Winter project boat

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Pivoting away from cars for a bit...

Early fiberglass Century Resorter. I am new to boats. We have a modern Sea Ray in the extended family, great capable & reliable boat but it has all the character of a Clorox bottle. I always wanted a classic woodie, but wood boats are a lifestyle not a hobby...for when I am retired. I targeted early glass classics and found this a couple states over. Merc V8 inboard...I lean towards European cars, but few things sound as good as a big American V8, especially through a water exhaust. The idle hooked me.

Strong motor, solid floors, needs some minor electrical attention and a good fluff & buff after sitting. Some owner seems to have covered some of the wood trim with vinyl, so that will go. Otherwise, is very original and, importantly, un "improved" by the prior owners. Most importantly, she has the big fittings of a classic and is pretty unlike most modern boats.

Time to learn something new... Any other old boat fans?


Some once said to me "....nothing is as expensive as a cheap boat" :)




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I laughed at your last comment.

BOAT Bust Oat Another Thousand. LOL

Looks nice, should be a fun project. Big cheap V8. Plus it looks to be in really good shape.

Guy driving it looks thrilled.
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Closed loop cooling system?
 
I would love a wooden boat. but not now...… our current "old" boat is an 88 Bayliner that is up at mom's. I don't think it fits your definition. yet it gets used every summer and almost never disappoints. oops! I just forgot we need a new Bendix on the starter - someone forgot to grease it - ever. (I hang my head in shame) our newer boat was a huge disappointment this year: The marina put it through a wall - taking it out of commission the first half of the summer; and then I broke my leg - putting me out of commission the 2nd half. But yes, I like the simple clean design. yours appears to be a ski boat.
 
My family has owned wooden boats for ages, though my parents have not followed that trend. I grew up around and wrenched on my grandfather's fleet and got to experience some pretty amazing stuff in the process. We owned a 1972 Century Coronado w/440 Chrysler in it and my mom is now, much to my father's chagrin, shopping for another one. We recently picked up a 1995 Supra Comp TS6M, which is also an inboard, but powered by an SEFI 351W Ford, so it's turn-key. It's a great boat and you are right, nothing sounds quite like them.

The Supra was picked up as a project, as it was sold for the price of storage, the owner must have lost their cottage on Rosseau or something and walked away from it. Boat was in storage for 4 years, so I've been dealing with some minor stuff but it's in pretty good shape for the most part, and has just a hair over 400hrs on it. Original fiberglass mufflers were pretty rotten, so we ordered some stainless ones from the US. They look great, but the muffling characteristics don't seem to be significant
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A few pics, and not trying to hijack your thread so tell me to sod off is so inclined! I can also dig up some old wooden boat pics if you are interested. Let me know.

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I love old boats, I would love an old Boston Whaler Sport 13', they had one at a yacht club I worked at and I fell in love. New boats just aren't as cool, that flat glass windshield really does it for me. Nice boat dude!

After watching FriscoBoater's Sea Ray resto on YouTube, I'm not sure I would want a boat with wood floors. I would love to restore an old boat someday, but good god is that a lot of carpentry + fiberglass not to mention gelcoat. I love wrenching on cars and houses, but something about spending hours grinding a fiberglass hull does not sound that appealing to me, and I have no problem getting dirty. Restoring boats really is a labour of love, and you have to be tough as nails to withstand that caliber of hardship and not get demoralized and lose motivation.
 
Originally Posted by maxdustington
I love old boats, I would love an old Boston Whaler Sport 13', they had one at a yacht club I worked at and I fell in love. New boats just aren't as cool, that flat glass windshield really does it for me. Nice boat dude!

After watching FriscoBoater's Sea Ray resto on YouTube, I'm not sure I would want a boat with wood floors. I would love to restore an old boat someday, but good god is that a lot of carpentry + fiberglass not to mention gelcoat. I love wrenching on cars and houses, but something about spending hours grinding a fiberglass hull does not sound that appealing to me, and I have no problem getting dirty. Restoring boats really is a labour of love, and you have to be tough as nails to withstand that caliber of hardship and not get demoralized and lose motivation.


It's incredibly time consuming, and it isn't cheap if you are paying somebody to do it, which, for a show quality wooden boat restoration, you'd be wise to do. My grandfather had two woodies fully restored when I was growing up, IIRC, the cost was around $25 grand per boat to do it. The gentleman that did the work for us was an extremely close friend of my grandfather, and close to 10 years older IIRC. So he was in his 70's when he restored our 2nd one. He was rather famous in Ontario antique boat circles and his work was 2nd to none. It sure was a slow process though, took several years for each of them.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by maxdustington
I love old boats, I would love an old Boston Whaler Sport 13', they had one at a yacht club I worked at and I fell in love. New boats just aren't as cool, that flat glass windshield really does it for me. Nice boat dude!

