1983 Trophy Transom Replacement- YES WORMS!!!

[83Trophy]

I have tackled alot of small fiberglass projects in the past but nothing of this size. I decided to cut the rear skin off and go from the outside in- it seemed to be less work than cutting the cap.

Here was the sequence of events for the transom:

-cut the skin (fell right off)
-clean out the worms (circled in pic's)
-dig out the old wood (easy as most came out by hand)
-smooth out inner fiberglass lining
-glassed in another laying of mat on the inner liner
-first layer of marine ply installed (glass/cabosil mix in ALL corners)
-second layer of marine ply installed (glass/cabosil mix in ALL corners)
-third layer of 1/4' ply installed (glass/cabosil mix in ALL corners)
-transom skin glassed back in place
-knife-edged the entire seam including top cap to transom
-using 1808 and 1 1/2 oz matting glassed the transom back together
-faired entire transom
-drilled all respective holes
-transom well drains and garboard plug sleeved with pvc tubing
-transom primed and painted with Interlux paint
-thru hulls replaced with new stainless W/flappers
-new Lenco 12x18 Trim Tabs installed
-new swim platform added

Needless to say the transom is built far better than when it left the factory, and looks better too!!! NOTE: THE FLOOR DRAIN TRANSOM SCUPPERS ARE CLOSE TO 5 INCHES ABOVE THE WATERLINE, THE TRANSOM DRAINS ARE ABOUT 3 INCHES ABOVE, WITH 100 GALLONS OF GAS!

Check the pic's...

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[NOTHING ELSE MATTERS]

I really like the work you did, as i said before i did the same thing on my little Grady.

 

[BobP]

83 trophy, nice work, and you saved yourself a bootle. Plenty of glass, 1808 is superior selection..

What you saved can run the boat on gas for at least a full season @ $0.00/gal.

I'm surprised the boat is siting higher with the added glass weight, when you cut the skin, did water run out?

 

[83Trophy]

There was a little bit of water that drained from the very bottom, but that was all. However, when I say I could take out the wood by hand I meant I literally ran my hand over the wood and could make a "snowball"- that's how bad it was. I also replaced the starboard bulkhead floor support and was able to see the foam...very limited moisture there.

To be honest the rear scuppers weren't underwater prior to me doing the transom- they were slightly higher!

 

[BobP]

I hope the members are reading this, I recall a member saying he was told the older transoms get a little wet but are ok.

Seeing is believing. I bet you could shop vac the wood out of there.

Now, lets get the twins fired up and start getting fish blood all over the cockpit!

 

[TBone]

WOW! Nice work! 8) 8) 8)

How long did it take you to do the transom start to finish?

 

[drewmorton]

Great job. I found a few strange species of bugs when I ripped into my transom too. A few bugs were even making the waterlogged foam home.

Lets see some more pictures. Nice clean work.

 

[83Trophy]

Thanks for the compliments guys!

T-bone...the large contributing factor why it took me three years to complete was that I had 2 children during the restoration. The transom took me a while because I did bits and pieces here and there when time permitted. But I would say that with two people who somewhat know what they are doing working 8 hour days on the weekend within a month you could be done start to finish, and that is overestimating.

 

[cdwood]

Looks pretty good, did you finish with paint or gelcoat?

 

[83Trophy]

CD- All of the paint I used on the boat was Interlux.

 

[cdwood]

How does that hold up compared to gelcoat?

 

[83Trophy]

CD- I spoke to Interlux and they said with proper prep and using two coats of the respective primer it will last a long time. I have already used a 3000 psi powerwasher directly on it and nothing happened at all. I applied two coats of primer and 3 coats of paint with sanding (320grit) in between. I did not wetsand as I was rushing to get the boat in this season...but if I have time I may do it in the spring to get a factory finish. My paintwork looks as good as my buddies who used gelcoat.

I also used Interlux's non skid additive and that worked awesome too!

 

[25 Trophy pro]

The boat looks great! Just starting the same progect on my 85.i was wondering on how the 150's push her. Mine has the origanal pair of 200 Mercs,was thinking off putting on 99 150 opti's just wondering on how yours ran Thanks

 

[fishingFINattic]

WoW!
THanks for sharing!
Tim

 

[83Trophy]

Thanks for the compliments.

25 trophy pro- I made a post in the general discussion listing all of my speed numbers, you can find it here:

http://www.greatgrady.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8712

With some different props, rpm's, and the right conditions I don't see why mid to high 40's is out of the question.

If you need any help don't hesitate to ask...516.606.9641 - Bob

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[25 Trophy pro]

Bob,

Thanks for the info that just made my day.I going out to my shop and get them ready. I'll get you some #'s once she is in the water.

 

[CJBROWN]

Very nice work.
How did you tie the new transom into the stringers, gunnwales, rest of the transom, etc? Did you find good wood to scarf into?
Did you do any interior framing/beefing up?
How did you fasten the old fiberglass of the transom to the new wood?

