1982 Century Arabian: Restoration plan

[kerny7678]

Hello,
New the forum here and ready to get going on a project.

I have recently acquired a 1983 Century Arabian that has is showing warning signs of a big project. My plan is to bring it back to its former glory however I need the advice from this site. So here it goes.

As the title suggests, it is a 1983 Century Arabian 200 with the Mercruiser 260 sterndrive setup. This boat has served a long and useful life thus-far but recently has been neglected. I currently have it in a garage where it will stay all winter.

The problems: there are many chips and dings below the waterline showing exposed fiberglass. This damage ranges from keel rash, rock chips allover to scrapes from shore-station. This has left me with a boat that takes on water consistently and i think is starting to get worse. Upon some further inspection I have areas of rot on the transom and I assume the rest of the structure of the boat although it is worth noting that there are no soft spots anywhere that i can find except the transom.

I am currently in the planning stage for this project and tackling what i know first. I am looking for advice on what to do next... if i should repair damage from outside or is that a waste of time to get it 100% right. I do not have pictures of the outside hull but I will later today and will post those here. Attached are some photos I have on hand.
Thanks for reading.

 

[oldrem]

Soft spots in the deck are the last to show. Rot starts from the bottom and works it way up. You need to find a way to drill some core samples in the lower transom and stringers to find out what's really going on.

 

[Chris51280]

Ah, Another Century boat. :welcome:
My deck was solid too. Until I looked deeper into the stringers.Over half was less than mulch. drill 1/4" about 3/4 deep about 1.5" above the hull. If they are brown and wet = bad. Light colored dry=good.

 

[kerny7678]

As promised, here are some photos of the damage below the waterline. Looking for suggestions on repairs. Can this be where i start my project, external repair?

Thanks

 

[Chris51280]

You can start wherever. I would focus on the inside first

 

[briangcc]

Take this with a grain of salt but....IF it were me, I'd be starting on the inside. Any number of threads here eventually have the "oops....my grinder cut a hole in the hull of the boat" moment. So to me, I'd do the demo first, get that all squared, and then move to the exterior to pretty that up.

I'd hate to do all the work on the outside first and then have an oopsie moment requiring a redo of that work.

But that's just me.