Looking for some advice... wanting to restore an old 12ft fiberglass boat

[rprice4410]

Hey guys,

I'm new to iBoats but was hoping to get some advice. I picked up an old boat and trailer for $250 as a project for my son and I to work on. I don't have much information on it other than that it is a 12ft fiberglass boat that had Malibu on the side of it. Came on a 1975 Gator trailer. We plan on trying to fix it up if possible to use for fishing in some of the local lakes. I would like to redo the inside of the boat but haven't ever attempted anything like this so wanted to get some advice here first. The subfloor in the boat has a crack in it (the hull is fine). I was thinking about sealing the crack and then attempting to install some sort of other flooring with capet on top. I've included some pictures of the boat for reference? Thoughts? Ideas? Would plywood with carpet work for the flooring in this boat? Thanks in advance!

 

[Booska]

Hey! Welcome to the forums. I'm just now starting a project myself and am pretty new to this. Let me tell you, there is a lot of information to soak in. For the past two weeks I've done nothing but research, research, and research on paint, glassing, materials and application practices, and so much more. There's a lot of helpful information in the stickies on the top of this board. Specifically "How To's and Other Great Information". You will find most of what you need in there, when it comes to the process involved in restoration.

That aside, I will be the bearer of bad news and say that crack is more troublesome then you might imagine. That crack has allowed moisture and water to get underneath your cap and floor with nowhere to go. If you have a wooden deck, stringers, or a wooden transom. It's very likely that all of it is rotted. I'm currently undergoing that myself on my own project, and I've really discovered just how well wood will wick water across distance. It's truly incredible, unless you're boat has wood in it haha. You are gonna want to verify whether you have any wood underneath your subfloor / cap before patching that hole. If you do, you're gonna want to do a core sample to determine if that wood is usable or dangerous toward the structure of the boat. It may seem intimidating, but you have a 12ft boat which is really small compared to a lot of the project boats on here. (Looking at all the 20'+ ski boats).

I would not recommend just patching that crack. What will inevitably happen is the moisture underneath your fiberglass cap will saturate the wood, turning it into mulch. A year or two from now - and after you've installed and repainted everything all nice and neat - your floor will start cracking even more and become soft. All because the wood holding the floor, and the stringers supporting that floor, has become rot and mulch. It's not worth doing half the job in my opinion. That's really your decision though, and I'm sure many others will say the same. If you look at my thread, my spring project of carpeting the boat turned into thousand dollars worth of restoration. Best thing you can do is keep your chin up, wager if it's worth it, and go on from there.

Best of luck!