The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

[GT1000000]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Cracked rub rail...more than likely due to dry rot...not your fault...:redface:

Stern eyes failed due to a different kind of rot...called rust...again, not your fault...

Crackled finish on the boat, hmmmm...looks like it may have been painted at some point...soak a rag with some acetone and set it on there...if it softens that stuff, it is paint...not gel...also, not your fault...

Happy Friday!

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Cool guiltless destruction

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Though to be honest I didn't feel all that quilty before

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Progress uh ....yeah....not much

My goal for today was to have the motor ready to pull but I started running into problems pretty quickly and having worked with me for over thirty years I told myself to go chill when I got to eager to do dumb things. (now if that would only work more often )

I'm positive now that this motor and steering came from a donor boat. None of the mounts or work even remotely looks factory. All the electrical stuff came out quickly. I just unplugged the tilt switch and pulled the cable out and into the splashwell. The rest of the wiring came out after unbolting it from here

and then breaking what was left of the PO's splice.

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

The steering is where it started getting sideways. On the helm side I got everything apart so I could pull the cable out of the holes in the gunnel.

Just a little corrosion

The motor side however appears to be stuck in the tube. I can't get it to budge and with the splashwell in the way I can't use force. Conceding that this would have to wait till I pulled the motor and got more space I disconnected the throttle and shift cables at the motor and then went to the control box. One of the mounting bolts for the control box snapped off on me. ( Rust stinks!) and the screws holding the control box together were pretty well stuck themselves! Not wanting to strip the screw heads I was about to enlarge the hole in the gunnel the PO drilled to install the unit when I realised I wasn't on a deadline. It was already late so I just called it a day.Tomorrow I think I will build my motor stand.

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

As a question would it be okay to go ahead and remove the rub rail but leave the top cap in place? I can't think of any reason this would cause a problem but I've been surprised before.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Yep, sounds like it was about half past beer-thirty & time to take a step back

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

As a question would it be okay to go ahead and remove the rub rail but leave the top cap in place? I can't think of any reason this would cause a problem but I've been surprised before. ;P

Depending on how your cap & hull are connected, you might be able to remove the rubrail & leave the cap installed. It will likely only have a few screws/fasteners/rivets holding the 2 together. It may need to have a few more put back in if there will be a lot of moving it around & climbing in & out of it.

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Depending on how your cap & hull are connected, you might be able to remove the rubrail & leave the cap installed. It will likely only have a few screws/fasteners/rivets holding the 2 together. It may need to have a few more put back in if there will be a lot of moving it around & climbing in & out of it.

To quote another thread on here it's got about a gozillion of them reevits.
Oh well the honey do list got in the way today so I did absolutely squat on the boat. That being said I'm about where I wanted to be at this point indeed I'm only missing the motor stand and removing the steering and control box. For now I'm gonna go to a slow roll as I need some tools and PPE before I can get the deck up etc.

As a question since I've already done a quasi replacement on the deck I know I can do it and the stringer with the top cap on. The stringer doesn't butt up to the transom so I was thinking might it not be advisable to do the transom then slide the top cap back on once I'm done with it and before deck/stringer work. The only downside I can see is the additional weight when flipping for paint the upside however in reducing the chance of hull deformation ......

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

The idea of putting the top cap back on before Stringers and Decking is a good one. Tri-hulls do have issues with hull flex during rebuild.

 

[mrdjflores]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

keep in mind...you don't necessarily HAVE to flip the boat to paint the hull...for some, flipping isn't even an option

 

[tallcanadian]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Another great tri hull project. Quite a story so far, very entertaining. I think I'll tag along for the ride, if you don't mind. Nice boat, by the way. Too bad the PO chopped off the consoles though.

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

As you know this project is in a state of financial paralysis for the duration of the holiday season. Since I've already gotten stuck here I've decided to go ahead and indulge in some analysis. My hope is to have a clear workable plan for Chug A Boom's progression through dry dock. For no particular reason I decided to start out with the interior layout. (scale is 4" per line)

There is nothing really radical here just laying everything out to see if it looks right. I'm pretty pleased with this layout as it looks about as spacious as your gonna get in a fifteen footer. The dual console layout will be best for the crew and seating 5 should be fine. Storage wise the two boxes up front will add a lot and since the tri-hull bulges into the deck at that spot I'm not losing really usable deck space. There is of course under bow storage and I think I'm going to re-use the bass boat style seat boxes for yet more storage. Finally mechanical storage under the splash well will be augmented by the rear bench seat.

