Viking Lifeboat

[JippyJoe]

Hi,

I bought a boat about a month ago and I've been reading through the Forums over the last couple of weeks. I bough the boat for therapy, not for profit and I intend to work on it over the next 12-24 months. It's a lifeboat from a ship made here in Australia "Mittagong". The boat was made by Viking in 1963. The boat is 26ft long and can just be seen on the attached picture of the Mittagong being towed past Circular Quay in Sydney.

When I bought the boat most of the add-ons that had been done over the last 40 years had been removed, and I have just finished removing the last bit of flooring. The first step is to put down a new floor and engine mounts. However, I'm not sure how to start it off, and have a couple of questions that I hope someone can help me with:

1. I'm going to use epoxy so it doesn't matter what the boat is built of, however, I would like to know whether it's epoxy or polyester. Is there a way that I can find out?

2. What direction should I run the supports for the floor?
I've just removed the remains of what looks like a temporary floor (not glassed in). These ran port/starboard. However, all of the floor replacement topics on this site show the floor being supported by stringers running bow/stern.

(I have attached some pictures that may help determine the best direction)

Thanks

[Manie B]

your pics have been compressed too much so i cant see real detail of the glass, but my guess is that kind of thing is usually polyester

however doing repairs in epoxy and ply would be easy