16 ft Perrine sneak build update with pics... And question

J

Jay H

Active member
Well after a couple long weeks of work, the hassle of buying a new home, my 3 yr old and 9 month old sons, and some decoy cedar itching and screaming from inside the shed to be made into something already, I did manage to get some work done on the sneakbox. My gunning partner works full time in the coast guard and i work nites so we both dont have a set schedule and everytime we get together its a last minute thing, but since he has built and restored a handful of these boxes and garveys, I try to get as much grunt work done on my own ( cutting, filling, sanding, grinding) and leave the critical steps for when he is in my presence lol. In the last post you can see that we replaced almost every rib and gusset in the boat, basiclly we took a boat that was in so-so shape and stripped her down and apart and traced every rib and gusset pattern the boat had. We then started rebuilding the boat from scrath with the exception of some hull planks and 2 ribs and the original hardware (cleats, boweye).Once the bottom was replanked, I filled the seams with west sysytems and microballoons.


I thought filling was a horrible job till I had to sand it lol. After all was sanded the inside was primed and painted . I built two side shelves which we installed last night and got half the deck planked. a couple more days of "paying" work and we will be back on it to finish the planking.This has been a truly humbling experiance and I have a whole new respect for boatbuilders and their attention to detail that I as a duckboat addict( have bought and sold twice as many boats as my wife thinks i lie to her about haha) would never see or look for in all the boats i have bought over the years but are very critical to boat strength and the level of craftsmanship that was put into that boat. More pics to come fellas.

 
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WOW Jay, You are bringing that one back and the original builder would surely be proud of the attention to detail you are putting into it. Thanks for sharing your hard work with us.
 
Thank you very much guys for the compliments. We are moving along at a pretty good pace but paying alot of time to detail and measuring 3 times and cutting once. I personally think we are overbuilding the boat, by that i mean we doubled up on gussets, theres one on each side of every rib on the hull and deck. The transom is definatly overkill but i beefed it up in case I ever wanna move up to a 4 stroke outboard there will never be a drop of doubt wether the boat can handle it. For now i am putting a 15 hp yamaha 2 stroke on her . Gonna resume n finish planking her in the morning. Pics and update to follow
 
Jay, I looked at and actually bid on a few of these over the past few years...torn between restoring as a racing sneakbox, or converting to a hunting box.... what I was most concerned about with respect to using it as a hunting sneakbox.... is that 16ft is big to hide, and the displacement hull was going to result in a lot of shallow water draft? My 12ft sailing/displacment sneakbox drafts around 10 inches when in hunting load.... I suspect the 16ft will be all that and then some? Do you have any experience?
 
Yes my buddy that is helping me build the boat has the same boat as mine that has been converted to gunning box. We hunted his boat and it drafted about 5-6 inches fully loaded. No drain plug in this one, now a week off to let 5200 to fully cure under the planks
 
Thank you very much guys for the compliments. We are moving along at a pretty good pace but paying alot of time to detail and measuring 3 times and cutting once. I personally think we are overbuilding the boat, by that i mean we doubled up on gussets, theres one on each side of every rib on the hull and deck. The transom is definatly overkill but i beefed it up in case I ever wanna move up to a 4 stroke outboard there will never be a drop of doubt wether the boat can handle it. For now i am putting a 15 hp yamaha 2 stroke on her . Gonna resume n finish planking her in the morning. Pics and update to follow

Jay awesome job on the box. Re the "overbuilding", having no personal experience, will that change the characteristics of the boat; it's draft, it's load capacity? I love the lines of her.

Best - Paul
 
Thanks paul, as far as the " overbuilding " part, i dont believe it will change the boats characteristics, i am a big fan of the better safe than sorry mentality. I really thought and pondered about every charetaristic i could want in a duckboat, i literally looked at 100's of photos of different boxes and how they were built and came up with a game plan. Im sure the boat will draft an inch or two more than my gunning partners perrine but im willing to sacrifice that couple inches for peace of mind. Once done the only tool that will have to be used on this boat is a chainsaw lol. Just waiting to get home to my pc to upload the decking pics.
 
Its my first boat but my gunning partner who is overseeing it has built and converted 8 of these. But to answer your question yes, this is my first boat build.



 
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The decking looks great. Thank you for keeping an old classic alive. Keep coming with the pictures, I cannot wait to see how she turns out.
 
Im now shopping around for cloth and resins. My buddy also makes surfboards and said that the resins are basiclly the same . For a 2.5 gal kit of surfboard resin its around 250. What types of resins do you guys prefer? I dont care about the $ so much, ive put a ton of time blood sweat and money into it so far and refuse start skimping and shortcutting things now
 
Jay~

The boat looks fabulous!

Since learning about them here on duckboats.net, I have been using U S Composites. (and, of course, there are other good vendors out there....)

http://www.uscomposites.com/epoxy.html

Prices and quality are both excellent. I use their Thin Epoxy System with Medium Hardener (a 1:3 mix). A 6.6 gallon kit is $290. I am sure they can help you estimate quantities of cloth, resin and fairing compound (they make a nice mix).

Hope this helps,

SJS
 
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