Here's a picture of where I put the motor 7 years ago when I converted it to diesel:


http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/1sr1b.jpg

And then some interior shots:


http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/1sr1c.jpg

And here is why I hate plastic hatches. This one is just a year old:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/1sr1d.jpg

So that was the good. The bad was this thing just keeps getting heavier. This last season it got spanked every trip out (199 to 1) by my gamefisherman. It was such a masacre, that this year I don't even want to fish it until we can lighten it up. The floor was 1 inch thick plywood, with several layers of fiberglass mat (I hate mat) over it. Super super super heavy, especially since this boat is made out of polyester resin, and 24 years means EVERY inch of plywood in this boat is rotten. Even stuff that was sealed, because of Osmosis and the fine pores in Polyester resin, all the wood is 100 percent rotten. Check out the floor:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1b.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1c.jpg

And then the parts that don't have wood are like an inch thick ?? Check out the thickness of the CENTER CONSOLE wall. I get it, they did thick heavy boats back then, but this center console easily weighed in around 800 pounds.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1a.jpg

And then here are some de-construction pictures:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1d.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1e.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/sr1sept1f.jpg

And when we finally got the tower off and the console out, here's another side view:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/s...ertoweroff.jpg

And then here are some more destruction pictures! We are kind of doing a time lapse, this boat has been out about 2 months now, but I've been working on my 28 footer so I just go and beat on this one when the other one frustrates me. So here are the pictures of taking the floor out. The back part of the floor was a thick layer of glass:

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

and then a layer of mud that used to be wood, and then another layer of thick glass on top. The whole cockpit came out like this, we took the top layer off, and then washed the middle layer away with a water hose, and then removed the bottom layer of glass.

The front pieces were a bit more solid, like it was rotten wood not mud, but they were super heavy. A square yard piece took two people to lift up, and it was super heavy for both people.

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

We decided to take out the front floor in one piece, so first we cut the edges:

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

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

and then we put 6 big guys to lift it out. But it was soo heavy that we would have had more luck trying to pick up my pickup truck. So we got out the big motor hoist and finally got it out.

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

And the floor was that heavy NOT including all the structure that was under the floor. Here is what we were left with after we used the big wench to get the floor out:

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

Got the floor out. The black is a mix of a little bit of oil, and a lot of rotten putrified plywood.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1A.jpg

Check out this piece of the floor up front. Completely sludge. This was all glass, the plywood had long since turned to mud, but you could see the glass took the shape of the knots in the ply, kind of like a fossil :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1f.jpg

And then some more dissassembled photos:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1b.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1c.jpg

And some of the rotten crud we took out:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1e.jpg

And then here's a story. So I bought this boat about 7-8 years back, and it had outboards. It didn't raise billfish on the troll at all, so I changed it over to a cummins. I had NO idea what I was doing, still don't :), but one of the old timers told me I need 160 gallons minimum. Why a day charter fishing boat that burns 40-45 gallons of fuel would need 160 gallons is beyond me, but since I usually listen when the smart people speak, i combined the 2 side tanks with some aluminum and built what has to be the heaviest fuel tank on earth. After we built this out of aluminum using pieces of the factory tanks, we covered it in 5 layers of mat to stop the corrosion. Obviously, this is going in the garbage pile, and my new 60 gallon plastic tank is going to save a whopping 495 pound while DRY and another 700 pounds or so when full. That's over 1000 pounds just in fuel tank...

World's ugliest and heaviest fuel tank?
http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/916SR1d.jpg

Also, the small plastic tank will give me the ability to ALWAYS top off my fuel tank every day. That means I won't get condensation in the tank at night when the air cools off, and my diesel will be much cleaner. All around win.