Seating
As you might have noticed While doing demo I put an office chair in the boat to ahhh...relax.... (no it had nothing to do with the vroom vroom noises you think you heard :redface: ) The first thing I noticed was how much better visability was compared to other boats I'd been in. I took a couple measurements of myself and the boat and came up with this, (scale is 5" per line)

As you can see a seat height of 17" means I can see water just less than 12' ahead of the bow while a 4" seat height leaves me with a 50' blind spot. By comparison the wife's 03 Navigator has a roughly 16' blind spot out front and the sight gap ahead of my freightliner is 32'. Like I said earlier I believe I will reuse the seat boxes that came with the old girl and as they stand about a foot tall I imagine between the swivel and seat my bum will be about 15" off the deck. Sounds great until I started trying to draw in the windshield.

As I understand it the top of the windshield should be above my head if it's going to do anything for me however a 29" high windshield on a boat with a mold depth of 30" looks....awkward.
Am I missing something? For the most part I operate a boat from a standing position anyway but if I'm going to have a windshield (admiral says it's a must.) I would like it to work. Thoughts?

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

WoG,
Thanks as always for looking in on this simpleton.

MrdJFlores,
You know I have been thinking about that.... which is usually dangerous.

Tallcanadian,
Welcome sir welcome. Hope I can continue to entertain cause I believe the only person to get educated in this thread will be me!

 

[Pmccraney]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

"I was told there would be no math"

-Chevy Chase (Impersonating Jimmy Caaahter).

Nice work Kenneth - I am just slapping mine back together and hoping for the best...

 

[Bill3434]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

I thought I was retinative (sp) about my wieght of my boat you just took it to a new level. Hope I don't get to bored when I can't work on my boat. You given me a new idea:facepalm:

As you know this project is in a state of financial paralysis for the duration of the holiday season. Since I've already gotten stuck here I've decided to go ahead and indulge in some analysis. My hope is to have a clear workable plan for Chug A Boom's progression through dry dock. For no particular reason I decided to start out with the interior layout. (scale is 4" per line)

There is nothing really radical here just laying everything out to see if it looks right. I'm pretty pleased with this layout as it looks about as spacious as your gonna get in a fifteen footer. The dual console layout will be best for the crew and seating 5 should be fine. Storage wise the two boxes up front will add a lot and since the tri-hull bulges into the deck at that spot I'm not losing really usable deck space. There is of course under bow storage and I think I'm going to re-use the bass boat style seat boxes for yet more storage. Finally mechanical storage under the splash well will be augmented by the rear bench seat.

Seating
As you might have noticed While doing demo I put an office chair in the boat to ahhh...relax.... (no it had nothing to do with the vroom vroom noises you think you heard :redface: ) The first thing I noticed was how much better visability was compared to other boats I'd been in. I took a couple measurements of myself and the boat and came up with this, (scale is 5" per line)

As you can see a seat height of 17" means I can see water just less than 12' ahead of the bow while a 4" seat height leaves me with a 50' blind spot. By comparison the wife's 03 Navigator has a roughly 16' blind spot out front and the sight gap ahead of my freightliner is 32'. Like I said earlier I believe I will reuse the seat boxes that came with the old girl and as they stand about a foot tall I imagine between the swivel and seat my bum will be about 15" off the deck. Sounds great until I started trying to draw in the windshield.

As I understand it the top of the windshield should be above my head if it's going to do anything for me however a 29" high windshield on a boat with a mold depth of 30" looks....awkward.
Am I missing something? For the most part I operate a boat from a standing position anyway but if I'm going to have a windshield (admiral says it's a must.) I would like it to work. Thoughts?

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Hello Iboaters,

Hope everybody had a great turkey day. I know I did,

I haven't stopped the analysis on Chug -A- Boom and indeed I've broken out the color pencils and I'm working on wiring diagrams in my spare time. As soon as I get those done I'll post em here for comment and over on the electrical side when I'm closer to install. Right now though I just couldn't pass up showing y'all my entry into the MBS club.

