I started working on the Snowgoose in late May after turkey season and flipped it over to replace the aluminum strake facings with stainless steel, it was going to be a couple day job – tear them off and replace. I ended up doing a pretty major refit, which resulted in me sanding down the hull sheer to sheer, patching and fairing a lot of dings, moving and removing a bunch of hardware, removing my wedges and adding interceptors, removing the radius from the hull to transom transition and making that transition a sharp angle. The boat probably wasn’t “ready” for such a major refit at 5 years, but I’m planning a major fishing boat project and won’t be excited about working on boats for a while when I’m done with that.
Crevice corrosion under the aluminum, I’m nor sure it was galvanic or simple crevice corrosion, but the aluminum lifted off the 5200 the corrosion worked completely under the aluminum and released it. It was mechanically fastened, but I wanted it replaced. You can see the little piles of aluminum oxide around each screw. I replaced the aluminum with 304SS in 3/16 – some serious stuff!
Interceptors… We had a big discussion here about these with lots of helpful input. This is what I arrived on and they work great. I had 18” wide of 5/8” thick wedge on each side of the hull and now I have 10” wide of 1/8” interceptor. I’m still playing with them, but I have great performance – stern lift but not too much, I get lots of bow lift up until 15 mph and then at WOT I have nearly max RPMs and am on the cusp of a porpoise. I’ve picked up an honest 3 mph with a top end of 33 mph at this point. Material is ¼” plexiglass in the pic, but I tested 1/8” lexan with a much greater projection and it held up, so I’ll make a pair of 1/8” lexan with this projection and go with that.
Sharpening the hull to transom transition. A radius as is here can cause porpoising and sharpening this up did have a noticeable effect in sea trials. This is a mold with packing tape as a release aid, I built a fillet of silica and wood flour in and faired it with microballoons to make it nice and pretty.
Interceptor materials. 3/8” 24 TPI bolts, 2x2 square washers for the inside, 3 x 10 x 3/16" transom plate threaded to accept the bolts and a plate with clearance holes to hold the interceptor plate. All 304 / 18-8 SS and sandwiched with 5200. I installed a ¾” oak backing plate inside the transom.
Painted hull ready for flip. With the rolling jig and a couple come-alongs it is a 10 minute job rolling her over.
Lots of good stuff since turkey season closed. Gus caught his first fish and has caught his first saltwater fish now that I have the boat back in shape. Fish on!
We put up a major garden fence – 6’ high woven wire. We aren’t done, but we did the majority of length at this point. This was one of the worst jobs we have done. 30 10’ posts sunk 42” into New England rocky soil. The fence is high tensile, so it needs lots of serious support.
Shot of corner and an end. You can see the cross members and just see the twitch wire (wire that goes from bottom of post to be supported to top of post that ends the brace) with strainer used to support the end post.
I didn’t think you could get a post hole digger that deep. We did as many as we could (not many) with a rental post hole auger, but most all needed the post hole digger and bar to finish because of the rocks.
Project boat – 20’ 1972 SeaCraft Seafari. I was planning on building the Tolman, but decided I did not want to own 2 wood boats and, more importantly, a stitch and glue boat can’t do what I wanted. Tolmans are soo light they can’t support the amount of deadrise I’d like. I read enough times on Fishyfish that “they (meaning glass boats) may pass you on the water when it is rough, but you will pass them at the gas dock…” and came to the realization that I don’t want a light boat and get the crap pounded out of me - I’ve lived that experience my whole life. Bob Butler was able to set me up with a couple test drives of SeaCrafts a 20 and a 23 and I was super impressed with the ride of the 20' a lot of boat for 20' and I didn't want to trailer a 23'. These boats have quite a following and are classic coastal fish boats - the 70's boats are very desirable with '72 being a great year. I had seen several (including a junker with Farris the day before) and when I looked at this Seafari I was in love. The Seafari has a small cabin and will be a perfect boat to extend out season. I’m going to cut this boat up into its parts to replace the transom and completely rebuild her from the bottom up.
Good to have the boat back in the water!
Crevice corrosion under the aluminum, I’m nor sure it was galvanic or simple crevice corrosion, but the aluminum lifted off the 5200 the corrosion worked completely under the aluminum and released it. It was mechanically fastened, but I wanted it replaced. You can see the little piles of aluminum oxide around each screw. I replaced the aluminum with 304SS in 3/16 – some serious stuff!
Interceptors… We had a big discussion here about these with lots of helpful input. This is what I arrived on and they work great. I had 18” wide of 5/8” thick wedge on each side of the hull and now I have 10” wide of 1/8” interceptor. I’m still playing with them, but I have great performance – stern lift but not too much, I get lots of bow lift up until 15 mph and then at WOT I have nearly max RPMs and am on the cusp of a porpoise. I’ve picked up an honest 3 mph with a top end of 33 mph at this point. Material is ¼” plexiglass in the pic, but I tested 1/8” lexan with a much greater projection and it held up, so I’ll make a pair of 1/8” lexan with this projection and go with that.
Sharpening the hull to transom transition. A radius as is here can cause porpoising and sharpening this up did have a noticeable effect in sea trials. This is a mold with packing tape as a release aid, I built a fillet of silica and wood flour in and faired it with microballoons to make it nice and pretty.
Interceptor materials. 3/8” 24 TPI bolts, 2x2 square washers for the inside, 3 x 10 x 3/16" transom plate threaded to accept the bolts and a plate with clearance holes to hold the interceptor plate. All 304 / 18-8 SS and sandwiched with 5200. I installed a ¾” oak backing plate inside the transom.
Painted hull ready for flip. With the rolling jig and a couple come-alongs it is a 10 minute job rolling her over.
Lots of good stuff since turkey season closed. Gus caught his first fish and has caught his first saltwater fish now that I have the boat back in shape. Fish on!
We put up a major garden fence – 6’ high woven wire. We aren’t done, but we did the majority of length at this point. This was one of the worst jobs we have done. 30 10’ posts sunk 42” into New England rocky soil. The fence is high tensile, so it needs lots of serious support.
Shot of corner and an end. You can see the cross members and just see the twitch wire (wire that goes from bottom of post to be supported to top of post that ends the brace) with strainer used to support the end post.
I didn’t think you could get a post hole digger that deep. We did as many as we could (not many) with a rental post hole auger, but most all needed the post hole digger and bar to finish because of the rocks.
Project boat – 20’ 1972 SeaCraft Seafari. I was planning on building the Tolman, but decided I did not want to own 2 wood boats and, more importantly, a stitch and glue boat can’t do what I wanted. Tolmans are soo light they can’t support the amount of deadrise I’d like. I read enough times on Fishyfish that “they (meaning glass boats) may pass you on the water when it is rough, but you will pass them at the gas dock…” and came to the realization that I don’t want a light boat and get the crap pounded out of me - I’ve lived that experience my whole life. Bob Butler was able to set me up with a couple test drives of SeaCrafts a 20 and a 23 and I was super impressed with the ride of the 20' a lot of boat for 20' and I didn't want to trailer a 23'. These boats have quite a following and are classic coastal fish boats - the 70's boats are very desirable with '72 being a great year. I had seen several (including a junker with Farris the day before) and when I looked at this Seafari I was in love. The Seafari has a small cabin and will be a perfect boat to extend out season. I’m going to cut this boat up into its parts to replace the transom and completely rebuild her from the bottom up.
Good to have the boat back in the water!
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