Classic Australian Wooden Power Boat Association

Ok, so I have now completed all of the structural issues along with the dash and have removed the boat from the trailer. I grabbed my boys swags and laid these alongside if the boat and with a bit of help from my son we managed to roll the boat without any issues. Once rolled I removed all of the paint on the underside with an air buff and was quite please with the condition of it as this was the last unknown.

After stripping the underside of the hull I have found a few areas that require repairs , the first were two holes through the hull that were filled with silicon. I have no idea what they would have been for but they needed filling. Well I finally found a good use for my foam brushes because I think there bloody useless for anything else, as per the below pic

The second is where the skeg was mounted, by the looks it may have come loose and way moving from side to side damaging the hull. So I set about repairing this as i have previous by skiving out the joint and epoxying in replacements. There is however challenges in doing this in certain areas of my boat because of Oil, and lots of it. As this boat came from a station the cocky in his wisdom chose to fill the hull with sump oil every time he changed the oil in his tractor or ute to preserve the wood. Well it has definately preserved the timber to a degree but it makes repairs a fairly lengthy process of cleaning with thinners and then heating with a heat gun to release even more oil out of the repair area. This process continues until the area looks clean and not discoloured, once at this point I can epoxy the repair panels in.

Repair area before cleaning

Repair area after cleaning approx 5-6 times with thinners

As can be seel by the angle of the square I think these hole were dilled on a Friday about 5 O,Clock in the afternoon. Lets face it guys it was the 60's aftrer all. Based on this I chose to plug these holes also and drill new ones for my home made skeg.

Here is the area after plugging and final cleaning ready to insert the repair panels

Area after repair

I used the left over epoxy to clean up and water proof the prop shaft hole using a bit of old sand paper

Damo I reckon you've actually finished the boat, and you are drip feeding us with progress pics, am I close to the mark???

Those holes either side of the skeg that you plugged in the bottom of the hull, could they have been where your raw water inlets were mounted maybe? Looking good, nice repair work too. Jon.