Sea Ray 280 Stringer system

I have a friend that inherited a 2004 Sea Ray 280 that has been stored outside on a trailer its whole life. In the last year the boat was stored off center with the starboard side lower than the port, with the bottom drain plug left in and the bilge held water for some time.
The transom moisture levels check ok but the engine stringer forward are high as well as the stringer around the fuel tank.
We have drilled and checked all areas in a grid and found some darker looking wood on the lower stringer but rotten wood on the starboard stringer around the fuel tank.
The boat has been completely disassembled including the fuel tank. The stringer glass around the tank was removed and proved the wood was bad on the corner with the remaining wood dark around the staples….Sea Rays way of laminating I guess…. and wet so it has been removed.
The plan……
Remove and replace the fuel area stringer with ply and vinylester
Remove the engine stringer cap and replace the wood with NidaBond…We know that Sea Ray uses some sort of plastic composite in the engine stringer but we are not sure how much and where at this point and really wanted to keep the original glass.
Remove the small connecting section between the engine stringer and fuel area stringer and fill with NidaBond or wood and vinylester
Re apply gel coat…..since we already have it
The question…?
Will vinylester bond to the original cured vinylester glass that Sea Ray Used?..........worried that I may need to use epoxy?
Should we take a different approach?
Thanks Guys!!

 

Too serious a problem to use questionable materials. Use epoxy and careful attention to detail.

 

why would the VE not bond properly?

 

The ve resin will bond ok just dosent stick to wood that great !! make sure all bonding surfaces are ground and scuffed 100% back to clean glass surface and the stringer glass rebonding goes out onto the hull 150 mm !!Yes its is more than before but the hull would have been polyester and you need all the bonding strength you can get !!.
What glass you going to use ??
Double bias with chopped strand matt is about the best or a triaxle with chopped strand matt and make sure all strands run up and over the stringers !!!! Need to make its better than it was !!!
Epoxy is ok but once you start with epoxy you must always use epoxy for ever more !!and poly and VE or gel coats dont stick to well over the top of any epoxy's

 

Sea Ray used VE. I had planned to use 3 layers of Stitched Bonded Double Bias ±45 with chopped mat?

 

Just to make things a little stronger and easyer to laminate take the glass 150 mm along the hull up the stringer to the top and over and stop it !! do the same from the other side and up and over the top to the other side so each time the top of the stringer gets a double up of glass . This is very beneficial and gives better strength when eventually the wood lets go sometime in the future . so if you do 2 layers of you double bias the top actually gets 4 layers on the very top Its also easyer to do one side at a time and makes a better job . we are doing the same thing on a 90 foot boat and it has 6 stringers in the bottom and 4 on the topsides they will be done using the same method but will have 5 layers of 100mm wide 900 gram unidirectional along the top the totall length the another 2 double bias so the very top ends up with 9 layers of glass in total ,done in 3 hits so the resin does not over heat and cook everything !!!. .

 

Update, It took months to decide which boat to purchase and at this point I can say " I could build a better boat than these procuction boats".. hours of forums on who had the best boats and decided on Sea Ray because of the so called " Fit and finish".......what a joke.......stringers stapled together, glass so thin on the inner stringer at the fuel area I can see thru it.... hope you do not have to remove the fuel tank on one of these!!!! ton of voids in the glass, water traped because of the drain access, bedding PL that is not even under the ply, ply not sealed, miss drilled holes under the rub rail and not sealed!!!!!!!!!! No way to get water that gets in around the shower sum out....and it will happenn!!!got to be a better way

 

With the market the way it is, you'd have been better off buying one in good condition than one that's been "ridden hard and put up wet."

Could you build a better boat? Is money an object?

Sea Rays are built better than many production boats. Lots on the water still after 30 years. As you've observed however, production boats are made to sell at a price and the concern with most production boats isn't how it will hold up with 20 years of abuse but how it will sell this model year. You have to pick very carefully buying used.

 

If its what you like and want and have the time . strip it apart and do a complete rebuild how it should be . you will never recover your costs but the pleasure of achievment is well worth the effort . to get waht you want !!

Like restoring a vintage car its the pride and pleasure factor and the feeling of pride at having do a good job !!

 

A friend has a 94' Sunseeker..in helping him track a minor electrical glitch for fun,I saw things hidden away...way underneath.....that I thought were questionable.

But as said before,things are built to a price point-if everyone wants everything done to very high standards everywhere etc etc etc- would it still sell if it was priced $50k more?

But-at the end of the day-it was left out left out with water in the bilge.

BTW I notice you are in N. Carolina..I was there once and it was well below freezing.
Water in the bilge in freezing temperatures... who knows what else was screwed up.

Have seen stringers pushed over, cracked and split enough to let water in,and stress cracks in the transom of a runabout.

 

Just finished removing the star board engine stringer along with the fuel area stringer on this 280 and needed some advice. The boat is on the trailer with the bunks under the outer stringers and the trailer is blocked on stands. We have constructed cradles under the two inner stringers systems from the transom thru the mid-section of the boat. Would it now be wise to go ahead and remove port side as well or do I need to replace one at the time. If I need to replace one at the time, can I go ahead and bed the stringers with epoxy bedding and then remove the port side and glass them all in one shot? The other question is, can I remove the old stringer glass back to the hull so I can remove this "bondo" bedding to make it easier to remove........right now I have a 1 or 2 inch lip. Also do I need to keep this thread or create a new one under restoration? Thanks