My youngest brother was thinking of scrapping this one but traded her to me for a dvd copy of The Hunt for Red October. I'll start a thread on her when I get to working on the old girl. (Something to do during cure times? ) Also JB thanks for reminding me about fit to be paddled over in the glue test thread I'd been meaning to read it for a while and just now got around to it. Good stuff.
Also as a technical question about pics on the forum. I've been resizing my pics to either 320/240 or 640/480 before uploading them to photobucket. Do I need to do this or does the forum/photobucket do something on the back end automatically? (Keep in mind I'm doing this all from my Galaxy S2.) As always Thanks

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Welcome fellow MBS sufferer:

My name is John & I have a yard/garage space, time & money problem not a boat problem

Fortunately, as of now, I also do not have an angry Admiral problem.

Somewhere in here WOG posted a photobucket how to thread. I think photobucket has an auto sizing setting somewhere. I don't remember having to specify a pix size, and haven't had a problem ever w/ the too large of a format error messages.

FYI - Autosizing Pics In Photobucket[h=3][/h]

 

[TruckDrivingFool]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Alright I'm caught up, and know I have to join the ride with a fellow over thinking driver.

I think Photobucket does something through the linking process as I never resize my pics they always seem to work fine.

Edited to add: I've never even done the thing Wood mentioned in the thread JB linked.

 

[KennethfromGA]

Re: The Legend of Chug A Boom, or how a man and his tri-hull conquered the garage???

Ok first off I admit it I've been slackin' in dry dock even more than normal. However I wonder does completing a year long goal (or at least moving towards it) count as an excuse? I'm trying to get to 52 books read this year despite the whole husband dad wage earner thing and well November has been busy. (Almost there)

Well any way I've got two of the three wiring diagrams I have decided to make drawn up. The first is of course the least important, just a quick almost needless rendering of speaker wires which I did mainly to get it out of my head and onto paper.

The stereo notes are pretty straight forward as well. I'm looking for the right amp only system as I intend to use an android smartphone for gps and tunes though I also want to drive 4 - 6.5 or 6x9 speakers and so far a stand alone amp that can do this has eluded me which may not be a bad thing as a head unit with weather band wouldn't be a useless thing to have aboard either. Of course I will be running everything from a fuse panel in the console.

Up next the more involved and probably less understandable Lighting diagram.

and it's legend

First off you may have noticed that I have added a @#%& load of LED courtesy lights in every compartment worth mentioning and since "finishing" this diagram I've just about decided to add two more. ( one in each seat box) :facepalm: My lumen paranoia seems to stem from two things, being a night fisherman and no longer being a three pack a day smoker. Not that I was particularly fond of burning my fingers trying to figure out if it was a rooster tail or a jitter bug stuck in my palm but I never had to worry about a light source before quitting. As to giving up night fishing.....that's just sacrilege! I may not have Hemingway esq tails of bill fish battles in the gulf or rainbow trout on my wall but if you've never had a largemouth take out a top water on a star filled night ... I pity you the loss. (Back to work) Most of the courtesy lights will be wired to contact switches in the compartment lids. The exception being the three under the splash well. Since all the mechanical stuff lives here (fuel batteries bilge pump) I want clear vision and I want it on command hence I'm using a dash switch for these three. I didn't show them on the diagram for space reasons but I intend to install LED strip lights under the gunnales like Jas did. Space and or the lack there of is also why the wires for the running light runs down the center of the deck. The navigation lights will most likely be wired to separate switches for the running and all round. I've included two three plug power points not only for the convenience of phone charging but also as I will most likely use hand held Q-beam style spotlights from time to time. Whatever fuse block I purchase I intend to leave room for a fish finder later on but for now it's not a necessity. (I've been getting skunked for years without one so why worry now?) As of the moment I'm planning on running both a starting battery for the OB and a deep cycle battery for the "house" load. I'm planning on 6 gauge battery cables and 12 or 14 gauge wire for the accessories. Further more I plan to install a built in battery charger for convenience sake. Here however I ran into a question. It seems there is a thought that one shouldn't bother to hook the OB's admittedly small charger up to the deep cycle battery but just leave it topping off the all important cranking battery. If this is the case then why not just mount the deep cycle in the driver side console and save 8-10 feet of 6 gauge cable? Wrong forum I know but like I said I'm gonna put this into a thread over there for comment before tackling the job just wanted to throw it in here as well. I hope to make some headway on my third and "final" wiring diagram this week. Ok that's about it though I have been doing some paint removal on the 10' John boat. I think her name will be Red October. Y'all don't work too hard now ya' hear.