Outboard Options for Classic 20

[Windrider]

Looks like you're ahead of the curve, damn academics ... Check with Wefco Rubber Mfg in Canoga Park re. rub rails. Try Wefcorubber.com.

Thanks! This looks like the place! I'll have to get a cross section on the old rail and try to match it, although it looks like Wefco carries many that will work well.

Oh, yeah, if you haven't yet taken delivery on the motor you might consider replacing the transom or at least raising it to take a 25" shaft motor.

I wanted to have this done. Really. I thought for sure that the whole transom would have to be replaced due to rot and we'd have it done at that time, but the Shipyard guys did all sorts of tests and found it to be quite solid still. Plus, there was the funding issue, you know. So she is going to have a stock transom and a pretty basic boat everywhere else, too. None of these awesome upgrades I've been reading about here. We're just making her into a more sturdy version of what she was already.

Let me see if I can remember everything that has been done so far:
Bottom stripped and re-faired
Gunnel cap resealed and riveted
Deck reinforced (but not raised)
Extra bulkheads (?) installed in the forward area (under the gunnel) to stiffen that section up
All extra holes glassed (how do boats always end up with so many holes everywhere?!)
Stress cracks glassed and those areas reinforced
Full paint job in school colors
All new hardware, gauges, motor, etc. (She is currently a totally naked boat that just got her new paint)

This week, I will be taking the console over to get a new windshield fabricated. I will also be looking for reasonably priced lean posts. You know a boat is hardly ever used at full speed when its crew is using plastic lawn chairs (yes, we are totally embarrassed about being so tacky).

After everything is put together and the boat is in the water, we are going to see if we have any money left and then look into having a samson post made like that one on the towboat Frank posted.

Caring for classics like those Shields I guessing you're far more savvy with maintenance than most...

Well, yes and no. We are finding that the stresses on a sailboat are quite different from a powerboat. You never worry about the transom on a Shields - all the stress is at the chainplates and that is where they usually fail. That said, since we all admit we know very little about powerboats, when Evinrude gives us the instructions for breaking in that E-Tec, we are likely to do EXACTLY what they say.

The brass through-hulls I think Gillie was talking about are the aft deck-drains, which are brass tubing, and normally drain vertically straight down through the hull. They usually end up leaking like a sieve.

Those were replaced back when we first got her, oh, back in '05 or '06, otherwise she would have been a SinkCraft. The original ones were quite corroded. Do they need to replaced again now? They haven't been giving us problems.

There were two other through-hulls, going to what I think were the bait tank and the fish locker? Those are the ones we glassed over.

Here in south MS we call you guys "Blow Boaters", just kidding.

Yes, we also hear the term "Wafties." But we call you guys "stink pots." And our students often comment, when a overpowered and overloud powerboat races by, that the powerboat's (male) owner is making up for a lack in another area (this belief is especially dear to the female sailors).

(On a funny side note, we were donated a Laser that proclaimed in big letters that its name was "Blow Me." We coaches stripped those graphics off about five minutes after taking possession of the sailboat).