After watching FriscoBoater's Sea Ray resto on YouTube, I'm not sure I would want a boat with wood floors. I would love to restore an old boat someday, but good god is that a lot of carpentry + fiberglass not to mention gelcoat. I love wrenching on cars and houses, but something about spending hours grinding a fiberglass hull does not sound that appealing to me, and I have no problem getting dirty. Restoring boats really is a labour of love, and you have to be tough as nails to withstand that caliber of hardship and not get demoralized and lose motivation.


It's incredibly time consuming, and it isn't cheap if you are paying somebody to do it, which, for a show quality wooden boat restoration, you'd be wise to do. My grandfather had two woodies fully restored when I was growing up, IIRC, the cost was around $25 grand per boat to do it. The gentleman that did the work for us was an extremely close friend of my grandfather, and close to 10 years older IIRC. So he was in his 70's when he restored our 2nd one. He was rather famous in Ontario antique boat circles and his work was 2nd to none. It sure was a slow process though, took several years for each of them.
When I worked at that yacht club, National Yacht Club in Toronto nine years ago, there was a dude with a wood hulled motor boat. He told me he gave it to some dude named "The Beer Baron" in the off-season and he took care of it for him. Apparently he was the go-to guy, so I wonder if it was the same dude?
I'm not even talking about a wood hulled boat, putting a new floor and transom in a fiberglass boat is extremely labour intensive. I know little about wood hulled boats, other than they need water to swell them and not leak.

EDIT: I've been wanting to see pics of your boat, OVERKILL. Ever since you posted that thread when you got it. Nice boat dude!
 
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Thanks! It's the family ski boat and we are all extremely pleased with it. We were, initially, a bit concerned, because of how cheap it was, but it ended up just being what it presented as. Needs a seal replaced in the drive unit, as its leaking, so we'll be pulling the engine probably in the next month or so to get that and those minor fiberglass cracks dealt with.
 
Really like old boats. Mine is 25 years old and my insurance company dumped me so I went to another one for liability insurance. Currently changing out my lights to LED's since I tend to fish into the evenings and use the lights to keep safe while fishing.
 
Thanks all for the comments.

Beautiful boat Overkill, and nice boathouse.. Yes, please post more old boat pics.

One more. I believe the two vinyl areas on the deck may have been wood, or at least it was on the earlier ones. Shouldn't be too hard to add that as well as bring the motor cover back to stock, not sure that is original.

Back to the youtube videos on how to dock an inboard!

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If you mean the fore and aft decks, those were vinyl covered on our Coronado and on our neighbours, so that's probably factory.
 
thanks..i saw a few pics of boats with those areas wood, but they appear to be the very early 'glass models and may even be the owner's work. I may7 see what I can do there. There was a beautiful 'glass Coronado 22 at the marina where I saw this boat. Had dual sliding plexi panels on the fixed hardtop. Nice boat.
 
That Century is gorgeous. If it doesn't have a depth finder do get one and have it installed properly. Inboards are not fond of shallow water!
 
Originally Posted by wings&wheels
thanks..i saw a few pics of boats with those areas wood, but they appear to be the very early 'glass models and may even be the owner's work. I may7 see what I can do there. There was a beautiful 'glass Coronado 22 at the marina where I saw this boat. Had dual sliding plexi panels on the fixed hardtop. Nice boat.


Sounds like our old one, it was a 22 sedan (hard top) with the double-slider sunroofs. Good lord was that boat loud though!
 
That glass Century is a nice boat. When you do the re-wire, make sure to crimp and solder the wire lugs. I suggest Anchor tinned wire from any catalog source. It's easy to work with, accepts solder well and resists internal corrosion a long time.

Make sure your ground wire runs are big and well terminated.

Should be a good project
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Fun Boat
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This was my grandfather's best friend's boat, which was called the "Come and Go":
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It originally belonged to Timothy Eaton and we are unsure as to what it was originally powered with. This article shows it being re-powered with a Chrysler marine engine, which is not original (obviously):
http://www.brackleyboats.com/newboats/index.php?ID=ComeNGo

When I had the privilege of driving it, the boat was powered by a massive Van Blerk I4, featured in this video:


Which, since the last time I saw the boat, had been upgraded to the "high speed" version, which included pressurized oiling. When I drove the boat, which was the late 1990's, it was gravity oiled and you had to fill a glass reservoir on the front of the engine with oil before each trip! Was an experience.

Boat is a 1910's Minette product and has spent its entire life in the Muskoka region of Ontario, which is where the Eaton family, and my family, cottaged. This boat is 1 of 1, as it was custom built for the Eaton family. There's a clock on the dash that Lady Eaton bought Timothy because he was notoriously late for dinner. He'd go out for a cruise and not return in time so this beautiful brass timepiece was gifted in hopes of rectifying that.
 
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Making progress on the Winter project.

The boat needed some minor electrical work, a lot of little details, but nothing major aside from failed wipers (which were a major pain to source and install), and I wanted to dress her up a bit. Overkill's family boat pic of the CC Sedan with the teak and holly bow inspired me and here is my first attempt at a laminate for the deck. This is a dry test fit of the panel and fittings and the deck is dirty from work, but I like the look so far. I kept all of the original panels.

More to come.




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