chriselk's 23 seacraft Rebuild thread
 

Hey guys, I have a 23 from a former member.

I have forgotten his name, but he was the guy who supposedly made T shirts for yall.

I have attached a picture of the boat AFTER he had work done on it. That may help you recall it.

PLEASE NOTE THE PICTURES ARE OUT OF ORDER. The blue boat is the picture of the boat about 10 yrs ago.

Well, it has an enclosed transom with a bracket after the partial rebuild. I have cut out the deck and the front of the transom to expose the inside view there.

It appears that a large central knee was installed running from hull to top of transom. There is some original fiberglass remaining on port and starboard sides of the transom that was cut to access bolts when installing the bracket.

The top of the transom, about 18 inches is THREE inch thick and solid (newer). Below, it is rotted out-probably original.
I am still debating on whether to go back in with a new single bracket or renotch the transom. It seems that I will not be able to salvage the good part of the transom and will have to cut that part out and start over-that is if I decide to rebracket it. Certainly, being that its not rotted it will not peel from the outer skin like the lower rotten part. The outside of the transom where I redrilled the drains is pretty thick glass, so I dont want to do an outside transom repair and I dont want to work upside down.

My question is can anyone tell me what this boat was powered with originally (I/O or outboard)? See pictures.

FYI,
The deck had been removed before and put back in. The tops of the stringers had been cut and a very small amount of foam removed, is what I based this on. Also a VERY small amount of adhesive was applied-smaller than a tube of tooth paste line.

When it was glued back down it must have never touched the stringers as the green glue was still round. The deck was not attached except for a couple of places in the corners. It would have come out in one piece, but we cut it in two to make it easy to remove. It was waterlogged.

The previous repair had just put plywood over the rear of the deck. It was rotted too. I have for sale a slightly used 23 Seacraft deck, if anyone want one-I will make you a good deal. Interestingly, the central removable panels were in pretty good shape. Probably need recoring-they may have water or they are just friggin heavy glass.

The previous repair seems to have put expanding foam all over between the stringers and everywhere-it was newer form. It trapped water. Every time we cut, water came out. In fact the bracket was installed over the transom drains-there was not place to get water out of the hull, we had to vacuum it out.

Removing all this stuff was cathartic (sp?).

usermane "peterb"


Search his posts or PM. I think he still visits.

http://www.classicseacraft.com/commu...ad.php?t=17283 :(

I/O, You can tell, because the stringers in the rear cut inward to allow more room for the motor and motor beds. The outboard models have wider stringers at the rear.


The lower part of the transom that is rotted may have transferred moisture up into the newer 3" section that was redone. Ply wood wicks water from the end grains the most so it could of sucked the water up into that part as well. I would se how well they separated the new core from the old. If it was just butted together them you might have to change it all and the new stuff will be hard to get off. If they glassed in between them it might of saved the new wood and kept the water out. Three inches is over kill and is adding extra weight to the hull too. If you go back with two 3/4" ply's you might can shave some weight off of the rear of the boat. It would be hard to do a transom and leave part and re-do just some, better to just change out the whole thing. On one of SC hulls it has a solid transom that is not old at all with zero rot but has a deep notch for a short leg motor and I want to fill the notch to make it a full transom. I feel like I could just fill it in and it would be find but I probably will remove all of it just so I know it has been done right and the way I want it. It is hard replacing something that is not bad but it just depends on how far you want to go with a restore (get it back going and fix just what needs it or a full redo to "Like new condition") Far as strength wise if the top new part is not compromised by the wet lower core then you will be fine just changing the bad lower part. Just depends on how anal you are how far you want to take it. I tend to be a bit to anal at times and take things to far.

Thanks Mike,
I cut the transom almost completely out, at least the forward bulkhead. I am in the process of cutting the notched "new area" out. I will be trying to remove the lower rotted area and then redoing the transom in one piece and not trying to save anything. I do worry a little about the boat "racking" with only the transom skin to hold things. I know people do this all the time.

I also got the stringer tops cut out, and removed all foam.

Here is the bracket if someone is in the market for one. I dont know who made it-anyone know?

Oops, first picture added was wrong one. I hate you cannot cut and paste stuff.
The N koreans can hack Sony but we have to do so many operations on these sites just to paste a picture.

This picture is of the stern after cutting out the front bulkhead and showing the configuration of the stern.

I am now in the process of cutting the notch out.

