86 SN rebuild

Tim, my skier didn't have any foam from the factory and has drains to the bilge at the transom. We also have a drain hole in the transom.

I haven't seen any problems with this set up and find it pretty convenient that everything would go into the bilge should some water get under the floor. As soon as the bow comes up (either on the trailer or in the water) everything flows back and the goes into the bilge. Once it's there, everything stays between the mains and you can either pump it out or pull the plug.

Seems like a far better set up than having to check access panels in the floor for water....or worry about intrusion in the middle of the mains.

Yes, no need for lagging from the top if through bolting through the side, IMHO.

Your extra bracing and draining to form the pockets makes sense as well. From the sounds of it, you are not refoaming at all? I dont see any drains cut in your ribs- will you be adding some to allow all the water to get to the drains?

I know many people who rebuild without foam simply allow all compartments to drain together and drain to the bilge. The first part (draining together) is fine by me, but the second part (draining to the bilge) worries me. Any drain point then becomes an intrusion point, which can let water in under your floor very easily. The pockets at the side of your motor would be a very big intrusion point as well- and as soon as the water gets down in there, it will run where it pleases.

We built our BFN so that all of the compartments will drain together, but there are no obvious intrusion points, ie, they dont drain to the bilge. Instead, we chose a few low lying spots where water will collect if it somehow makes its way below the floor. We made a few access points ot these spots so we can pump water out if need be. Ive seen an early glass boat (no foam) with a free draining structure with a drain hole that became clogged with leaves, etc from the bilge... which ended up holding a ton of water under the floor. Yikes.

The deck is going to be the same, so the engine cover will remain as it is. The area that needs to be opened up is full of foam, so it's not structural. I am going to run another piece of fir, from the rear cross brace (by rear of engine) forward to another cross brace (forward cradle). It will leave me a 3 inch wide path between the stringer and deck support. I will also cut a 2 X 2 angle in the bottom of the cross braces for water to come and go as it pleases.

Hopefully this makes sense?

Also, if I understand you correctly, you don't think I would need to bolt through the top, if I am through bolting on the sides. Correct?

Jeff

Ranger wrote: Yes, I'm going to reconfigure the stringers that allow me to have access to both sides of the main. The original confguration only had foam in that area, so I don't think it's a big deal. Do I really need to bolt it through the top?

No reason to bolt through the top that I can think of if you sufficiently through bolt it.

Keep in mind a few things when you build the pockets for the backing nuts.

-Water will make its way into these pockets... how will it get out?

-Is your motorbox wide enough to cover the new pockets?

I was in your shoes not too long ago...

I decided to through bolt the cradle from the sides of the stringer. Remember, unless you want the cradle to be permanant, you need to be able to access the nuts on the back side- so this will affect your stringer/floor configuration around the motor. Cradles DO sometimes break, so I would resist the urge to make yours permanantly mounted! This is the approach we took on our BFN, but the main stringers on the v-hulls dont support the floor- so making a pocket to access the backing nuts was more straightforward.

You could do the rod trick, but Im not sold on the idea. I would think it would make installing the cradle a real PITA... gotta be precise to align everything. If one rod isnt perfectly vertical, good luck! As far as the cradle sitting below the floor at the front goes, that is true... but the original '86 floor had a removeable wood panel that went around the pylon. If you built something similar, it would give you full access to the cradle should it need to come out later.

I would give some strong consideration to simply lagging down from the top, just like it came from the factory. This is by far the simplest and most straightforward approach. I would think you could keep the 5200 around the top half of the lags (not the threads) which might make it a little easier to get the bolts out next time.

Jeff,
I would bed the bulheads to the hull sides as long as there's prenty of glass to the sides to spread out the loads as you're thinking about. Some don't because of the fear of stress causing gel cracking in the hull sides.

The 1&1/2" hole filled with filled epoxy is really the best means of bolting to wood in my opinion. The filled epoxy is stronger than the wood and will spread out the load. You can also do the from the top actually bedding in threaded rod. Overkill? Quite possible! Lags from the top with a CPES treatment and 5200 when running in the lags has been used with very good results - hell of alot better than factory!!

Ranger wrote: Thanks Pbrain, Makes sense to me. I will probably use 3/4 inch exterior ply. Does CPES work with ply, since it is a laminated product? I could probably read the data sheet, but thought I would ask. Jeff

Jeff,
The CPES works as great on ply as it does on solids. It penetrates the wood where the ply adhesive hasn't.

With all that 2X that hull is going to be hell for stout! Nice job by the way!!
Thanks for the pictures...

Jeff,
I'll through in my .02 cents before Greg does regarding the transom blocking. Ply is used because it spreads the load vertically and horizontally to the glass hull due to the alternating grain direction of the plys. A solid may under certain conditions split down the middle.

If I didn't already mention it, a 36 grit flapper disk on a grinder is great for final prep.

We made good progress today. Started at 7:00 and worked until 2:00. We finished the stands and leveled the boat. Then we cut the starboard secondary stringer out and completely grinded the hull and transom. Tomorrow, I am going to tackle the secondary stringer and get it fit to the hull. I think it's going to take me a while, since I want to build interlocking bulkheads, similar to the V drive rebuild, but I'm happy with what we accomplished today. Hopfully, I'll get something accomplished again tomorrow, but it's been hot. Today it was 104 in the shade. Good thing I wasn't working in the shade?

Jeff

Holy Smokes! Jeff, what have you done to my boat!!

Hi all! I'm the PO of the '86 SN getting overhauled on this thread. I had originally planned to tackle the project but it didn't work out for me - my family wanted a sail boat instead. Now that I'm reading about it from afar, I'm VERY glad it is in someone else's more accomplished hands!!

Jeff, I'm glad to see it's working out for you. I'm especially stoked that your son is into it. So cool! Thanks for posting your progress here on CCF. It's great to follow along. I'm happy for you and the boat. She's getting what she deserves!

Keep up the good work. Looking forward to the next progress report...

Take Care,
JJ

Keeganino wrote: Somebody will probably chime in about glassing around the cradle notches. I am sure there are some tricks out there for getting the glass around those notches.

There are no tricks... glass simply doesnt like to go around 90 degree corners- so avoid making them! Thats why the factory cut outs are rounded... much easier to glass over. I would keep the factory configuration.

Keegan, yes that answers most of it, but where the cradle sits, the stringer is not notched at a 90 degree angle, it slopes. I'm assuming that I will have to cut smaller pieces to lay in around the sloped area.

On another note, did you figure out your trailer light issue?

Gun Driver,

Thanks for the suggestions. Not only am I at 3 pages, I also have a groupie status

Jeff

I used 2 layers of 3/4 ply from the pylon forward so I had that step down and notches for crossmembers to deal with. I cut my pieces as long as each section, and laid them that way. In the picture below you can see where I did not wrap the inside faces of the notches. I thought about wrapping those later but since I bedded everything with filled epoxy did not see the need for fabric there. Hope this answers your question.