And then it was time to take out the weight that was left. I once talked with a very knowledgable boat builder that said the bottom of the boat is where you hit stuff and it needs to be thick. The sides just keep the water out. So with that in mind we decided to make the sides of the boat thinner.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/923SR1A.jpg

Something to know about boats that were built back in the 90's, they used two molds to make them. They did the hull in a big mold, and then with this boat, they did another mold for the inside. So the walls of the boat are double layered, and are every bit as thick as the bottom. So we seperated the walls and took the inside wall out. There was actually enough glass that we took off of the side walls that we donated it to a local builder in the yard and he built a water taxi out of it, and it's big enough to hold a small car.

So after they made the outside mold and the inside mold, they used what I think is cement to stick the two together:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/SR11018d.jpg


It looks like they used tile grout spreader to make the cement the same thickness, but they failed to get the inside skin to touch the outside skin, so you can still see the lines from the spreader. Knowing the two layers were seperated and not functioning together relieved any doubts that the inside skin is just extra weight.

The worst job in the entire world was grinding all that cement off of those walls. That was a full 60 hours of work with a 9 inch grinder and 16 grit sandpaper, but what a difference:

Before:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/SR11018e.jpg

After:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/SR11018f.jpg

And then of course the transom. 3 inches of rotten sludge. We got all the plywood out of it as well:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/SR11018c.jpg

And here's an inside shot of all the cement dust on the floor after one of those days of grinding on the walls. We made a cloud that covered cars and kids for about a mile down wind:


http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/SR11018b.jpg

Man you putting in some work!

Looking forward to the build.

that looks scary as hell

Kind of. I did about 1000 trips as charter captain of this boat and all day up there in the tower, I would drive around looking for fish and think of what I would like to do with the boat if I had the time and money. I don't have the money yet, but we are fishing pretty good, and I'll make the time. It's something I've been wanting to do for years, so I'm pretty excited to see what we can do with this one!

Heck of a project Capt! Enjoyed your other re-build very much. I have a question concerning all that weight you're taking out the boat. Being you have a tower your center of gravity will change drastically with more weight sifting up from the hull of the boat. Is there any issue regarding stability/handling rough seas in a lighter boat? Will ballast be needed in your bilge area?

One more question...Are your stringers wood fiber glassed over or composite filled?

The tower is weightless as it's all aluminum. I can pick it up by myself, so it really doesn't factor in to the center of gravity. And then when I take the floor weight out of the boat, and the border weight out of the boat, I am actually lowering the center of gravity because the heaviest three things are the hull, the motor which is very low, and the fuel tank which sit on the hull. So it increases the stability, and without the extra weight doesn't crash down so hard on the other side of the wave and give you more of an "on top" of the water feel instead of trying to plow through everything. I did several over a 1000 trips on this heavy boat, and then around 200 on my weightless gamefisherman, and the gamefisherman is soo much better when things get rough. And weight is a big factor.

The stringers are hollow from the factory. The motor stringers are made out of a hard rot resistent wood covered in epoxy, but the big long hull supports are hollow and I make sure they have plenty of drainage points so they don't fill up with water. One of the things I didn't get a photo of and should have is the front of this boat was holding around 200 gallons of water because it wasn't designed to drain correctly. They had these narrow PVC pipes glassed in everywhere, but when the "floor mud" got into the hull, it stopped up those pipes and made swimming pools up front of black rancid water. When we cut open the front part of the floor, it smelled like somebody let out a HUGE :)

Thanks for the response Capt. I can see your boat handling better running on top of seas instead of wallowing like a displacement hull at above planing speeds with that lighter weight. Good luck on your project!

Well, today has to be some kind of record for accomplishments on a build. Me and harold started early, like 5am early, and we raised up the stringers. I added 6 inches on the outside stringers and 7 inches on the inside stringers. I want the water to the sides and then run to the back. The original floor was very flat, and the water just kind of hung out, so we are adding a ton of angle to get rid of the deck water. Here's the stingers, we got them done by around 4pm:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1a.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1b.jpg

As you can see, I went ahead and started doing the bird cages as soon as the resin got sticky, and we got some of the bulkheads in. That is 1 inch corecell, I got a box of 20 :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1c.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1d.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1f.jpg

While I was working on that, Harold was putting new intake and exhaust tubes on my Versatone two stage muffler. We had to modify this with elbows for the other boat, but now we are going to put this under the floor in between the stringers pretty much right here, but a little bit back:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1e.jpg

Well, I kept going on making birdcages and cutting out foam and I got these bulkheads cut:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1g.jpg

And then around 6pm, I was still working on this by myself, and two friends of mine that are restoring an old bertram showed up. I was over there the other day showing them the corecell and how it worked, and so they returned the favor tonight, and we stayed out there until 9pm and got the cabin wall birdcaged and cut and in place!!!

