Batboat Rebuild: Day 51 April 11th, 2010. Batboat flip over.

I found the remaining auto tires needed for the flip. They were in the weed covered ghost town neighborhoods near the rail yard. With now over twenty on hand I called my friend Jeff Davis and asked him to help me flip the Batboat upside down.

I didn't bother to tell him how much it weighed until after it was done. lol We were going to lift and flip over around 600 pounds ourselves; Information that was better kept to myself.

Two tire columns at the stern and bow were for support. The two columns near the middle were in position in line with the deck so there wouldn't be a weight load on the fragile upper sides of the fiberglass.

It took some figuring out but we did it with no damage.


It sits in the only spot in the back yard where a maple tree won't drop its sap and the pine tree doesn't drop its needles.


The plans for the pallets were scratched and two were stacked under the boat.


The tire columns needed to be a little higher and straight. I couldn't quite lift the stern high enough (600+ pounds) for Jeff to squeeze two others in. My car jack did the job.

It wasn't safe leaving it crooked like this.


Two tires with rims fixed every thing.


Four tires stacked on top of pallets supported the front of the hull and and the ones at the bow were removed.

The top half of the boat was taken off by removing many, many screws fastened through the aluminum rub rail.


As luck would have it, all but three screws came out easy. The remaining were bolted in and rusted. It took longer to drill those out than all the others combined.

The aluminum rub rails are irreplaceable and were put aside somewhere safe later.

The top half came off with no effort.


Topside, splashwell and hull are ready for summertime repairs and eventual new Batboat features!


The tire supports are steady and solid.




The drips you see on the stern are excess polyester resin and woodflower "peanut butter" from last year's transom repairs.


There is a great deal of damage under the hull to fix. I'll find a lot more as I stripped off the latex paint.

The worst has yet to come!