Wooo, New SeaCraft owner here :-) and boy do i have a project.
 

Hey everyone, ill start with a little bit of background so you all can get to know me a little. I'm 23 and work at Jamestown Distributors. I love my job and the environments it brings me to. I love learning and am always willing to take on a new project. In my travels I picked up a 1969 Potter SeaCraft 20 cc. it needs some MAJOR renovation and love which I am more than willing to do. I plan on doing (for the first time) stringers, transom, deck and whatever else may need attending to.
I am open to any and all criticism and you guys know what's best for these boats. So without anymore delay here are the much awaited pictures.

Welcome and good luck!!! I must say I've never seen an aluminum backing plate located on the front of the splash well and connected to the transom with stainless all-thread rods. I,m thinking a new transom is in order!!! Go with 25". :) Keep us up with the re-build!!

Thanks Don, I will. Seems as though the previous owner was either hiding something or worried about the transom. either way a new transom is in the plans. thanks! will add more pics soon. day 1 went well yesterday. those diamond backing plates, rub rail, t top, and center console all removed.

Nice meeting you and congrats, the sickness spreads.... You will need your employ discount to fix that ol clunker up, lol. I personally love the pre 1972 20' hulls. They have the quad stringers instead of the twin big boxes. a little stronger and no foam in them to get water logged. Yours being pre 1970 would make it a Moesly hull not a potter and the tank under the console and that mint green gel coat confirms this as well. A lot of the old Moesly stuff has that green gel coat, Even my rare race hull was gel coated with the stuff. In the late 60's that must of been his go to color. Your boat will also have a different non skid than most and also have drains out the back of the transom instead of the floor too. I be glad to help you out as long as I can hit you up on that employ discount... Or even better you could start a CSC family discount now that your part of the fam.

i plan on using my discount heavily on this project. and ill see what i can do as far as discounts with my new fellow seacraft brethren! unfortuneately the color is not factory gel coat, it seems to be a house paint or one part polyurethane. it will all get sanded and blasted anyway... ill need all the ideas and coaching i can get with this project. thanks for the welcome guys! non skid looks to be similar to my bosses 1972 seacraft but i could be mistaken.

I saw this boat on CL. The guy had it listed at first as a well craft. I emailed him and told him what he had and to change the title of the ad. Looks like a good project. I'm in Jamestown Dist. all the time and have worked on a few of them so if you have any questions let me know. You have everything you need over there to make this thing a nice boat. Do you work out on the floor at the store?

Ha, he told me someone informed him that it was not a wellcraft. Thanks for not helping with the final price.. ;);):p:p

ha it still looks like it was a good deal. The trailer looks in decent shape

The outside defiantly looks like paint but the inside green color if it is paint you will probably find out that the gel coat under the green paint is the same color. At some point someone might of paint matched to the original gel color. I just have noticed that a lot of the older pre 70 model boats have that color in them and have not seen it on any of the older potter (70-80) year boats.

Far as the non skid pattern it may be the same as your bosses 72, Im not sure when they changed it to the wood plank style floor non skid but know the 73 up models have it and you don't see many with the style you have.

Your boat looks to be a true classic, with a little TLC and a few more of those Blue Moons I see in the pics you will be done before you know it!

Looks like a Great Shop to complete your dreamboat.

Good Luck and welcome to the site :)

Chuck (Admin)

Thanks Chuck, its a pretty sweet shop! Totally frizzle, im glad to hear you call it a true classic, makes all the work worthwhile. theyll be plenty of more pictures and blue moons to come! stay tuned!

Welcome aboard! As FS says, you have a Moesly hull, which is probably even better than the Potter models, since Potter learned whatever he knew about building boats from Moesly! That round plate on the transom indicates that it has (or had at one time) the original Moesly-designed live well under the stbd. transom seat. It was a clever circulating design that would keep bait alive without needing a pump, but it could be a transom killer if the sealing around that plate wasn't maintained. Check out Carla's Moesly SeaCraft web site to learn more about the amazing guy who founded SeaCraft, invented the patented VDH design, and became a legendary winner of offshore powerboat races with it!

The stringers in the '72 and earlier 4-stringer hulls are all glass with no foam in them, so should not need any work unless you try to remove the deck. The keelson is a glass encapsulated wood 2x4, but has enough glass around it that it's got plenty of strength even if the wood is completely rotted. The deck/inner liner was bonded to the top of the stringers, so if you try to remove it, you may rip off the top of the stingers. If there are any soft spots, it's better to just remove the top skin and rotted core and leave the bottom skin intact.