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1h.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1i.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1j.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1k.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Dec1SR1l.jpg

I did something really sneaky which I think is going to save me a TON of time. I took all 20 sheets of corecell, and rented a warehouse about a month ago and had somebody just put a layer of glass on all 20 sheets. So now all we have to do is cut it, put it in place, and do 6 inches around the edge and be done! He did some of the sheets on both sides, like these that need to be straight, and on some of the other sheets, he only glassed one side, so when I put them in the boat they will still bend. And so we have all the bulkheads foam pieces glassed on both side, and all the floor and cabin pieces are already glassed on one side. We are going to fly through the build :)

Tomorrow, we are going to sand 6 inches around all the joints, give them a nice 1 inch filet, and hopefully have all this glassed in tomorrow. We left the front wall high in the center because I want to put a 6 inch crown on the cabin roof. We didn't cut the border yet up front because I want to glass the bottom part in so we dont' loose the form of the boat. After this big wall is glassed in, I'm going to take the front border forward of the division out, so we can build the frame for the cabin roof. We'll also put the floor in the cabin tomorrow hopefully.

It trips me out how yall work barefoot and shirtless. Fiberglass must really itch.

Not me, but some of the guys here are nuts. I have a nice pair of boots and I usually even walk around with a mask on...

Capt, how much of a riser do you need for your exhaust system? Will the riser be as high as the motor cover then come down to your existing exit? I imagine when backing down on fish you need the riser to prevent back flow into engine manifold. Really enjoying your re-build! Thanks!

I usually put about 6 - 9 inches up over the turbo, but we also do a surge tube. Which is like you make the tube longer than it needs to be and then let the exhaust connect to the exhaust in the middle. That lets the surge go down and hit the end of the tube instead of climbing it. Does that make sense?

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

What engine are you going to use for power?

Never seen a surge tube before! Great idea...let the salt water slosh around in the tube instead of climbing the riser. Learned something today...thanks. Do you use a flapper over your exhaust port?

The flapper is one of those ideas that sounds great but does nothing at all. I mean really nothing, don't even try it, they should be illegal to sell types of deal.

This one is going to get a freshly rebuilt 6BTA 330hp cummins.

Here's a two day report! Yesterday we really didn't cover any new ground, until late, we spent all day glassing everything in that we had rough cut the day and night before.

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

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

Then last night we spent until about 9pm cutting the front border off. We couldn't cut it before because the boat would loose form, but after we got the back cabin wall tied into the hull and sides, that will hold the front nose in place. We also left an inch of glass on there to keep it a little more rigid. After we cut this, me and Harold tried to take it out, and it was too heavy for the two of us. We had to wait until this morning and it took 4 guys to get it over the front of the boat. Completely water logged.

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

Here's where the border slept last night as two people weren't even almost getting that thing over the side:

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

And then I got to show off my mad geometry skills that I learned on the Hull Truth website. A while back i saw this cool circle drawn on the side of one of the boats that an old timer was building and after a little bit of thinking figured out what he was doing!

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

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

That's how you figure out the crown. And that's what we did today! We didn't get done, but we got the first and second jig forms done for the cabin roof, and got almost done with the 3rd until we broke off the last sawzall blade and had to stop for the night.

