Another 25 Seafari goes under the knife

[Blue_Heron]

Yes, they were grandfathered in. Not sure of the current regs. but probably still holds for the originals. You can be sure that since he has changed it, he can't go back -LEGALLY anyways.

I looked it up a while back. They were grandfathered in initially. I forget the year, but there was a date certain that they all became illegal. You had to convert to a holding tank to be legal. It's kinda ironic, you can use a bucket and then toss the contents overboard, but you can't have a head on board that does the same thing. Another example of one size fits all legislation, I guess.
Dave

[BigLew]

I looked it up a while back. They were grandfathered in initially. I forget the year, but there was a date certain that they all became illegal. You had to convert to a holding tank to be legal. It's kinda ironic, you can use a bucket and then toss the contents overboard, but you can't have a head on board that does the same thing. Another example of one size fits all legislation, I guess.
Dave

Just another example of "Stinkin Thinkin" legislation - So, What else is new?

[Islandtrader]

I know the Great Lakes are real strict on holding tanks.

You can have a straight flush head on your boat as long as it has a Y valve on it (salt water) and in shore it is in the closed position and locked. Out side of 3 miles you can open and flush.

The 21 originally had a head and I am going to put it back in when complete.

[Blue_Heron]

I haven’t posted progress pics in a while because I’ve been bouncing around doing different stuff and haven’t really brought anything to completion. But I have been working on the boat and there is a common thread to what I’m trying to accomplish.

I’ve owned boats in Florida for the past 20 years. Like most recreational boats, they spend most of their time on the trailer. But Florida is wet. All the time. Where I live in North Central Florida, the average annual rainfall is a little over four feet. Average humidity for the year is 77%. So when water gets inside a boat, on a trailer or in the water, it won’t dry out in a hurry. So I’m building in some features that will help control where water can go, and how much of it can accumulate.

For instance, the bilge in the 25 Seafari is deep and has a 25 degree deadrise at the keel. There’s no good way to install a bilge pump that won’t leave a fair amount of water in the bilge. And there’s no way to fit a bilge pump large enough for this boat under the bell housing or transom assembly of the I/O. So I decided to modify it so it won’t hold as much water and will create a flat area where a large bilge pump can be located. First, I tabbed in some 1” PVC from the cabin bulkhead back to the aft end of the engine compartment.





I left one pipe shorter than the other because I wanted to leave a sump at the transom where I can put a small bilge pump. Next, I used a hot wire foam cutter to make some styrofoam filler strips for the keel build up.





I used epoxy resin and 1808 biax to glass them in. Sealed in epoxy, the foam should be protected from any fuel leakage in the bilge, and the built up keel won’t hold as much water. More importantly, any bilge water should be under the buildup inside the PVC pipe and not sloshing around under the engine where it might leave salt deposits on the oil pan and accelerate corrosion. At least that’s my working theory. We’ll see how it works out. The build-up is about 2” deep.





I plan to mount a couple large bilge pumps with automatic float switches forward of the engine, but aft of the engine compartment bulkhead. Unless I spring a substantial leak, they’ll never come on. But I’m not planning to use flotation foam, and I want enough pump capacity to handle a busted through-hull or a hull puncture.

Dave

[Blue_Heron]

Another problem I want to avoid is dry storage that isn’t dry. The hatches on the casting deck on my SF 20 have gutters:



… but they’re too shallow to be effective. If I leave the plug in the fish box, it fills up with rainwater. The gutters around the hatches on my action craft are much better. They’re deeper and they have a drain to the motor well, or in the case of the anchor locker, to a through hull



So for the all the boxes I’m planning to build, I’ll have a gutter setup that keeps the interior as dry as possible. I made the first box last weekend. I used sign board as the base for my layup and to build molds for two box compartments. I ripped tapered strips of spruce from a 2x4 for the gutter molds.

The gutters screwed to the table from underneath:



The boxes:



The clay fillets:



Then sprayed with PVA:


Gelcoat sprayed on:



The layup complete:



And the part popped from the mold:



The deck and hatches will be a separate assembly. I still need to insulate one of the boxes and put a drain in the gutter. The part has some aligatoring where the PVA didn't have good coverage over the clay fillets, but other than that it turned out pretty well.

Dave

[Blue_Heron]

I’ve also been patching holes and doing some glassing inside the boat. I patched the holes in the coaming:



I patched all the holes through the engine compartment bulkhead and glassed both sides with a layer of 1.5oz. mat and a layer of 1808.



I patched the holes for the through-transom exhaust.



As you can see from this picture, The glass on the inside of the transom wasn’t thick enough to prevent crushing of the plywood core from the through-bolts holding the swim platform brackets.




To fix this, I overdrilled all the through-bolt holes for the swim platform brackets and the I/O transom assembly and then filled them with a mixture of epoxy resin, erosil, and wood flour. I’ll redrill the holes through the epoxy plugs when I’m done with the transom work. Here are the holes drilled out and ready for filling:



And the holes filled and the inside of the transom glassed with a layer of 1.5oz mat and two layers of 1808:



I used peel ply over the center of the transom so I won’t have to sand before painting the bilge or tabbing in the stringers. The peel ply peels off and leaves a surface with a fine weave pattern that provides good mechanical keying.

Dave

[strick]

Nice work on the boxes Dave. Are you going to cut the top of the entryway to the cabin back now that you are going that route? I was thinking of doing that to mine but opted for the less work/original configuration route instead. Great lakes Skippers has some pre made cabin entry doors that looked like they would have worked. making fast progress keep posting.

http://greatlakesskipper.com/product...hatch-top.html

strick

[everybody]

Nice work! You mentioned alligators from lack of PVA mold release, I had alot of alligators in my layups so more pva would help me?

[Blue_Heron]

Nice work! You mentioned alligators from lack of PVA mold release, I had alot of alligators in my layups so more pva would help me?

Thanks.

strick can answer your qustion better than I can. He's said in his posts to make sure you get good PVA coverage over your clay fillets. On my layup, the fillets between the box and the gutter were difficult to spray, coverage was spotty, and that's where my gators are.

Mirage boats are made here in Gainesville. The shop foreman also runs their ship's store and is very helpful. I talked to him about it and he thinks the clay did it. If your alligators aren't on clay fillets, it's got to be something else. The guy at Mirage said too much wax can do it too.

What do you think, Chuck?

Dave

[Blue_Heron]

...Are you going to cut the top of the entryway to the cabin back now that you are going that route?

I like that idea. I hadn't thought of it. I checked out the door/hatch combo at Great Lakes Skipper and it looks like the hatch slopes up as it goes forward. Not sure it will work on the Seafari. But it shouldn't be too hard to make a guttered hatch. Realistically, though, I'm probably not going to have a door on the cabin when I launch her on her maiden voyage. I expect I'll leave the cabin stuff for last and do it after I get her wet.

On another note, I did a trial fit of my water tank this afternoon, and it won't go as far forward as yours. The center of yours is about two feet forward of the center of mine. But mine is 28 gallons, so I'm hoping it will provide enough forward ballast. If not, I guess I'll have to throw some pig weights in the anchor locker

Dave