Need help on skiff project

Hello all! My name is Chris and I've been browsing the forum for a while but this is my first official post. Anyways i recently acquired an unfinished skiff project. Not sure what type of hull it is. The deck its in the boat and seams are glassed, in the middle of the deck there is a fiberglass tube going strait through the bottom of the hull and two pvc pipes going to the back that i assume are for wiring and controls because they come out in stern on both side just below the deck. The console i have has a cooler/livewell on the front of it and i think the fiberglass tube goes in the cooler/livewell for drainage? Any way as of now my biggest question before i glass the whole deck in is do i need to put a drain hole in the transom?

 

You always want to put a drain at the transom, BUT NOT NOW. do all your work and modifications and repairs and engine mounting first. If you are going to cover this area do that last after you put in a drain or two. I like this one http://www.iboats.com/One-Way-Safet...5167044--session_id.276507842--view_id.237497

 

Thanks for the quick reply! That seems like a great plug! When you say put a drain or two do you mean in the deck?

 

The hull type you have is a "Garvey" CD and welcome to the forum.

You look to have boxed in the center portion of the lower transom area. You'll want a drain (in) there as well as a drain in each of the small wells on either side. Conversely, you could make the two side wells drain to a centrally located drain that kills 3 birds with a single drain. There are a number of ways you could approach the issue, but getting the water out of all the compartments is very important. The wells could be pumped out, saving below the LWL drains, for example, which is the way I do it for those wells.

I disagree with Stan on the use of those one way valves. They tend to clog with debris easily. A simple drain tube,


in brass,


or plastic (which doesn't last very long),

bonded in place will work fine, though you do need to remember to install and remove the plug when appropriate.

 

PAR thanks for the welcome and the response! I wanted to close those wells in making them compartments similar to the jones brothers bateau light tackle edition. I wanted to make one side for my batteries and the other for extra storage i guess. Would it be safe to put drain tubes on the inside of those storage areas draining into the hull below the deck then have that drain out the hull through the transom? Would i need to remove the deck to install drain tubes or could i simply drill through and pop the drain tube in and seal it up? Let me know if you need to see some different pictures from different povs to better answer my questions!! Thanks again

 

Yep, you can just drill through the well sides, at the bottom and let it drain into the hull, to a centerline transom drain. I would remove the cockpit sole, so I could insure the path to the transom drain is clean and well sealed. You don't need tubing or anything, just well sealed holes and a couple of plug when in use.

 

Hey par it's been a while since I've posted but since my last post the skiff has been sitting out in the weather and the transom cap was not glassed or sealed so the wood is pulling apart. Do you think it will be best to completely cut the hole transom and rebuild or try and cut out as much of the soaked wood as possible and fill it in???

 

The fact of the boat sitting out in the weather for more than a year is one reason to put bilge drains in first, even if temporary.

It looks like the transom has got to go.

 

Thanks Sam. Should I cut the whole transom off or should I try and leave the outside layer of fiberglass. A lot of the transom rebuilds I'm seeing leave the outer skin in tact.

 

If I was to replace the transom, I would leave the outside layer since you have easy access to do repairs and then there are no possibilities of the sides spreading out. You might have to remove a little of the deck for access.

Then again, depending on what you're going to do with the boat and what you want it to look like (Is it a rough work boat? How much HP?), and how bad the ply condition actually is, you could maybe cap it and get by for awhile and replace it later.

 

Summer time fishing and pleasure winter time oyster and more fishing. I just assessed the wood and it's pretty bad. I was thinking 40hp minimum 70 max. I'll try my best to get the bad wood out without messing to much up to much lol any suggested tools? Let me know if there's a picture I can take to help you help me better lol

 

Search on the forum for 'seacast' and then scroll down, there are lots of threads about transom repair.

At the bottom of each thread are 'similar threads' that direct you to other threads on transom repair.