Where are the "stringers"?

[itstippy]

I bought a 1960's vintage 14' fiberglass open boat, motor, and trailer on eBay cheap. Package deal, local pickup only, and I wanted the 40HP Johnson. Maybe the trailer. Figured I'd just sawzall the boat and haul it to the dump in chunks. I get the thing home and it looks pretty good. First fiberglass runabout I've every owned - up to now I've dealt strictly with aluminum hull fishing V's and jon boats with tiller motors. But this thing looks cool and the wife would like a boat that has a steering wheel, real seats, and you don't start by pulling a rope. Transom needs work but she's pretty sound overall I thought. I can handle the mechanicals. Yesterday I tore out the rotten plywood floor someone had installed and while walking around on the fiberglass floor underneath I hear squishing. There's water trapped between the outer fiberglass hull and the inner fiberglass floor! I spent the rest of the night reading old posts on this forum. Cripes! Rotten "stringers", watersoaked floatation foam, I must have it all. Geekamatic's Traveller looks a lot like this boat and look at the work he's taken on! Oh well, I'll just cut the dang thing up into chunks and haul it to the dump, my original intention anyway.<br />Tonight I set the skilsaw at 1/2" and cut a section out of the floor to have a look. What the ..? The fiberglass floor is right on top of the ribbed fiberglass hull. There is no room for "stringers" or anything like the pics I've seen on the forum. No way. I nicked the hull with the saw and I didn't even have it flush with the floor. Is it possible that this little 14' boat (5' beam) has no need for stringers or other wooden structures for support? It's built like a tank. I found fragments of plywood under the floor, but nowhere near enough to represent rotted wood structure - no room anyway. I think they're from the bulkhead up front where the floatation must be and they just washed down. I got maybe a gallon of water out of the bottom of the boat - all there was room for. The fiberglass floor has holes in it from some clown installing seats and the crappy wooden floor. The holes match up with the hull ribs so the screws didn't hit the hull. <br />Antway, what do you guys think - can I just clean up my mess, fiberglass/epoxy/bondo the panel of floor I cut out back in, and have a good solid little runabout (after I deal with the transom)? I've got pics but don't know how to post them. Thanks!

 

[itstippy]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

Pics:<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

EDIT: Woops! I just typed an essay on how to post a pic, you beat me to it.

 

[G DANE]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

What you see under the floor is what is left of I think 4 "stringers" made from boards or plywood lying flat. Some of the older boats were build like that with thick f/g and only little reinforcements. I once owned a 21' Norwegian Cruiser, build in 76. The sides were 1/2" thick Glassfiber, dont know of the bottum. Noone knew the real strength back then. Its hard to see in your picture, but the reinforcements looks like something like 4"x3/4" plywood that rotted away. <br />Back then many builders trusted that water would never get under floor too, so why cover wood ?? I think would replace them anyway, floor has to be supported.

 

[geekomatic]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

Itstippy,<br />The boat looks fine 'cause I've got a soft spot for the old stuff.You betcha I've taken on a "mutha" of a job, but it's coming along very nicely.My only complaint is that I don't have enough time to spend on it.I've actually gotten new stringers in the thing already!<br />Now,I truly have no clue what I'm talking about,as I'm still learning,but it looks as if this particular clown has taken your fine looking boat and removed some rotten stringers, and then they've covered it up with a nice epoxy floor to hide the fact that "they just ain't there no more" as we say down south.My little boat is also built like a tank, but you gotta have those stringers! Otherwise all the force from your outboard is going to end up distributed on your transom alone.The force has to be distributed evenly throughout the entire hull,hence the need for those stringers + the epoxy skin.If you don't distribute the force, the transom ends up cracking, snappin' and before you know it, you've got yourself a decorative accessory to the bottom of whatever body of water said runabout previously floated in.If I'm wrong about this,I'm sure plenty of my more experienced superiors will let you (and me) know.And it will be appreciated! <br />I also had the issue with the previous owner of my boat and his wonderful shortcuts. He "installed" seats by drilling the base bolts directly into the fiberglass seat risers.No washers, no nuts, no nuthin'.They rusted out, of course, and the hollow area between the hull and that tiny little keel where the "V" poin down had about three gallons of what looked like swamp water in it.An aquarium pump and a blow dryer took care of that.Seat risers were ripped out, reinforced, and then reinstalled.Everything's cool now. If you decide you don't don't want to deal with this thing, let me know.I'll bring a trailer up there and take it off of your hands.It seems I've become addicted to this stuff.Good looking boat.Don't chop it up.That's my opinion.I'm stickin' to it.

 

[rwcreigh1]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

looks like a pretty cool project.have fun

 

