Turning the ugliest boat in Costa Rica into a respectable 28' Center Console Diesel

[B-Stealth]

Super cool thread; I appreciate your dedication to document the steps. I would love to know how many hours y'all will have in the boat when your finished. My guess would be 700-1,000 hours.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by B-Stealth

Super cool thread; I appreciate your dedication to document the steps. I would love to know how many hours y'all will have in the boat when your finished. My guess would be 700-1,000 hours.

We started it like on 6-23, but spent two weeks before that making the mold, so I don't count that. So from 6-23 until now that is exactly 3 months or 90 days, we didn't work Sundays so that gets us to 77 days of work. We work from 8 to 5 on normal days, so that's 770 hours, and we have 2.5 people working (I haven't been too involved in the paint prep as I've been busy on other things, and crab is drunk ALOT) on it so that's 1900 hours so far

[B-Stealth]

Originally Posted by GringoJohn

We started it like on 6-23, but spent two weeks before that making the mold, so I don't count that. So from 6-23 until now that is exactly 3 months or 90 days, we didn't work Sundays so that gets us to 77 days of work. We work from 8 to 5 on normal days, so that's 770 hours, and we have 2.5 people working (I haven't been too involved in the paint prep as I've been busy on other things, and crab is drunk ALOT) on it so that's 1900 hours so far

Wow, I didn't realize y'all were hitting it that hard. If you don't mind me asking what do you think the boats value will be upon completion?

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by B-Stealth

Wow, I didn't realize y'all were hitting it that hard. If you don't mind me asking what do you think the boats value will be upon completion?

Not for sale I didn't build it to sell it, so i haven't really put much thought into that. There is another boat here in Quepos that a guy just restored, and it's nowhere on this level of quality materials or weight savings (like he just painted the boat nicely but redo it per say), and it's outboard powered, and he just sold that boat for 46K. It was a nice boat and I think the guy buying it is getting a good boat, but it's nowhere near the level of this one in power to weight ratio, or build quality (just because it was an all mold boat, built to make profit not using the best techniques). But i wouldn't sell this one unless somebody offered too much money for it. And even then I would reluctant.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by B-Stealth

Wow, I didn't realize y'all were hitting it that hard. If you don't mind me asking what do you think the boats value will be upon completion?

After thinking about it a little more, I just wouldn't want this boat competing against my charter boats out there, so i don't think I would sell it at all. Weight to power ratio plays a HUGE factor in the amount of bites you get here fishing for billfish, so it's going to be a cheap to run fish catching machine, and I don't want my competitors to get their hands on it. Not even for 100K

It plays such a big role, that I'm not even going to use my 32 footer for the first half of the season because it's high weight makes it suck at catching billfish (my 32 footer is the boat in my avatar). It was done with plywood and polyester resin, and the last season as the floor got heavier from water intrusion, it's catch rate went way down. We are about to rip it apart and cut it's weight down by 4000-5000 pounds so it can get competitive again. On the other hand, my 30 foot gamefisherman we redid with corecell foam and carbon fiber, and then last season it averaged 3 more billfish releases PER DAY from the weight reduction (my lightweight 30 footer averaged 12.4 sailfish released per day as opposed to 4.6 sailfish per day on the heavy fiberglass boat). This new 28 footer we are building here is going to clean house I bet, so i got to keep it for myself

My 32 footer is the next build we are going to post up here. We are stripping the 32 all the way down to the hull, even taking out the bulkheads, and then it is double layered on all the sides (it's cheaper to build them using a mold for each side, but it's heavier) so that second layer is GONE. It's going to be amazing all the weight that is going to come out, and we are going to do everything with this lightweight foam core. I bet i double the catch per day numbers from last year. Stay tuned

Here is a prelim plan of what we are thinking for the 32 footer. I'm going to take out the center console and make a cabin up front. That should shift a little more weight to the back as the cabin is just going to be a foam cored top with just a bathroom inside, but mostly weightless. Now the front has all these hatches made out of plywood and weighs a ton. Here's my Engineer's drawing (me using paint):

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by GringoJohn

After thinking about it a little more, I just wouldn't want this boat competing against my charter boats out there, so i don't think I would sell it at all. Weight to power ratio plays a HUGE factor in the amount of bites you get here fishing for billfish, so it's going to be a cheap to run fish catching machine, and I don't want my competitors to get their hands on it. Not even for 100K

It plays such a big role, that I'm not even going to use my 32 footer for the first half of the season because it's high weight makes it suck at catching billfish (my 32 footer is the boat in my avatar). It was done with plywood and polyester resin, and the last season as the floor got heavier from water intrusion, it's catch rate went way down. We are about to rip it apart and cut it's weight down by 4000-5000 pounds so it can get competitive again. On the other hand, my 30 foot gamefisherman we redid with corecell foam and carbon fiber, and then last season it averaged 3 more billfish releases PER DAY from the weight reduction (my lightweight 30 footer averaged 12.4 sailfish released per day as opposed to 4.6 sailfish per day on the heavy fiberglass boat). This new 28 footer we are building here is going to clean house I bet, so i got to keep it for myself

My 32 footer is the next build we are going to post up here. We are stripping the 32 all the way down to the hull, even taking out the bulkheads, and then it is double layered on all the sides (it's cheaper to build them using a mold for each side, but it's heavier) so that second layer is GONE. It's going to be amazing all the weight that is going to come out, and we are going to do everything with this lightweight foam core. I bet i double the catch per day numbers from last year. Stay tuned

Here is a prelim plan of what we are thinking for the 32 footer. I'm going to take out the center console and make a cabin up front. That should shift a little more weight to the back as the cabin is just going to be a foam cored top with just a bathroom inside, but mostly weightless. Now the front has all these hatches made out of plywood and weighs a ton. Here's my Engineer's drawing (me using paint):

Thats a pretty interesting thing the power tow weight ratio.

Alsp, it looks like they need to change the rafters on that roof too!