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

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

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

We still have to cut down the first foam wall which will be our starting point. That will have 6 iches of crown, and then then next form is 22 inches closer to the nose and will have 5 inches and each form is 22 inches from the next and has one inch less crown and is one inch max height lower. Hopefully this will look cool when I'm done, we'll see. When we get the jigs built, we already have the foam ready to go in the warehouse with one side glassed and both sides cured. I'm not sure yet if I will have to cut each piece the width of the centers of the jig, or if I can use one foam piece for two jigs, we'll see how well it bends, but maybe tomorrow I'll have something stuck on the front ???

Still working, but I got these cool shots and thought I stick them up. Cabin forms are done, we'll have that thing sealed up in no time!

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...ngCabinSR1.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...gCabinSR1b.jpg

looking great :cool:

I know its not going to tell the whole story, but it would be real interesting to put all that stuff on a scale and add up just how much weight you took off of it just in that pile of stuff that has been cut off of it so far.

Yeah, scales would be cool in general :) There is nothing like that at all, and we also spent 60 hours two weeks back grinding off cement and most of that left in the form of powder, so really I need a big boat scale to weight the whole thing !!! but they don't have anything like that here.

On a different note, I couldn't believe how heavy the front border on this thing was. I mean like maybe 300-400 pounds for just the border ???. In contrast, when we get done with the new front border, it'll be weigh more like this one:
http://www.queposfishadventure.com/Q...odHoldersf.jpg

Well, we got alot done, but didn't get many pictures, will take some more tomorrow. We got the floor in the cabin, glassed in and ready, and then we built two shelves in the cabin on each side. The one on the port side will have the air cleaner for the motor under it so we can keep the cabin air clean.

And then we got the top cut! This is not glued on, but I set it in place with a couple of screws so I could see what the cabin will look like. There is still a visor that we are going to build, so this isn't done yet, but I am really pleased with my arc! :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/C...ughQueposA.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/C...ughQueposb.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/C...ughQueposc.jpg

I'm interested in the math you used, care to explain a little?

I am kind of winging it, but I kind of think I have it. I draw a horizontal line and a vertical line with a 90 degree angle.

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

Then I set up a compass, one of those things the draw circles, or in Spanish it's called Compas, and I set the distance of the circle radius to the height of the crown. Then I put the sharp part of the compass right in the corner of the lines above, and make a circle. The distance from the corner to the place the circle intersects the lines should be the same height of the crown I want. So i have something like this:

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

I usually don't draw the full circle, but sense I'm using paint it's hard to do just the top part of the circle.

Then I measure from the top part where the circle hits the line to the right part where the circle hits the line. I divide that number by 6, and then I know how far to mark each line ??? Here's a picture:

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

Pretend that is a circle. Paint sucks.

Then I draw lines from the center of the right angle through the points that I marked and all the way out to the circle:

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

Now using a straight edge, I measure the intersections for the lines that I made with the circle, from the base line. But I don't measure them starting at the center of the right angle, I measure them straight up from the base line. If you come out with the all same numbers, you are measuring from the original intersection of the lines. The way you measure it is in RED. The heights of the red lines are the numbers you are looking for:

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

So if the crown I want is 5 inches, I will have 7 numbers. The first one is 5 which is the center, and then I will have 5 more measurements which are the red lines and then the last number is 0 which is the edge.

So then I measure the width of the boat. I divide that by 12, and then make a chart. The top number is 0, shortest red line, next red line etc...5, longest red line, next longest red line...0. The bottom line starts with 0 and then you add 1/12 of the width for each number on top. Here is one of the charts, I think this makes sense? Its all the numbers:

http://www.queposfishadventure.com/Q...shingMatha.jpg

I convert everything to centimeters because then I don't have to deal with fractions. So 7.7 is my overall height, and that's like 3 inches I think ??? So that bottom chart is my 3 inch chart.

And then you draw a line using string across the top of the boat, and mark the 0 line on the plywood which is the outside height, and then you measure across 1/12th of the width of the boat, and start with the shortest red line and mark that height. Then after you have twelve heights (0, 5 red line heights, total crown, 5 red line heights in descending order, and 0) at 12 different equal intervals (by dividing width of boat by 12) you mark it and connect the dots:) I am terrible at explaining this...

