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    Feb 28th, 2020
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    Before and after restoring my 30 foot Cold Molded Fishing boat in Costa Rica! #9338 12/13/13 02:31 PM
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posts: 29
    S
    Sail Fish Quepos .com Offline OP
    Outdoorsman
    OP Offline
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    S
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posts: 29
    We spent 7 days a week, 14 hours a day, getting her back to new. Had to bring it all the way down to the hull and do a couple of patches, put in new hull and motor supports (the wood beams the motor sits on) and then built a small cabin up front with the bathroom and a ton of rod holders! It was a blast, except for being so tired, it was definitely worth it, I wish I had taken more pictures, here are some before and after and a couple of during pictures.

    Here's what we started out with, classic "Palm Beach" Costa Rica Gamefisherman with a but ugly cabin:

    [Linked Image]

    Then this is what we did with the cabin and floor and pretty much everything except the hull. We were going to burn it, but I think there was soo much oil and diesel in the wood, it might have exploded and taken out the ship yard here... so we took it to the dump smile

    [Linked Image]

    Here is what the front part of the boat looked like when we took out the floor and the hull. We left a little part of the cabin up front as you can see in the picture that became the visor. In the picture it shows pine boards going across, but before we put those in, we coated them with West Epoxy and surf board cloth so they are waterproof and we don't have to redo any of that. Here is the empty hull:

    [Linked Image]

    We then had to patch the hull. There was a rotten spot under where the motor support beam was. The rotten spot was only about 6 inches across, but since the boat has three layers of wood, we opened the first layer up really big, then made like a pyramid, opening the second layer up only half the size and then the hole that went side to side was only about 9 inches big. I called West and they sent me a book on how to do it, this little patch took over a week to redo. We did it with the same weightless Laurel Wood the boat was made with, and each layer we lined up the grains with the existing grains of the surrounding wood layer. Here is the patch when we finish, before putting the board on the outside:

    [Linked Image]

    We then had some good rot on the transom and back rail so we rebuilt those as well:

    [Linked Image]

    [Linked Image]

    Then I got too tired to take any more pictures, but here is the floor and cabin after we put it back together a bit!

    [Linked Image]

    [Linked Image]

    Here is a picture of the visor we turned the front part of the cabin into. That was a lot of work as we built it a couple of times until I got it looking right. We also built those two fiberglass boxes you see on the tower that is next to the boat so I can put all the gauges in one side and the GPS / Sounder / Radio in the other. I hate those ugly black cummins things, so I made the gauge holder out of glass and hole sawed it. I replaced the original gauges with the sea cruz gauges that have built in alarms, but I had to buy two temp gauges because the first one they send me didn't work, so I don't know if I would recommend them.

    [Linked Image]

    The bottom we treated with the Interconnect sealing epoxy and Micron 66 from Interlux. I really like the look of the blue color, and hopefully after 3 coats of their best paint, I won't see any buildup for the next year or so.

    2 and a half months later, we got her down in the water. This is from about 5 minutes after I got it in the water. The boat on the right is the panga we built a couple of months ago. We didn't get to start it until a couple days later because I was waiting on a new Racor.

    [Linked Image]


    Last edited by Sail Fish Quepos .com; 12/13/13 02:32 PM.

    John
    32 Ocean Master "Stress Reeliever"
    Quepos, Costa Rica www.SailFishQuepos.com
    Re: Before and after restoring my 30 foot Cold Molded Fishing boat in Costa Rica! [Re: Sail Fish Quepos .com] #9339 12/13/13 02:32 PM
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posts: 29
    S
    Sail Fish Quepos .com Offline OP
    Outdoorsman
    OP Offline
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    S
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posts: 29

    Here's the first run last weeek:
    [Linked Image]
    First trip out was yesterday, she beat my other two boats releasing 6 nice sailfish and a couple of 30 pound Mahi. It was a fun build, I need to take some more pictures...

    Here's a before and after just to see the difference, I really thought it came out better than I expected, what do you guys think?

    Before:

    [Linked Image]

    After:

    [Linked Image]


    John
    32 Ocean Master "Stress Reeliever"
    Quepos, Costa Rica www.SailFishQuepos.com
    Re: Before and after restoring my 30 foot Cold Molded Fishing boat in Costa Rica! [Re: Sail Fish Quepos .com] #9582 02/06/14 10:22 AM
    Joined: Jan 2014
    Posts: 1
    S
    sea leveler Offline
    Green Horn
    Offline
    Green Horn
    S
    Joined: Jan 2014
    Posts: 1
    That looks awesome! Dam good job. I definitely need to learn how to restore some of these old hulls that you can buy cheap & turn them into fishing machines. Your boat looks great.


    Dying Now That Be A Day Worth Living For!
    Tight Lines
    Capt. Greg Rapp
    http://www.sealeveler.com
    Re: Before and after restoring my 30 foot Cold Molded Fishing boat in Costa Rica! [Re: Sail Fish Quepos .com] #10703 07/26/16 02:02 PM
    Joined: Jul 2016
    Posts: 4
    S
    Sporty Offline
    Green Horn
    Offline
    Green Horn
    S
    Joined: Jul 2016
    Posts: 4
    Wow! You should submit those photos and your restoration process to a magazine. That's definitely worth a feature. VERY motivating!

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