Major bottom repair and Top cap mods

I purchased this 2009 Famous craft 2300 with some fairly major bottom damage. The owner stated the boat hit a stump or something which I can verify after finding wood still stuck in the fiberglass when inspecting. The hole in the hull is not really a big issue but there is some de-lamination of the hull to pre-molded stringer system in the area of the impact. I was originally going to try to do the repairs from the bottom but with the foam being wet throughout the whole stringer grid system I have made the choice to cut the top cap and do some of the repairs from the top. This is a butt load of work but I have little choice if I want to do this correctly. The ares that have de-lamination I will do my best to sand between the hull and stringer system in order to get the best possible bond between them. I am going to flow epoxy between the hull and stringer system and then add new tabbing from the stringer to the hull to ensure everything is bonded well. I have discussed the bottom repair with a very well known boat MFG and repair company and they thought my plan is the best bet with this boat.

What I would really like to see are some threads were the top deck/cap has been cut and glassed back into place. This deck is pretty simple and is made of Coosa so the process should be fairly straight forward. It is always nice to see how others have tackled the process and maybe will give me some ideas for my own project. One mod I plan to make is to remove the rod lockers under the gunnels as I hate the limited access and the fact that they always seem to stay wet. I want to just have the gunnels supported by rod holders and leave it open.

Please feel free to offering suggestions or comments.

Mike

 

I forgot to mention that I will be using epoxy for all the repairs as well as 1700 bi-axial cloth. I also have plenty of coosa and nidacore on hand although I think I will be able to reuse all of the panels that I remove. This boat had some modifications made to it at some point making the cockpit area larger to accommodate the bay boat console and leaning post. I may rebuild the front deck to extend it back a bit as there is plenty of room. To be honest all the mods that were done to the boat were done very poorly and even thought I noticed some of it when I purchased the boat the extent of just how poor the work was is not very evident. I will be rebuilding all of the previous mods to correct errors or even revert back to more of a factory layout.