I wouldn't worry to much about the boat racking with the transom out as long as the stringer sides are still in place but one thing that you do need to look out for is keeping the skin flat. If you don't support the back side of it, it will crown out of bow outward. If you bond the new skin in to it and don't run a straight edge down the back or a something to square it up it will end up having gaps on the outer edges of the bracket. This will also make the rear part of the cap not fit back on as well as it should either. Just make sure when you bond the core back in you run some straight wood beams or metal straight edges along the back.

Let me know what you might want for the bracket (PM or email me) I may can use it on one of my 2 23's in the future if I ever get around to working on them.

Got it. Thanks, I emailed you.

Nice boat...I used to work with one of the previous owners in south NJ who owned it.. I looked at it 14 years ago but didn't want to get into a floor etc... Now I'm in the middle of a complete restoration.. Good luck and enjoy!!

I think maybe that boat sank a few years back as well?? Not total submerged if i recall.

Well here are some more pictures of the demolition.

Well here are some more pictures of the demolition. Does not look like much progress, but grinding is slow work.

If just posted a new thread asking for help on tank placement-if folks have moved tanks on a 23 please reply there.

Still looking for help on tank placement.
I took out the 100 main and the smaller forward aux tank.

My plan for the new 120 gallon tank is to put the back of the tank at the beginning of the the break where the stringers get narrow. That would move the tank around 18 inches or so forward.

IS THIS FORWARD ENOUGH FOR A FLOTATION BRACKET WITH A SINGLE F300? The new transom is coosa and the bulkheads will be foam and the deck Nida core, all epoxied.

lotsa guys go for two tanks on this site,I went with a 112 gal and set it 18" fwd.I can see the benefit of two tanks,but it was not in my plans...

FAS,
That was about what I was going to do, about 18.
thanks,
c

Well we have been busy since last post.

First series here are after cleaning out boat to show where we are:

Next we worked on the transom.
If you recall from an earlier closeup picture of the inside of the transom outer skin, the thickness was different. That is the inside was about 3/8 inch and then it "broke" as it went to about 3/16 inch. Thus the inside was of different thickness and we had to build up the thinner part of the inside skin so the Coosa board would be flush. So we laid up several layers of CSM, some 1708 until we approximated the thickness. Then we Epoxied to outer skin (using Cabosil thickened) applied with notched spreader.
Used two layers of 1 inch Coosa Bluewater 26. The first layer of Coosa was screwed from the outside. The second was screwed from the inside. Holes were drilled in transom and Coosa for screws and for escape of excess epoxy.

In the first picture note the piece of steel we used throughout to keep the transom flat. There is a tendency for the skin to bow. It is a barn door roller track.
We used one on the outside and one on the inside along with a third piece of aluminum.

In the last picture you can see several things. The holes in hull have been patched and two holes got fiberglass blocks as we will reuse the through hulls.
The white remaining parts of the liner with the large deck plate holes have subsequently been cut out as you will see later. You may not be able to see, but we glassed the corners of the transom quite well. First we cabo sealed the crack and made a filet. We have used DB170 for almost all of the glassing. Occasionally 1708. Richard and John are the "kids" doing most of the work on this project. How did I get most of the grinding and the kids get the fun part?

You can also see the jigs from my previous build an ENVI Redfish 16 up on the walls.

Next up we patched in the notch in the outside of the transom. I had gotten some fiberglass panels from the fine folks at Parker Boats nearby. The panels are cut out from the pilot houses when they install windows. Very strong. So what if my boat has an "organ" from a Parker.

Filling stringers with foam. We will be raising the deck in two ways. First we are going to lay the deck on top of the inner liner ledge we left (about 2-3 inches). That makes the deck about 3/4 inch higher. We are also using 1.5 inch Plascore (like Nidacore) honeycomb for the deck.

To get the 3/4 inch raised stringers I was originally just going to put the stringers back to original height by pour foam and add a 3/4 nidacore. But Richard said screw that, lets make a dam and pour the foam the additional 3/4 inch. So we did that. You can see the thin plywood dams screwed to the sides of the stringers. To get the height of the dams right, we temporarily screwed into the ledge, ran string across them back and forth. We used that as the deck height and the top of the dams came to the strings. We took the strings down of course to work. In pouring foam, I recommend that you get plenty on hand. You want that foam to expand without voids at the top. Go ahead and waste some, it will make the top flat when you saw it, sand it, shape it. Your stringers will thank you and the glass will lay flat without voids (although some voids are okay).

