Dinghy Repairs - New Poster

Hello. I'm new to the forum. My name is Jim and I just inherited an 8' pram(?) from a friend. By the pictures you can see that it needs a bit of work. The left side of the transom is rather rotted with a hole big enough to stick a baseball bat through. The rot has extended to the sidewall about two to three inches forward. The damage covers an area of about 12" x 12". The rest of the boat needs the seams taped with FRP and the bottom of the hull needs to be glassed. I'm wondering if it's worth restoring, as I don't want to put a lot of money into it.
I do woodworking as a hobby and feel that I can accomplish the repairs. I believe that I will reproduce and install a new transom and use a butt joint with an overlapping ply skin covered on both sides with glass to repair the sidewall. If there is a better way, please let me know.
If anyone has a rough idea as to how much epoxy it will take to do the seams and cover the bottom, please let me know as I will consider all estimates. Thanks

 

Might be better to make the boat a few inches shorter and install the new transom where the wood is still sound. I believe you if you say the rest of the boat is sound. If you had more issues, I'd say the boat isn't worth it. I'm considering your experience fixing it as having value by itself.
Do you see what I mean? Just saw the end of the boat off and put in a new ply transom.

Alan

 

Might be better to make the boat a few inches shorter and install the new transom where the wood is still sound. I believe you if you say the rest of the boat is sound. If you had more issues, I'd say the boat isn't worth it. I'm considering your experience fixing it as having value by itself.
Do you see what I mean? Just saw the end of the boat off and put in a new ply transom.

Alan

Thanks for answering so quickly, Alan. I do see what you mean. The thought of taking a few inches off the boat did cross my mind, but I dismissed it as being too extreme. After hearing you suggest it, though, it seems like it might be the best solution and result in the cleanest, strongest repair. My background is in aviation, so naturally I think in terms of bringing the craft back to it's original condition (no lopping off ends with airplanes!) It is just an old boat now, isn't it? It's not going flying anytime soon so I think I'll just make it a few inches shorter and be done with it. Thanks for the input. Jim

 

Don't worry about chopping off transoms mate, my first one was a 24 ft Primaat by Van De Stadt, the transom was rotten ply, removed the section with only loosing a few inches, the end result was a very cheap boat that i kept for 4 years.....anything else would have cost a lot of time and money.

 

Rent the movie "Flight of the Phoenix" while you're at it!

A.

 

There centainly was a lot of chopping off and patching up in that movie. I liked the original version better, though. The remake just didn't doesn't do it for me.