When you start looking at power options, remember that the 20' hulls are very stiff but relatively light with less beam than most modern 20' boats (which is why these older hulls ride so well!), so they're fairly weight sensitive. The outboard models were designed for motors weighing 300 lbs or less, and the VDH design is very efficient, so unlike fatter heavier modern boats, they don't need a lot of power, and they are NOT good candidates for modern 500 lb 4-stroke motors! You'll get the best ride and minimum planing speed with smaller lighter motors of 90 to about 130 HP. Although I am now running a 430 lb V-6 on a bracket, I ran the same boat for over 30 years with a 300 lb ~100 hp (at the prop) motor on the transom, my experience was that I had to do a lot of tweaking to the current setup to get it to ride as well as it did with the old motor! It's hard to find a modern 300 lb motor however, so consider moving the console, batteries and fuel tank forward to help balance what will probably be a heavier-than-design motor! Moesly always put the gas tank right on the CG so trim would not change as you burned off fuel, so I'd recommend trying to keep the CG in that location when you start moving gear around to compensate for a heavier motor.

I drove by that boat about 10times this summer in Dartmouth. Glad to see it going to a good home . . . I'm looking forward to seeing that boat get a 2nd life.

Subscribed!! There's some great reading here and ideas been put into rebuilds. Trayder's, Strick's and others have amazing builds documented. Keep the pics coming!

Good project, have fun, you will be very happy at the end.

Congrats and welcome aboard.

I offerd $500 cash 3 times for that rig but never heard back. My bank account thanks you big time. I'm glad to follow on CSC from my arm chair w beer.

Thanks for all the support and subscription guys, I wont let you down! Tuesday we stripped the center console of all hardware and wiring. The plan is to gut all wet wood and replace with penske or coosa. let me know if you guys have any advice for composite choice.

And I thought my console had a lot of holes when I rebuilt it!!! Just over 180 if I remember correctly. NO way, yours is the winner by at least 100 holes!!! :) Good luck!

ha, a lot of grinding and filling in my near future. here are some pics of last night we got the deck cap popped off. check it out. and yes, i found the driver bit in the picture under the rod holder :confused: lol!

Update
 

The past few days I've been prepping the hull for the deck to come off, im currently in the process of cutting some Poplar 4'x8' to reinforce the deck and plan on using 2'x4's to keep the Poplar straight and true. if anyone has any tips/tricks suggestions I'm open to constructive criticism. here are some more pics. Also while browsing the home depot i found a sweet temporary windshield :p :D ;)

Poplar plywood for the deck? It isn't quite clear from your post.

I have ranted about plywood in fiberglass boats before. I say things like it is heavy, wicks water, and is a termite hotel. I'll leave it at that.

Maybe you can get foam for a better deal than I can? I would suggest it. It is expensive, but you will buy a lot of resin and glass, too. Balsa seems to hold up much better and be lighter than ply, too. If I didn't do foam, I would do balsa before I did plywood due to the grain direction and density.

Good luck! It looks like you have a good start, some help and a great workspace.

I agree with FS on the suitability of plywood for the deck core! Check out this article for more info on potential problems with cored construction. If water ever gets to the plywood in just one spot, a large area of the deck will start to rot. You'll see what happens to wet plywood when you open up the transom! Moesly used balsa core for the deck and cap, and those parts on my 42 year old boat are still solid, so you could do worse than building it like it was originally built! Although balsa will also rot if it gets wet, the wet area won't spread as fast as it will in plywood. As Pasco's article mentions, balsa also has better strength properties than most foams and soaks up resin better, so it's easier to get a good bond, and it should be cheaper as well. Among all the foams, he seems to like CoreCell the best.

FS, my apologies for the confusion. the poplar and 2x4's are only to fasten to the topside of the deck temporarily to maintain a level deck while i do the resin and glass work below. there are high and low spots that need to be straightened before the Foam gets bonded to the underside of the deck not to mention the reinforcing of any structural issues when lifting the cap off.

Many thanks for posting your project and the pics that go with it. I did a much less extensive redo on my 25 and really appreciate the work that goes into something like yours.

Keep'em coming

Connor

Hey Connor, thanks for the intrest! i'll be sure to keep the pictures flowing for you guys, P.S. im working for a CSC coupon code for forum members at the JamestownDistributors.com checkout. stay tuned!

Sweet!

Looks like you have a great shop to work in and a cool project on your hands. FWIW, I'm planning on vac bagging 1/2" Corecell into my original deck top skins to replace the shot balsa - I'm hoping that using the vacuum against a flat layup table will keep it pretty flat. Something you might want to consider if you are pulling the decks and building them outside the boat..

Flexpat, the TotalBoat shop is pretty awesome. Like yourself, the decks being straight and true is my top priority. The bros and I made a fairly heavy duty brace/subfloor out of poplar and 2x4's to fasten to the deck to pull any low spots and level any high spots. I plan to vacuum bag the stringers when I get to that point. Made some major progress tonight, I'll post some pictures in the A.M. :cool:

hey guys, i've been super busy in the shop sawing, grinding, and sanding. here are some updated pictures of the poplar and 2'x4' subfloor i was talking about. :)

I think I see what you are doing - keep the porn coming!
I'm making up a shopping list in anticipation! Any shipping discounts?

working on the CSC coupon code as we speak, not as easy as it sounds. heres some more pics in the meantime. I managed to find this old girls name "once over" and Reg numbers "MS 8599 V" under the house paint :p :rolleyes:

Any updates? Following