Any Questions ? :) :) :)

Basically you laid out an element. Good stuff, I do understand it.

well not meaning to back track but what is you guestimate so far on what you took out of it?

just sort of add up how much each thing weighed as you took it out the best you can guess about it, that should be a good ball park range to be close to being accurate.

since this is a diet project I would like to be able to keep track of how much weight is really coming off of it

Still no great pictures, but here is the under deck plumbing. You can see I built an air intake again, this time it'll use a short hose and connect right to the turbo, and then the other side of the hose is in the cabin to keep the cabin smelling fresh and maybe get an extra MPG :)

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

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

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

A little progress today. Today my second guy, not Harold but the other guy, had to do a quick job for big bucks, so it was my and Harold again :) We went around and rounded and glassed the corners of the cab. This is a mid process shot, we smoothed it out after I took the pic.

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

And then we got the front part of the floor in. That isn't glassed on top, but it is glassed on bottom and we have it connected to the boat with cabosil and resin. Tomorrow we will glass that in and then Harold will cut the benches. I am waiting on my small fuel tank that is coming, and that is why we didn't close up the center. The big 4 inch wide stringers make it easy to stick stuff to, much different than the half inch bulkheads of my 28 footer. I went around and around about where to put the tank. I hate when boats have two tanks, because you have to switch tanks and then when ther is a fuel problem it's a nightmare. Than I thought about putting the tank behind the motor, but my 28 footer is front light, and I think this one will be too. The tank is a 50 gallon plastic tank, so it's not too heavy. The cabin up front probably weighs 100 pounds finished, so there is no other weight up front. We'll see.

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

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

And here is one of the out takes. All those pretty circles in the picture were little pieces of glass that the camera flash lit up. My poor lungs...

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

Oh, and I didn't explain this tube. i thought it would be fun to pipe the motor box air to the back of the boat with a blower. That way as long as you aren't down wind of the tail pipe, there will be no diesel smell if there is a small fuel leak or exhaust leak.

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

Yall work fast!

Got everything glassed up. Started with the front cap. We got one layer on a day ago to hold it in place, but we couldn't glass where all the supports were, so now we have that done

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...upportSR1d.jpg

And we got it done. Two layers on top and two layers on bottom.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...upportSR1b.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...upportSR1c.jpg

And then we glassed in the two pieces of floor. These were just stuck down with cabosil before.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/Q...upportSR1e.jpg

Now we are working on more floor and the benches up front. More pictures coming soon,

Ok, the other pictures were from yesterday, here's today's progress. We got two more sections of floor down.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishinga.jpg

And then we started building the seats! This was the first attempt, but I don't like the square look.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishinge.jpg

So we decided to round off the corners. I love simple, but sometimes things look bad when they are too simple :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishingb.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishingf.jpg

That's as far as I got on the seats today, but we'll go after that hard Monday and maybe get one or both installed. The port side will have an ice chest, so we are going

around the inside with 2 inch divinycell H60 a friend gave me. It's double scored, so it'll make the bends easier than the solid corecell I'm using for everything else.

And then I took some shots from the nose of the boat. It's really starting to take form and look like a boat again, a couple of more weeks and we'll have most of the foam

work done and then start the never ending process of FAIRING!!!

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishingc.jpg

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/A...osFishingd.jpg

It's getting better, I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet, but it's getting better than the square one...

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/N...posFishing.jpg

I know it's not level yet. This is an in process shot. :)

Ok, made some progress today, here's quite a few pictures of what we done.

We got the frame done for the port side bench. I've decided that since the battery goes under this one, and since I hate hatches, we are going to have the whole bench just sit over there with a frame on the inside, and then two small bumpers on the outside to hold it in place. That way I can get to the battery easily, and this is also where all the cables are going to go up top, so I like having the access.
http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingA.jpg

And then we got the starboard side glassed in as well. What you can't see, is the back half of this bench has 2.5 inches of foam all the way around it and on the bottom and it has a 2 inch division in the center. We are going to put a door in the top of this one and it's going to be an ice chest. I wish I had taken some pictures of the before we put the top on, but i didn't! :)

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingb.jpg

We got some more supplies in today. Here is a bag of joy, as you can see on his face! This is the microspheres that we are going to mix with gelcoat to fair the boat. That is a bag of torture right there!

