another transom job in the works -

[oldbluesplayer]

next step was to paint the transom cap and spashwell areas



I liked the look here so well, it prompted the seperate post on transom trim, but I decided the metal edge was goods protection, so installed the trim across the transom



and started rigging



(having a cherry picker helps this process) located the motor, marked the mounting holes, pulled it back off, drilled the holes, coated/ sealed them with resin, then redrilled to size after it cured. mounted the motor and bolted it down with a heavy coat of bedding.



all right - enough is enough - time to hitch it up and get wet !!!



SPLASH [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



really just a trial run in a local lake - boat runs great, gets on plane easy even with 3 in the boat, even though it's only a 115, and I even managed to land this boats first fish. But man, do I ever feel blind without a depth sounder ! Time for some electronics shopping.

Bill

[warthog5]

Glad to see you got her back in the water.

Give Jim a shot @ ByOwner on the electronic's.

[nestorpr]

Looks good, nothing like those Seafari lines!

[oldbluesplayer]

Well, she's been out in the big water a couple times, now, after the initial splash in the little mill pond - as a matter of fact last weekend we were rockin thru some nice 2 - 4's (hah NOAA phhht) and now I know what everyone talks about in the Sea Craft ride -
This boat can flat out Do It !!!

and I've now had the pleasure of seeing my son catch his first striper - he's an avid fisherman, and he was psyched beyond belief. This whole exercise was worth it !!!


On the job as a whole - as others have said, it is awful easy to under-estimate the work involved, and the time it will take, for the non=pro, to do this.

It appears the inside / outside discussion will continue forever - IMHO there is no "one" correct way - it varies with the boat, the design, and the condition - the difficulty being, for the layman, that you won't truly know the condition until after you cut it open and get inside. I think, at least on a sea craft, that if you -only- build it back to stock, that you're probably better doing it from the inside - but I would strongly recommend the addition of one or more knees. I grant that the prospect of cutting a piece of the cap off is probably enough to scare most off, or lead to doing it from the outside - again, I think that either can be equally strong.

To put on my engineering hat again, for a moment, this boat lasted 32 years as built, which was probably well past it's intended design life. But in my fix, I wanted to get more than just another 5 years or so out of her - that would have just been an aluminum plate, a weekend work, and back in the water.

also the question on epoxy vs polyester resin - again, knowing that many pro's do just use the polyester, or vinylester if that's the original hull material. All the resins have two distinct properties, primary cure strength, and secondary cure strength - the primary occurring in the original layup, and secondary being what we face when we go back, years later, to reglass something.

Numbers I've seen suggest that secondary cure strentgh of a patch over a crack, only yields around 80% of the original item strength, and also that epoxy is significantly stronger than polyester in this application.

So where I'm going in this long ramble, is what my thoughts were, which I must state are specific to this boat / design, the 20' Seafari, which had a transom, and an inner cap as a supporting structure to the transom, with low stringer heigth, and no knees.

Let me give the transom, as built, a strength value of 1, and the same for the inner cap -

so we have transom = 1 + cap = 1, as built stregth value of 2

now with a soaked transom core reduce that to .5, and with a serious crack in the inner cap, reduce that to .7, and now we're at .5 + .7 = 1.2 ... a serious strength reduction.

Now go back to the secondary cure strength topic, and at best, repaired, we are only going to get .8 ... an improvement, but not able to return to the full as built strength, if repaired as built. (.8 + .8 = 1.6).

So now lets add additional reinforcing structure - in my case the knee, and redoing the inner cap, transom connection, and because this is secondarily bonded to the hull, I will only give it a .8,

but now we have (repaired transom + repaired inner cap + added support) .8 + .8 + .8 = 2.4 ... which is now better / stronger, than the as built configuration.

I can also see why many pros do use the polyester, and do it from the inside - as both will save some time - polyester from it's much faster cure time, which would not be a drawback to the pro, used to working with it and doing this stuff, and from the inside saving that miserable job of fairing the outer skin smooth - and obviously, being more cosmetically appealing to the paying customer. Time is money - but given the nature of resins and secondary bond strength, I don't think I can agree that putting it back just the way it was made, will yield as strong as when it was originally made.... but still better than that aluminum plate.

I was out in some stuff, last weekend, 2 - 4's with quite a few 6's thrown in, and the boat is as stiff and responsive as you could want - and now I finally know what you guys, and others that had input to my buying this thing, have been saying....

the Sea Craft ride is truly phenominal. At one point I pushed it up to about 24 mph, cruising home at the end of the day, slamming, no, knifing thru this stuff at a rate none of my previous boats could have done without slapping and shuddering... but this boat can do it, and likes it - smooth and soft. Truly Impressive.

So if you see a red Sea Craft Seafari out off the NH / Mass coast, stop by and say hello.

Bill

[Miles Offshore]

Great Job, nice to see you get her splashed and back to what she was made to do, some ketchin !!!! Great pix and text- thanx for putting them up ! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[strick]

and now I finally know what you guys, and others that had input to my buying this thing, have been saying....
the Sea Craft ride is truly phenominal. At one point I pushed it up to about 24 mph, cruising home at the end of the day, slamming, no, knifing thru this stuff at a rate none of my previous boats could have done without slapping and shuddering... but this boat can do it, and likes it - smooth and soft. Truly Impressive.

You had to go and say that... now I really need a seafari

strick

[nestorpr]

I know what he means Strick, just took my son out last Monday for a short day of fishing (first actual fishing trip on the boat) and it was a real trial! The day started out OK except for a late start due to the previous night's events, seas 2-4 feet and a nice breeze. Left Homestead Bayfront marina and sped away thru Caesar'a Creek to the Triumph Reef buoy, when we reached the 150' drop, let out 2 lines with metal head jet lures and a green/yellow teaser. After a few minutes we noticed that the big storm north of us decided to take a turn and come after us, needless to say we couldn't get away from it and I didn't want to turn back just yet. Of course we got soaked, even with the Bimini top on since the rain was coming in sideways and the seas went from 2-4 to about 4-6 feet very fast! We kept on trolling through the whole thing keeping our bow into the large waves and finally came out of it about 30 minutes later, as soon as we got back to the dropoff we encountered a huge school of what we think are False Albacore since they're definitely not blackfin or yellowfin tunas and I don't think we get bluefins this far south. Anyway my son hooked on to one on my brand new Penn/Shimano TLD 30 lb outfit After a few minutes of fighting it (it was his first tuna fight) he boated a nice 12 pounder! Of course it bloodied the whole rear of the boat and now I know I need some kind of washdown system there. We rewetted the lures and went back into the school and not 10 minutes later I hooked on to another one with my other new Penn/Oceanmaster spinning 30 lb rig. We boated another nice 11 pounder and, since the seas kept getting worse decided to call it a good day. We made it back inshore (about 13 or 14 miles) at 3/4 throttle over the 4-6 foot waves with no problems except a little wet, I always say you have to get your butt wet if you want to catch fish so no matter! Anyway, all in all it was a good day and we finally bloodied the boat! The pictures were taken at home since I would have ruined the camera in all that water!






That's my son who's in the Army with our catch.

This is a truly great boat and it raises fish well so what more could you ask for! You need to get one right away!!![img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ScottM]

Botapeje,
That is definitely a false albacore in the pic. Nice fish and a lot of fun to catch. Did you happen to eat it? I've yet to meet someone that has been able to make them pallatable. I just spent all last week chasing them around Martha's Vineyard from shore.

[NoBones]

BONITA

[ScottM]

BONITA

Same thing as false albacore, aka little tunny. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]