I have been getting asked this a lot lately by friends and family. I am currently living in beautiful Asheville, NC with my wonderful girlfriend Taylor and doing what else... working on a boat. No, not my boat this time but a friends boat for hire. I'm rebuilding the innards of a 78' Correct Craft ski boat. This isn't a how to since there are plenty of those out there. Just some pictures and comments of progress to give me something else to do. If all goes to plan, I will be moving out to Vandemere, NC in early November to... you guessed it, work on boats with boat designer Graham Brynes of B and B yacht designs. Until then I'm getting my fill of fiberglass.
Here are a couple of shots of the inside of the boat after a couple of days work. The engine and fuel tank were removed for a rebuild before I got started. This is after the fiberglass floor was cut away and much of the original insulation foam was removed. There was a lot of water retained in the old foam and the main stringers had suffered pretty severe water damage over their life. Ski boats (and many fiberglass boats with wood structures) built around this time all seem to suffer water damage or rot due to water intrusion through screw holes or poor factory fiberglass work. Many rotten spots were the result of single screw holes that penetrated the thick fiberglass.
This picture is after about 5 easy days of work and a lot of grinding and sanding of the old fiberglass structure surrounding the original stringers. The leftover "walls" of glass were just sanded and ramped to accept the new stringers which will also make locating where they should go very easy. The pole in the middle is the ski pole which has been stubborn to remove thus far. The other floor bumps in the bottom left are the water intake and the prop shaft tube.
Today I got a bunch of epoxy, wood and fiberglass so tomorrow I will begin shaping the replacement stringers that will be glassed in soon enough. I'll also be pouring in new polyethylene expanding foam and laying down a new fiberglass floor before this project is over. I'm told that the engine is getting the "full treatment" so when this boat is all done, she should be ready for another 32 years of water-skiing.
