Graham Nash

Excellent Steve. Looking at those breakers I dont blame you not launching at Southbourne.

What's that then Rob??

This was good old fashioned yellow and orange domestic expanding foam John. It was everywhere on the back end filling up the engine well. Someone had cut holes into the well to bolt the engine on and they had filled their holes with mastic then filled the whole lot with this expanding foam. It had to come out because it looked terrible and was trapping an awful lot of water which was rotting everything. I think we may have this closed cell foam inside the stringers so i'm leaving them alone Graham.

So after a day of removing the existing floor and cutting back all the rotten wood it doesnt look as bad as it first seemed (still pretty grotty, but I think do-able) There are/were 6 ribs, one had already been completely removed, 3 are fine and the 2 middle ones are rotten. They are in 3 sections and the middle section of each is gone, the outside sections are perfectly solid. So it looks like I could just replace the middle bits but Im going to do that AND add a complete rib alongside the existing one bolting it into the solid bits. I will then glass it all together and it should be twice as solid as the original. The existing outboard engine fixings were rusted solid so after much pulling, pushing, prizing, hammering and every other type of effort we ended up cutting a bit of the transom top away to get the engine off. This revealed a very solid transom top PHEW!!. I then checked the existing engine well, which was full of expanding foam, sealant, rubber and just about everything else that could trap water and found it was soaking wet with lots of rot so that too was cut away. This revealed the inside of the transom so I took the opportunity to cut some of the internal glass away to check the integrity of the transom wood and once again it looked good So after a day of cutting out rotten wood i think i'm happy

thats great Steve

I often find weed to be a problem at the Needles (dunno what others find) ... bigger tides will have that weed moving even quicker.

Ha Ha Johnny ... dunno about enthusiasm, more like stuck with more work than I thought Fortunately I have room in my yard so its not costing anything for the storage, I have another boat so theres no real rush and after Christmas my work generally dies so I should have plenty of time (although without work, the money dries up quickly). I have visitors today so weather permitting I will cut the whole floor out tomorrow so I can get to everything. I will keep posting

that is very kind of you Dicky, thank you very much for the offer. I will be having a look for it today and will let you know if i need it. Graham.

Lofty ..... you star I would certainly be interested in talking with your mate and I know your handy work is first class. Maybe we need to have a chat too I've just googled Graham Banyard and it brings up washing machine repairs & someone in Harrowgate. I'll have a look in a tide table book if I can find one.

Thanks again Dave. Ive drilled into one of the stringers (that are fully enclosed in fibre galss) and it seems to be prefectly solid so its just the "ribs" that go across the hull that are rotten . . . . . so far Still not checked the transome yet . . . I will do that tomorrow.

I will be straight to WHSmiths as soon as they open. If I cant get last months copy does anyone have a copy that I can scan please? Graham.

Merry Christmas everyone .... and enjoy the fishing Colin

Yeah Barney is back in his place. (sort of rules out redundancy don't you think)??

can anyone explain what is the difference between ribs & stringers? The bits that are rotten in mine are ribs ....... I think This picture is a "BEFORE" ... the big boxes are covering inspection/storage holes into the hull. Once I removed them and their supports I noticed the floor was spongy so i started prodding with a screwdriver and ended up with this so far Im going to remove the whole floor and replace all of those ribs/stringers ..... I'm just hoping the transom is ok coz its gonna have a 115hp Suzuki bolted to it

Thanks mark. I will read it. Ive just found something on the web by "boat building central" that was very interesting. Prevented me making immediate mistakes already

No Dave, I wont be making it sealed. Its cavernous under there and intended on putting floor hatches in so I can store stuff under there like many of the modern boats do. This "foam" stringers ... whats this then? what is this foam and where do I get it?

Think its Poole Sea Angling comp on 30th.

well .... my idea of cutting some hatches into the floor of my project has uncovered some pretty grotty stringers. So the floor is coming up and 2 new stringers are to be fitted. Now i'm no chippy so i am thinking of making a template out of hardboard (or cardboard) first then cutting round the template onto some nice marine ply and fibreglassing them into place. 2 questions spring to mind .... 1: can I put these stringers close to the original ones, thereby I dont need to cut all the fibreglass around the old ones (or do they have to go exactly where they are for structural calculations etc). 2: Do i make a small hole in the bottom of each one so any water ingress into one can travel through to the stern so one bilge pump will suffice (the obvious problem here would be if a hole occured in one "chamber" the water would fill the boat up through those same holes) or do I put a bilge pump in each, thus making each chamber completely seperate from each other? I'm basically starting from scratch here so any modifications will be easier done now rather than later.

Oh dear

just in case you change your mind eh?

my kind of bloke :-)

It was 99p Dave ... you don't need your wallet, just the change from your next pint :-)

Thanks Nigel. I will take my time (while I have the Raider) and look at other boats of similar design to get ideas. If the Raider sells than I will have to do the basics so I can get back on the water as soon as possible. I pick up a Suzuki DF115 tomorrow .

200 odd pages I'll look this evening but it's definitely not the same shaped hull.

looks like you could be right Andy http://www.yellowfinmarine.co.uk/boats_for..._id=YELL%201157 exactly the same as mine but longer.