[itstippy]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

Okay, I've looked it over pretty good and it's worth fixing up. This thing did originally have wood between the floor and the hull, but not structural wood. Just thin strips that they could adhere the fiberglass to to build up the floor. You can see imprints of the wood on the undersurface of the chunk of floor I cut out - they wern't even full length strips, but pieces layed end-to-end. The boat itself is so solid that it's like a bathtub (and bathtubs don't need wooden structural support). I'll build a plywood floor above the fiberglass one, and do it right. Too bad I cut that big hole in the floor, but how else would I know what I'm dealing with? I still can't believe there's no way for water to get out from in there. No bilge or anything. Whatever leaked in through the holes from the seats & wood floor just stayed there. Maybe I'll figure out some kind of plugs or something so I can periodically shopvac out any water that accumulates then flip the hose around and blow air in there to dry things out. The transom wood is rotted but there are a lot of posts here about transom repair. Digging out the rotted wood from the top, building a frame to hold the glass shell in position, and pouring Seacast sounds like a good option. My confidence is restored and soon the boat will be also - not a pristine restoration job, but solid and fun to use.<br />Any idea what brand of boat this is? There's no hull tag or anything. The only clue is a logo on the steering wheel - looks kinda like the old Johnson Seahorse over some kind of shield shape. You can sort of see it in the last pic if you click the thumbnail and make it big. How about it you guys - what IS this old thing?<br />One last bit of humor. When I bought the boat it had beautifully built cedar seats - split bench in front and full bench in back. Wonderfull job of carpentry. I found a pencil that says "Lange Bros Custom Woodworking, Milwaukee WI" in the back. HOWEVER - whoever put the back bench seat in completely sealed off the back end, including the wiring, fuel line, and mint six-gallon gas tank. That seat was really in there - took me an hour and a half to turn out all the stainless deck screws and get it out. They must have parked the boat the first time they ran out of gas!<br />I'll post some pics of the wiring I've torn out too. Har. Three battery cables (3?!?). Lamp cord. Duct tape. Three broken stern lights (break 'em off & throw 'em in the back to turn 'em off, I guess). I'm having a blast so far, didn't realize how much I wanted to be able to bring this thing back to life.<br /> http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...d=1,1&item=4534090985&sspagename=STRK:MEWN:IT

 

[geekomatic]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

266 BUCKS!!?? Buddy,you got yourself a true bargain.Geez.I'm actually pretty jealous.Those seats really are nice! Reminds of some fine patio furniture I had once .Seriously, I think the thing is well worth bringing back to life.<br /> I gave a whopping $300 bucks for the whole boat,motor,trailer.I've ripped out all of the wiring,steering wheel,steering cables, yada,yada.It was all trashed and has to be replaced.The wiring harness should be fun, considering I have NO CLUE what I'm doing.I've already replaced the stringers,which were a true pain to cut out, but I actually enjoyed the process.My transom is OK,strangely.The epoxy and cloth/tape thing occurs this weekend.Your new project actually doesn't see to be in half as bad a shape as mine.Keep the photos coming.I'll posting a few new ones after the weekend.As far as the make of the boat,You got me.

 

[G DANE]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

When you are done with working between hull and floor you can glass the cut peice back in, pretty easy. Just "V" grind the edges from top, 1 1/2" to each side of seem, wipe with acetone, and lay 4 layers of glass band, each wider than the first. Sand afterwards and everything is fine. You have to be sure water doesnt get down there first, and figure a good way to support floor against hull first ( In exa epoxy sealed stips of plywood ). Next make a plan B to draing water that eventually gets down anyway.

 

[Mark42]

Re: Where are the "stringers"?

Oh man, now you did it! The fiberglass floor police are gonna get you for cutting up that floor. Oh crap. Stay away from me. This ain't gonna be pretty.... <br /><br />Seriously, that is a really easy boat to fix. Cut out the rest of the floor, try to figure out where and what size the stringers were, put some in and glass the floor back in. I'd foam it too, but make sure you have a drain.<br /><br />My boat has a fiberglass floor and stringer system. The stringers look like the end of corrugated cardboard made with V shapes. You could try that method, and never have to worry about rotting wood again. <br /><br />Good luck.<br /><br />Oh yeah, you need a windshield. Do a search on this forum for windshields to get an idea of whats involved with buying and making new ones.<br /><br />Edit:<br /><br />I revisited this post because something about those floor pics bothered me. I believe that the boat may not have had stringers. Maybe just plywood sub floor. Looking at the transome where the floor meets it shows that the floor is only flat in a small center section, looks to be only 20" or so wide. And the gap between the hull and floor just off center of the keel was probably originally only two to three inches. That is not much space, and not worth putting in a stringer as they are traditionally designed.<br /><br />Instead, I would cut back the floor to the point just past where it meets the hull, maybe two inches on each side. Should end up with a long narrow shaped triangular hole in the floor exposing the keel. Then take fully dried pressure treated plywood in 1/2 or 3/4" and cut a trianglular shape just smaller than the hole to create a new floor. It will probably end up being roughly 18 - 20 inches wide at the transom, tapering to a point about 9 foot long towards the front. Cut 1" notches along the edges of the plywood every foot or so to let water drain from above to below. coat in a layer or two of resin to help seal it up, glass or epoxy it to the hull, and install the old floor directly on top of it. I don't think you need any vertical stringer support, but if you wanted to you could add a few small cross braces every 18" to 24" (like ribs under the floor) to tie the hull to the floor giving the floor and hull some additional support. <br /><br />Bottom line is that the floor design is so narrow as to not need stringers, and a flat plywood floor glassed or epoxied to the hull will give noticable rigidity.<br /><br />I just don't see any remains of structures that looked like stringers in there. Just some black rotten plywood looking remains. <br /><br />What ever you do, be sure the keel is kept free to drain any water that might - correction: will get under the floor so it can be drained out the transom through the (new) drain hole.<br /><br />Like I said earlier, a windshield will be a great addition, and a new Teleflex basic rotary steering helm and cable ($130 new) will make driving that a pleasure. Mount the seats low so your head is below the top of the windshield, and the gunnel is arm-pit height and you'll feel like your in a sports car when you're driving it and you will have a blast on the water.