Sailboat conversion questions, but not the usual ones.

[AaronK]

I've spent some time searching through old posts, and have found most of the answers to the questions I had, but have a few I couldn't resolve.

I just got a great deal on a hull from a Force 5 sailboat ( http://www.force5sailboats.com/ ), and am going to turn it into a driftboat, primarily to use on some of the rivers around here. I'm going to put a small motor of some sort on the back (even though it is a displacement hull) to get me back up-river at the end of the day, and have been thinking about my motor mount, and the bracing I'll need to put into the transom. I saw on a previous post about using some kind of rotary saw on the fiberglass deck. I've also looked into floatation foam a little.

My questions are,

-Is a rotary saw the same as a router? And if so what bit would I need?

-Are there any brands or types of pour-in floatation foam that anyone recommends, or are more user friendly than others?

-Are there any books out there that anyone could recommend that deal with putting wood bracing into a pre-exsisting fiberglass hull?

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[craig shire]

Here is a write up I did on a sunfish conversion for duck hunting.

http://duckboats.net/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4447;#4447

I found that a circular saw would throw small slivers of glass fibers all over and I could feel them hitting my arms. I found a cut off wheel in a grinder worked faster and made dust instead of chunks. If you have to use a saw, wear long protective sleeves.

I used pink foam insulation boar cut into chunks and behind bulkheads to provide positive flotation in the event of a swamping. Pink foam was relatively cheap and available at the closest big box store. The problem with this is that gasoline will melt it. 2 part foam is available from www.uscomposites.com and is the standard for boat flotation.

As far as bracing the transom, take a look at small boat designs and copy what they have done. I would suggest using 2 layers of 3/4" ply laminated together for a total thickness of 1.5" for your outboard mouting board. Epoxy bond this to the existing transom and then either build large fillets of fiberglass tape and epoxy or construct knees to distribute the loads to the hull sides and bottom of boat. Depending on overall thickness of hte existing hull you may want to add a few additional layers of cloth in the transom area. All this is based on a 3.5 to 5 or 6 hp motor. A bigger motor would likely require more structure.

Good luck and post photos as you go.