Well I see I did not make pictures of the stringer repair where it went into the transom. Will get some more when I get a moment. Here are two showing Richard glassing in the new nidacore (yellow foam) linking the transom to the old stringer we cut out to remove the transom. He glued together 5 pieces and shaped it with a surefoam file.

He actually did this before he did the pour foam on the stringers. You can see where he brought the glass around in the corners of the transom. The corners (sides) near the transom are pretty shaky, so we beefed them up some with 17 oz glass and epoxy.

Took boat to be soda blasted by Alex Nitt in Morehead City. Will be a while till he gets to it.

great rebuild on the 23. amazing how much work does goes into a real redo....looks great and kudos to you guys..I know it ain't easy...

Before and after soda blasting by Alex Nitt of Morehead City.
Looks better than it is. Soda blasting fine, just surface needs a lot of work.
Will have to flip hull to really get after it.

We were able to put in the tank bed and some bulkheads.
We test fit the tank and its pretty close to what we wanted and planned for.

Been a while. Rainy day posting here in NC


After soda blasting We noticed a few wet areas in the hull based on a moisture meter and we noticed what looked to be many gel coat blisters. We were told that the only sure was to get it dry was to remove the gel coat. Since we were going to bottom paint anyway, we removed the gel coat. It tore up the shop and a month later we still have the dust around.

Two pictures show the after sanding off the gel coat. It turns out we found several damaged areas that we might have missed had we not done it.

Within 2 weeks readings went from as high as 22 down to under 7. We divided the hull up into grids and wrote on the bottom so we could follow the moisture levels.

We will eventually flip, repair, glass/epoxy. Then Interlux barrier coats, topcoat (maybe) and then bottom paint.

Honeycomb deck construction. Using advice from Bill at Lightning Yachts (who has been such a great help and source of advice) we made the deck from 1.5 inch Plascore and Coosa.

Shown is the bottom of the deck after two layers of 17 oz cloth. The Coosa shows where the hatches are going and or reinforcements for console/T Top and leaning post. We are going to put in SS T nuts to hold T top.

Stern construction was using 3/4 H80 Divinycell. Before I cut the old transom, I made a story board to replicate the curve. That is what we used to cut the top of the coosa transom. In the first picture you can see the story board held up. Well to get the front of the transom right, we cut the ends off the storyboard and temporarily mounted it at the front of the foam. We screwed it down and voila, it was perfect. Sorry to say I did not think of that myself, but ingenious Richard did it. Very intuitive guy.

Nice work and a great idea.
Really glad you posted this - it makes me think I might be better off making a whole new stern cap for mine with all the redesigned wells/hatches built into it :D instead of cutting up my old one and cobbling it together. :eek:

Not sure if that will take more or less time but it would probably come out a lot nicer if I can pattern it well.

Looking good Chris, Good thing you took that gel off. The barrier coat would of just sealed it in there where it couldn't escape. I done a hull bottom one time with 2000e and a urethane paint over it and fixed many blistered spots but missed one. About 3 months latter it showed up as a bubble in the paint and primer. Took a pin and popped it and it drained a small amount of water out then it had to be ground out and repaired. Lot of work now but glad to see you are getting it 100% right. It will be worth it in the end.

Baitwell
 

We are putting in a transom bait well, not a large one. We made plywood forms for bending the foam. If you recall, we have about a 13 degree angle, so we had to make the bottom form smaller front to back dimension, but the same curve as the top.

We scored the foam vertically on the corners where we wanted to bend about 2/3rds thru. At this stage you gotta be careful not to break. We screwed down the foam and glass the inside and out with two layers of 17 oz. Then we could remove it and it was solid. Then we cut the top and bottom from the plywood foams, tabbed, etc. Now just a lot of finish work. Note, we did round the back corners as we did not want to kill the pogies. The later pictures you can see Richard dry fitting the baitwell along the transom top, which he matched.

Some misc stuff.

Forward locker we are reusing. We previously reinforced the forward tray/locker that held the aux tank. We put a piece of foam on the bottom and faired it.

Since the deep V of the seacraft seems to collect quite bit of water forward, UNDER the forward locker, we installed a low profile bilge pump under it. The only problem is that there is no access to pump, wiring hose.

Solution. put a access hatch in the bottom. We cut out a panel just above the pump, large enough to install the pump, get to hose etc. We ran wire up the outside of the locker and made another cut out and mounted a electrical terminal block on the forward part of the fuel bulkhead. Thus, we can replace the pump by just swapping out the pump, reconnecting the hose and running the wires about 2 feet to the electrical terminal block. A round deck hatch of course covers the hole.

