1980 Ski Nautique Total Restoration

Arklie, boat looks great, congratulations of start up after build. I just got my interior back from upholster yesterday still have not brought boat home from storage I will share pic's when installed. just by the increased lake traffic on Watauga already I bet that will be the easiest put in at Fish Springs or any other dock for the year.I hope to See ya soon.

Fantastic work Arklie. Your boat looks great. Very impressive.

This pretty much concludes this threat. I will be updating my profile to include a link to this thread and creating an entry in the diaries section.

This was the beginning. Really didn't know what I was in for.


This is what I was in for. Grinding. Lots. Of. Grinding


Here is the result. Just some fine tuning left.
First Startup.

Thanks, everyone, for the help and advice. I will be making a contribution to the site for providing this awesome resource. Hopefully this thread will help someone else along the journey.

Looks like the "grind" paid off! She looks outstanding!! Over 5 years hard work! Enjoy it, .Good job!

Outstanding! Like the red interior.

Hi guys new to the forum and new to Ski Nautique with a 1980 as well. Question about the placement of your bilge pump in the boat. Wondering where the location is at? Mine is currently floating around in the bilge area and I don't see a specific point of where I am supposed to mount it too. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Here is the area where my pump was originally mounted. You can see that I ground the mounting block out . The area is forward of the drain and aft of the pylon. I assume CC gelcoated the hull, then installed the mounting block, then more gelcoat over the top.

Scotty,
You wont have any problems removing it when you need to. Just go to Home Depot or Lowes, they have it and sometimes they have the quick set version as well. Sometimes they have the small squeeze tubes as well as the caulking-gun size cartridges.

In the overall scheme of things related to a rebuild of one of these boats, fiddling with mounting a bilge pump is pretty insignificant. =)

Scotty O wrote: Great! Thank you so much for the advice! What did you do on the trailer regarding a chain or winch? I was told by the previous owner that originally it came with a chain that you just latched the bow of the boat, I have seen that people have made modifications where they put a winch on.

If you decide to use a winch get one with a strap, mine currently has a steel cable and its lethal!!

Scotty O ,
if you have the CC trailer with the bow stops on it you really don't need a winch. That trailer is designed to be a drive on. There is a big eye bolt on the tongue and a turnbuckle with hooks on both ends is used to secure the boat to the trailer. You put the trailer in until the stern starts to float a little, unhook the turnbuckle from the bow eye and power off the trailer. To retrieve the boat put the trailer in till the water is just at the top of the fenders and genitally drive the boat till you make contact with the bunks get the boat straight with steering at idle then power it just enough to make contact with the bow stops. shut it off , hook the turnbuckle back up and do not tighten it yet. If you tighten it before chances are the stern will not settle down on the bunks and will be up in the air putting a lot of stress on the bow eye and turnbuckle. Once off the ramp stab your brakes to stop and the boat will shift forward onto the bow stops again, now hand tighten the turn buckle and your good to go. It really is easy to do and eliminates the all the stress of dragging the boat up with a wench. Wenches are an unnecessary PITA with the CC trailer. Hope this helps!

Other trailers may need one but the 80's era CC trailers and boats are designed to do this. I have launched and retrieved my 86 many times by myself. Sure its easier to have some help but not necessary.. Please tell us how to ski alone, I am very interested.

a0128 wrote: skinaut wrote: Wenches are an unnecessary PITA . . . This is true, unless you want to ski and all your buddies are busy. Then you need to have the Wench drive the boat.

I re-read this and understand now. I digress ,Wenches can be a handy PITA,

Also, where did you find the rubber transition pieces for the flooring?

Yes. My boat is missing that piece that runs the whole length of the port side. At some point in my boats life a (donkey) replaced the carpet with something that is not even remotely close to original. My boat's interior is blue and I do understand that the color is very unique with the blue and black in the carpet, but the material they used is not even the same shade of blue. My boat also does have the ski tray on the starboard side, but is way past rotten and will need to be replaced.
I unfortunately am finding out quickly this boat is not in the condition it was stated to have been and will probably have to go thru the reconstruction your boat had to. Secondary stringers are worse than the primary are but have found at least one bad spot in the primary starboard side.