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingc.jpg

And then I almost did the whole redo in DivinyCell, but I went with CoreCell at the last minute as it's more expensive and that makes it better :) But for the borders I will finally explore the world of foam outside of corecell, and I picked these sheets of from maverick yachys in Los Suenos. I have to kind of laugh, this year their only boat that had some corecell work on the top side beat all their other boats in the big OWC tournament. And they just imported around 200 sheets of foam core, and I saw a couple of their other tournament boats, including their famous Spanish Fly were getting the foam treatment! I have to point out we are in the middle of fishing season right now, so they too thought it was important enough to miss trips and money to do some foam core...I think they are on to something...it's not just me...

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingd.jpg

And then we finally got rid of the last plywood weight on the boat.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishinge.jpg

Holy c***, the border was HEAVY. I couldn't take that piece out of the boat by myself, and with me and Bernal (the guy in the pic) it was still heavy. That will go back in super light. And then we took off the rest of the borders as well

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingg.jpg

The original outside shell of the hull isn't too thick. I think we'll have a good strong lightweight boat when we are done. Not at all as thick as I thought it would be. But remember we already took out the inside mold.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingh.jpg

And then where the border was connected to the hull, the fiberglass was waterlogged and I pulled it off by hand.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingi.jpg

It smelled terrible and there was this nasty brown liquid that smelled a little bit like fart and catalyst that leaked out as we pulled the seperated glass panels apart. You can see a little bit of the brown here:

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingL.jpg

And back to the positive, I really like how the transom crown and the cabin crown compliment each other.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingJ.jpg

And I think the boat is prettier without those heavy borders.

http://www.QueposFishAdventure.com/B...osFishingK.jpg

Tomorrow me and Mako will start on the new border and Harold and the homeless guys will start on the torture (sanding and fairing)!

I love the way you and your crew are giving new life to this boat. Any Reports on how the other boat you just redone has been doing fishing?

Ok, we got alot done in the last two days. Yesterday we decided to start building the gunnel frame. One of my friends that you see in some of our night photos, came by and brought me out to see some gunnels he built out of foam on a different boat. His used a LOT less braces than we used on the 28. I jumped up and down on his border, and satisfied, we decided to go with less braces on this one as well. So this is a mid process shot on building the braces:

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

And we did both sides. We started by copying the hull onto the foam and then cutting it out the same width to make the inside rail of the gunnel, and then cut some foam piece for the connecting pieces and then glassed it all together. With that done quickly, we roughly cut some foam and stuck it to the top with cabosil and resin and right now it's screwed down, but the screws will come out. We put a 2 by 2 in the corner to screw everything together with and that will come out. The cuts on the top are all a little bit big, but since there is no glass, it'll be easy to fair up with a 3 foot board and 36 grit. We're going to do all the screw holes and any other filler before we glass it, so it'll be pretty solid. We have the whole thing glassed on the bottom already. This is what we have got so far:

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

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

And with that drying, the guys wanted to cut the transom piece. I thought we should wait, but I was in the minority and I let the guys have their way. They are wanting to do the top part and use the tape measure and boards to hold it in place until it dries. I'm still waiting on the steering piston so we can't do the back floor yet, but once the floor is in, they finish out the live well. I'm sure they'll figure it out.

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

And then the tank also came in. This is where it goes:

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

We still have to build another sub floor for the tank so it gets 100 percent support on the bottom, so this is just a rough in. I have 3 inches of drop towards the pickup, and the vent is on the high side, so I think it should work out great. Tomorrow we are going to sand the borders and fair them up and then glass the borders on top, hopefully. Then Saturday we should paint the boat and I plan on fishing it Sunday :)

Amazing!


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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.