Batboat Rebuild: Day 3 July 15, 2008

I am going to start posting updates on my progress. This is for day 3, July 15th.

I finally had found time to work on the boat again and started on removing the deck with my reciprocating sawzall.


Here are chunks of foam flotation I pulled up from between the stringers. Most of it was perfectly bone dry and still good but nearer to the stern it was all soaked. I decided to throw it all out.



I had a hard time getting to the deck that was under the spashwell so I cut it out. When most people work on fiberglass boats they separate the top half from the hull. However, if the top is off too long the hull looses its shape under its own weight. The alternative is removing the splash well and fiberglassing it back in later.




Now I can remove the rear deck and bilge area easier. The spots on the left and right sides of the boat are filled with more flotation foam. The expanding type. This is to keep the boat afloat in case there is an accident on the water, however, the majority of the this at the rear of the boat was saturated with decades worth of water.




When I started on the rear deck and the left and right flotation compartments I found a large black ant colony. They scattered in every direction carrying white sacks everywhere they went, which I guess were ant eggs. It looked like something out of the National Geographic channel!!!

There must have been hundreds of them living in there. A large spider on a web as well!


Here is what is left of the transom. This is where the engine sits and has to be replaced.



I dug out most of the foam and threw it on a tarp for trash bagging. The soaked ones must have added a couple hundred pounds to the boat.

The foam between the stringers were scrap-like and were just laid in. However, the flotation compartments were filled with expanding foam and it took a while to get it out with a wrecking bar.

Also, one of the previous owners added his own foam which was the toughest to remove.




Here is one of the remains of a flotation compartment. It makes me think of how nice this vessel looked when new. All of the wood fiberglass under the splash well was painted Glacier Blue with black and white speckles. I thought it looked 1969 cool.