The last photos shows the routing of the bilge hose out the port side, using the track the old aux. fuel tank. Wired with three way wire of course to helm. We are not using that funky corregated bilge hose. We ordered reinforced 1 1/8 labeled as bilge hose. Did not wish to try and change that hose with deck on. Good stuff.

Some misc pictures of deck, hatches
 

First picture is of insulated in floor fish box. Reminder to self, drill drain hole...

Second of bilge area with landing pads for bilge pumps and holes for bracket.

Test fitting deck and glueing on edging of coosa
 

The deck in this picture is screwed down to its final resting place, temporarily. The dark edging on the side is blue tape on what will be the gutter and to prevent epoxy from glueing down the deck prematurely. Richard had epoxied the half inch strip of coosa to finish off hexcell core. He used wedges to perfectly make the gap even. The epoxy was really to just tack the piece in place. Tomorrow we will remove the deck, finish filling in the epoxy and then we will glass the entire edge to make it solid.

Number One Job !moovin right ahead, glad to it...

Looking good! I am planning a NidaCore deck with Coosa reinforcements on mine. I didn't think of putting the console and leaning post reinforcement the deck layup - I like your Idea better! It looks like you just routed out the honeycomb deck deep enough to lay the Coosa in, is that right? Did you bed it in with Cabosil or something before laying the skin on? I would love to know.
I also like that you kept the cap on to hold everything straight while you did the deck and stringer work. I was going to remove mine but if there is enough room to work around the cap I guess it's a good idea to leave it in. Very nice work. It doesn't look like there is anything left that could get waterlogged - ever!

Yes we routed the honeycomb and then cabo ed the coosa in. I would suggest you take a saw and cut the perimeter first on the line. The honeycomb makes going straignt with a router difficult. Not a big deal as you are going to fill in anyway. Set the saw/router to the height of coosa. It does not hurt to overglass in the coosa on the back side. I am a big believer in mulitple 17 oz glass layers as opposed to 1708. Three 17oz stronger than two 1708 and lighter too.

You probably dont need reinforcement for the console or leaning post. The T top probably does need it. We are putting T nuts under the deck glued into the coosa. I have found out the hard way with T nuts. Epoxy them in with the screws and the T top while they set. That way the angle is perfect because you cannot get to them later. Also they wont push out if the angle is not perfect.

Said in other words. We will put the T top on top, screw holes the size of the screws. Flip the deck over and drill a slightly larger hole for T nuts (may just bang them in), epoxy the T nuts in with slow cure epoxy/cabo (keeping epoxy off the threads if possible). Flip it over again and place the T top back on. Screw the T top down and allow epoxy to set.
Remove T top for installation of course.

Chris,

I owned that particular boat from Feb 2007 through May 2010. It had twin 2001 200 HP OX66's on her. The previous owner had the deck rebuilt by Young Brothers in Southern NJ in the 2001/2002 timeframe I believe.

Before owning that boat I had a 1978 23' SeaCraft with twin 150 HP SWS's.

While I liked the layout out (enclosed transom) of the 2nd sled better I always felt that the first one rode better (the one without the flotation bracket).

Best of luck with the rebuild.

Peter

Thanks for the info. I will cut out with a saw and use the T-nuts over the box stringers too, I should be able to thru-bolt the console between the stringers. My top will mount to the console and not the deck so that's where I need the strength. I always wondered how much lift is generated trailering at highway speed with a t-top - I bet its a bunch! I may skip the reinforcement on the leaning post, I'll just see how it goes when I am there.
Thanks!

How to flip a 23 seacraft easily
 

Well, we temporarily screwed the deck in place and put one layer of 17 oz on the top.

Now we wanted to flip it and fix the hull.

We put some reinforcements on the gunnels first.

To flip it, we screwed 4 sheets of plywood together overlapping 90 degrees. Then we cut an 8 foot circle. We reinforced with 2 2 x 6's. If you recall, we had already test mounted the bracket on the transom and had half in holes going thru. We drilled one more at the very top.

We thru bolted the "circle of death" to the transom. One thing to note that circle weighs about 200 lbs and could crush someone. To screw it on the transom with about 5 inches of clearance, we jacked the trailer up. Then when we hooked it up it would not scrap.

We found that to flip it, it was best if we ran the rope amidships.