Boat rebuild

[foxfish]

Hi guys, I recently bought a 22 years old Vilmar fast fishing boat.
The boat came up for sale at a good price considering the motor, a Yam 60f is only 3 years old & very low hours, however I could see she needed some TLC to say the least!
Anyway after a bit of thought I decided to buy the boat & get it home for a closer look.
She had been kept on a drying out mooring for 6 months of the year for most of here life so I was hopeful there would not be any serious osmosis but as I suspected there was a few dings!
I decided to get the hull grit blasted, grit blasting takes no prisoners but i wanted to see what was going on under 20 coats of anti foul.
A few pics.....

 

[foxfish]

The boat had been hand painted several times to so I striped every single component off the boat that I could.
I found some water in the foam around the rear seat area where some past owner had drilled some holes?!!
Them the grit man came along!

 

[foxfish]

Blasted & sanded to get rid of layers of paint & anti foul she looks a bit sad at this stage & the work ahead looks a bit daunting!

 

[foxfish]

The grit is pretty abrasive & the process will show up any imperfections or air pockets that lie under the gel.

There is a more gentle option called bead blasting but, that cost double the amount as the cost of the plastic beads is high.
In my case the blasting took about 2 hours & cost £150, however I did put down the polythene & cleared up!

The hull was is pretty good condition really but there were some bad spots too.

I filled all the holes & imperfections with an epoxy & powder mix, I also removed a rubbing strip that ran the whole length of the boat & also added an extra layer of GPR to the keel sectsion. I then filled the GRP with the epoxy mix.

I applied an epoxy paint (Gel shield) & filled in between the coats, 5 coats in all & about 1l of epoxy filler.

 

[Spirit]

Cracking boat there, nice to see it being properly treated.

 

[BatRay]

That looks like a lot of work. How long has it taken so far?

 

[foxfish]

Yeah loads of work & not particularly healthy either - lots of sanding & grinding fiberglass & even with a mask on it still feels like your lungs are being effected!
However I love this sort of work.

Anyway after about 4 weeks of filling blending & painting the bottom has a smooth epoxied & now copper coated bottom

 

[scottwilson]

Great job Mart Im going to enjoy watching this thread for sure.

This is one project ive always wanted to do. Learning the skills along the way and setting the boat up exactly the way you want it would be a dream come true


Will you be putting the console back in or turning her into tiller?

 

[BatRay]

Very nicely done. How much more work would you say is needed?

My husband and I are considering purchasing a sailboat and fixing it up. It's not in terribly bad shape, but it's a little old and could use a little tlc.

 

[foxfish]

Scott she would be a handful at 30 knots & tiller steering -I am not sure how long to completion as the weather will play a part but maybe one more month.
Next up I cleaned out the inside & glassed in the back area.

 

[foxfish]

And then I lined the front compartment with 3'' foam to accommodate a permanent cool box.
Also I formed an anchor locker above the cool box.

 

[foxfish]

A bit more glassing ...

 

[foxfish]

Now some form work making a transom piece ...

 

[foxfish]

I decided to completely modify the center console by cutting 4'' of the bottom & cutting the front half off to be then used as a seat.
This is the up to date pic.....

 

[grantl]

Wow- nice work and a lot of thought gone into the project so far.

Looking forward to seeing it progress.

 

[foxfish]

When I saw the boat for sale it struck a chord as I remembered a boat test featuring the Vilmar v a 17' Orkney, this was in sea angler & must of been over 20 years back.
Anyway the Vilmar was voted by far the better boat & I just thought I would go & have a look at her based on my memory!
First impressions were good but, that was before I released the work needed to get her ship shape!
I walked away but was back a couple of days later after thinking about the purchase & the boat was mine, I paid £3500.

I now know who the original owner was & as he is an old friend I was able to find out all about the boats history.
The motor has done about 100 hours so pretty much just about run in!
I also have some receipts for the hand rails & boy they were expensive!!

I the boat tops out at 32 knots apparently, the boat was praised for the heavy lay up of glass fiber & quality finish.

 

[BatRay]

Beautiful job. I look forward to seeing the finished product.

 

[Jonny250]

Looks like a boat you will have lots of fun with! Nice project

 

[denian]

Fantastic project and write up foxy is that king span you have used in the cool box? is it closed foam ?.take it that's your back garden?if it is your so lucky .still don't think the neighbours would of liked the grit blasting tho!!.keep it up great project um look out fisheis.

 

[foxfish]

Yes I used 100mm kingspan, that should keep things frozen for days.
In fact yesterday I started on the cool box lid, I have moulded it from a plastic container but somthing like that can take a lot of time to complete!
I also painted the console & seat, the boat is actually starting to look pretty good!

Denian, both my neighbours have bigger gardens than I do & they both have very loud sit on mowers that they love to use early Sunday mornings or Saturday BBQ time!