Saving Old Seagulls

A few months ago We got ourselves a 20 footer.


It needed a bit of work, The deck was in a bit of a state and the inside needed a repaint.



We spent a few weeks sanding and grinding so we could glass the deck and repaint the inside. Along with building a trailer!



While we where at it we made some bits for the steering using some PVC pipe bits



We could do with a better steering wheel, but at this point it will have to do!



Yes that is an engine lifter on the back! More about that later.
All is looking good for a test out...

What A Ripper!

You got that right!
We took the boat out for a spin,
Started off at Salt house and went to River head

15km/h with a silver century and 4 people on board, against the tide.

The lifter worked a charm (video V)


The problem came when I handed the helm over to Jacob (10 yrs old) Thats the point where we realised we had the cable for the steering wrapped arount the drum the wrong way!
He turned hard right we turned hard left and about the same time the outboard swiveled sideways going WOT!!
The interesting thing was the outboard was ment to be bolted to the stern.
We slowly continued to riverhead as we where past the half way point (my wife had not done the trip before) then turned round and made our way home.

When we got the boat home we had a better look at the transom, only to find the timber was a tad rotten! Glass over ply can hide problems some times.




The more I dug around the mre rot I found. So....


I made it into a walk through.

More to come!

Got the transom back in!
I used 6mm marine ply for the skin and laminated another 6mm for the thrust clamping block to the outside.

I pre drilled and fill the mounting holes oversize so they can be drilled to the correct size later and still have the ply sealed. The holes on the old transom wern't sealed causing the rot!

The white nilon bits are where the steering cords run through!
I cut the holes in the gussets and ran the router round them to double as a cleats.... A bit over the top but that is how I am!

The inside "T" is 20mm tanalised flooring ply.... It is what I had so it is what it got!


Everything has been coved and sealed with ACE 321 epoxy and powders so it should be 100% water tight!!

Still got a bit of sanding to do before giving it an under coat and a couple of top coats.

Got a bit of paint on it now!

If you didn't know you would not think the stern had been cut out at all.

Steering is back in, this time I hope it is set up the correct. The remote throttle is also set up.


The chord at the bottom of the pic runs through a nylon bush and hooks onto a bracket on the exhaust.
Later, once I have taken her for another sea trail I will trim up the excess chord and make things look a little tider.





If I get time later I will get a pic with the motor on the back!

Took her out for a run today.
It was wet, cold and windy but we can't let a little bad weather stop the testing.

All seemed to work well. The lifting bracket lifted the outboard nicely (and lowered it) the steering turned to port when we turned to the port (unlike the first test )






Here is something interesting black oil out of the silver cent. and coffee out of the LLS whats with that? The fuel is the same in both engines run on the same day

The coffee is an emulsion how's the water getting up that high?

That's got to come apart.

I will remove the exhaust tube and take the power head off the drive tube to have a good look in the exhaust port.
If I can't see any thing there I will take the head off.

On a LLS it's dry around the exhaust port, check the water delivery tube for fractures & a sloppy fit in the water pump housing,

Wake the neighbours & run it without the exhaust tube.

Did jast as you said.... Neighbours are happpy with me now!

Water is spraying up from the pump housing, The pipe is a little deformed where it fits into the housing.
The coffee was 200mm up the tube, nice and black down from the top. I'm happy.
It's still pumping plenty of water and not getting hot so I will leave it be for now.... Too many other things to do right now.

Got the boat out over the weekend.... The weather was absolute bollocks, the boat was filling up with cats and dogs!





We where trying to look at the jet streem and wave formation off the outboard.
All in all I think the boat went well.... Time will tell.

What more could we ask for! We came in second place over all for the fleet (I think there was 12 boats).... even with the most amount of people on board.

The weather was rough, we had a blast
Our average speed for the day was 15.8 Kilometers/Hour or 8.5 knots it didn't seem to matter what the weather through at us.