As I said in the previous blog post the hull of the boat is well made. They used quality marine grade lumber and water tight. The upper portion was not water tight, at all.
The original owners apparently used the boat during the summer on a lake and they parked it in a boat house during the winter. However at Wayne’s house it was not sitting under any cover. We first saw the boat around March so it had been sitting through a whole rainy Oregon winter exposed.
The front windows of the boat were actual glass, but the side windows were plexiglas in homemade, i.e. not water tight, frames.
The roof leaked as well even though it had a layer of fiberglass on it.
We cleaned out all of the cushions and then I went through and took out anything I thought we could reuse. As I was taking things out of the boat I was starting to see the damage more clearly. I realized that I was not going to be able to reuse any of the upper structure.
So I cut it off.
I literally took a reciprocating saw and cut just above the red all the way around the top. It was actually Wayne’s idea. After I had gone around the outside I still wasn’t able to push the top off. There were still a few interior supports I had to cut, but once I got those I was able to push the whole top off to the side of the boat.
Then came the long task of cutting everything up in to small enough pieces to fit into my utility trailer. Five minutes from Wayne’s house Lane Forest Products accepts wood scraps that they turn into mulch. They only charged me $5 which was a lot cheaper than the minimum $12.50 the dump charges. I think it took about 4 or 5 loads.
After I got I cleaned out and vacuumed I purchased a mold/fungus killer and scrubbed the whole inside of the boat and let it sit for a week or two in the dry Oregon summer.
Finally it was time to start building!
