CAnderson
Well-known member
My son and I have been talking and planning about building a pair of boats for duckhunting. We hunt the NJ Coastal and South Zones and do a combination of divers and puddlers. Currently we hunt out of a 16' Alumacraft Waterfowler. We have had a lot of fun in that boat, but we are looking to switch up our game a little and look into something more like a sneak box. After considering the various Hybrid boat styles, the BBSBs and even a couple of the Devlin designs, my son and I decided on doing sneak boat conversions to a couple of Sunfish hulls. We have read several posts here on the board, over on DuckHuntingChat and general Google searches on the topic. A search on Craigsllist produced a gentlemen in DE that had a couple of hulls for sale at $50 a piece. Yesterday we made the drive from South NJ to DE to pick up two hulls and bring them home.
My son is currently 11 y.o. The goal is to have them ready for next season, not this winter, but the winter of 2013. The overarching goal is to have a boat that my son can operate on his own when he turns 13 y.o. My son, has cut a couple of lawns and saved up his own money to pay for his own hull. He is the proud owner of his own boat!!!
Here are some pics of the unloading, inspecting and initial teardown of my son's boat.
Just unloaded from the utility trailer.
Captain Tyler
Removing the aluminum guard from the edge of the hull.
All accesories and such removed from the decking of the boat.
The hull had gotten water inside and the foam was waterlogged. This hull weighed significantly more than the other. Ultimately the decision was to remove the fiberglass decking to remove all of the foam and fiberglass cockpit.
Fiberglass decking removed.
Learning to work clean and neat!
Removing the remainder of the foam from the bottom of the hull.
Taking a well deserved water break.
A nice clean hull ready for planning and layout lines.
This was our manageable project for the day and made for a good stopping point. I think we will likely strip my hull down next. Then we can make the measurements and layout lines on each boat at the same time and hopefully save some time on the build along the way.
We have several pictures of Leonard's friend's boat printed out and hanging in the shop as guidance for the build. We hope to have our boats look like his when we are done. Hopefully by the end of next summer we will have two boats that look an awful lot like this one.
I will do my best to keep you guys posted along the way.
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My son is currently 11 y.o. The goal is to have them ready for next season, not this winter, but the winter of 2013. The overarching goal is to have a boat that my son can operate on his own when he turns 13 y.o. My son, has cut a couple of lawns and saved up his own money to pay for his own hull. He is the proud owner of his own boat!!!
Here are some pics of the unloading, inspecting and initial teardown of my son's boat.
Just unloaded from the utility trailer.
Captain Tyler
Removing the aluminum guard from the edge of the hull.
All accesories and such removed from the decking of the boat.
The hull had gotten water inside and the foam was waterlogged. This hull weighed significantly more than the other. Ultimately the decision was to remove the fiberglass decking to remove all of the foam and fiberglass cockpit.
Fiberglass decking removed.
Learning to work clean and neat!
Removing the remainder of the foam from the bottom of the hull.
Taking a well deserved water break.
A nice clean hull ready for planning and layout lines.
This was our manageable project for the day and made for a good stopping point. I think we will likely strip my hull down next. Then we can make the measurements and layout lines on each boat at the same time and hopefully save some time on the build along the way.
We have several pictures of Leonard's friend's boat printed out and hanging in the shop as guidance for the build. We hope to have our boats look like his when we are done. Hopefully by the end of next summer we will have two boats that look an awful lot like this one.
I will do my best to keep you guys posted along the way.
__
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