Hey all- well its on to phases 2 and 3 now- since the summer is screaming by and the friggen billfish bite is insane i thought i might just pull and paint the rear hatch, inspect the fuel tanks and take care of the normal bottom/hull haulout stuff-zincs/paint-etc. anyways after getting that big -heavy ass rear hatch removed i inspected the bottom of it expecting just laminated plywood on the backside like I have seen on some other "well known" boats. Much to my pleasant surprise there is laminated plywood ,along with laminated ribs spaced every 20 inches or so. no water intrusion whatsoever-(see pics). So looking at my tanks and bilge they didnt "appear" to be too awful bad so I poked and prodded the "dreaded foam" around 2 sides of the tanks and it seemed dry. (seemed is the key word here). I was doing some repairs on the deck piece and pondering paint and such when curiosity got the better of me. There was an area with a slight amount of corrosion on the filler tube of the starboard tank that just on a whim I sprayed with wd-40 and an area immediately turned black. Damn I didnt like the llooks of that so i said the hell with this , i am going to prod this foam a little more and then started seeing some moisture. Now flashback to february when striper season was winding down- one day i noticed my stbd fuel gage on "E". didnt think much of it but thought i had fuel in it so maybe the sending unit wqent bad which seems to happen occasionally. Well to make a long story short and two days of diggen out nasty water soaked foam, I found a hole about 3/8" wide by 1/2" long in the forward end of the tank. I guess Im lucky me and my buds werent the next shuttle test pilots. Never smelled any fumes at all though so go figure. Now its replacing both tanks , hoses etc and then Ill worry about the decks and cosmetic stuff,lol. Heres some boat porn for you guys that like it. More to come- craig
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v4...rhaul-%202006/