I'm sorry if you covered some of these details, I may have overlooked them.

Thanks!

 

[choogenboom]

Beautiful work! Questions - did you ever detemine what the point of ingress was for the water? Did you consider any of the new non-wood materials instead of the marine plywood?

I wish I could get the executives at Boston Whaler to look at these pictures.

I bought a new 2006 Boston Whaler Ventura 185 that was delivered to me with the transom wood at 100% fiber saturation. The problem was that they had 14 holes in the rub rail that were uncaulked which let in both rain and sea water. They compounded the problem by caulking the lower edge of the rub rail thereby creating a wonderful gutter system directing all water from the topside into the transom wood. Without going into details Whaler customer service behaved very very badly refusing to ackowledge that 100% fiber saturation of the transom wood was a serious problem. After many months of their bad behavior they finally agreed to do the right thing and they replaced the boat with a new, fresh from the factory, 2008 boat.

I foolishly thought they would not make the same mistake twice and launched the replacement boat without inspecting for the same defect. I started to suspect the replacement had a problem when the bilge pump would run every morning I stepped on the boat and it was pumping out salt water. The replacement boat leaked worse than the original one. It had the same defects as the old boat with 17 uncaulked holes in the rub rail. Worse yet it had a through and through leak below the waterline at one of the lower engine mounting holes - about a quart a day. Needless to say Whaler is not as thorough as you are and did not line the transom thru-holes with PVC pipe so the transom plywood got wet through that leak as well.

Best I can tell Whaler uses self drilling screws to secure the rub rail to the gunwale. The drill tip on the screws is about 1/4" long and if the gunwale is thicker than 1/4" then the screws threads try to engage before the hole is fully drilled. That results in the screw threads tearing up the hole and the screw not holding. So they try again a half inch away. In one case they made 3 holes before they finally got the screw to hold. What Whaler should do is obvious - drill a proper hole with a regular drill bit and then use a conventional screw. One hole, one screw, no leaks. Or they should at least have caulked the bad holes.

Given I have two data points of brand new hulls, a 2006 model and a 2008 model, and given on the 2nd boat they should have been making their best effort to deliver me a leak free boat, its fair to assume that this is a manufacturing defect on ALL of their newer hulls. I warned Whaler they are due for a rash of transom rot but they have yet to acknowledge to me that they have a problem. Rather than do the right thing and issue a recall of all hulls to try to arrest the damage they are burying their heads in the sand.

There is alot more to this story to tell (along with pictures and movies) and if someone out there cares to hear it I will put pen to paper and tell the whole unpleasant tale. Note that my business is designing and selling wireless wood moisture meters which makes this topic right in my wheelhouse. If anyone needs advice on how to tell if transom wood is wet or dry let me know. Measuring transom wood moisture can be done non-destructively and is not as hard or expensive as you might think.

My apologies for going somewhat off topic but seeing the pictures of your transom replacement brought back to me the fight I had with Boston Whaler trying to get them to understand why one might not want to accept a brand new boat (two brand new boats!) with saturated wood in the transom. I am guessing I would not have a hard time getting you to understand!

Again - beautiful work on your transom replacement!

 

[83Trophy]

Choogen- there were two points of entry for water. The first was the seam where the top cap met the hull in the outboard well. GW's answer for the seam was a piece of angle aluminum that worked...well look at the pic's. The second areas were the thru hulls and garboard plug. Like I said it was real easy getting the old core out!

CJ- thanks for the compliments. Once the old core was out I glassed in a layer of 1708 to the existing inner skin to beef that up a bit and tied it into the hull sides. (Keep in mind when you do this from the outside the inner skin from the factory should be intact.)

Prior to installing the first layer of wood the corners were all filled with a glass/cabosil mix with peanut butter consistency. The same mix was then applied to the wood with a 1/4" trowel and installed. This gives a great bond to both the inner layer and hullsides and bottom (which was not done from the factory). The same process was repeated for the second and third layer of wood. Each layer was screwed together until the glass dried, then each screw was removed and filled with a glass/cabosil mix.

The original layer of fiberglass which was cut off was filled of all voids, in which there were many. Once that was complete the same mix was applied and the old skin was screwed to the new wood, once dried the screws removed and glassed over.

The actual process itself is not hard at all...just make sure on a transom this size you have a buddy helping. I used all West Systems epoxy with slow hardener.

On my boat the stringers were tabbed in, another poor design in my eyes. I did glass them fully to the hull, along with replacing the starboard side floor bulkheads.

Don't hesitate with any other questions...Bob

 

[CJBROWN]

Bob, that's fantastic work. I can see you've done a better job patching than the factory did building. Seems to be typical these days. I just had to ask as I had visions of a backyard builder just slapping some plywood in there and re-glassing. Obviously, that's just not the case. I'm impressed that you removed all the screws and filled. Guess it beats having the next layer run into the screws below. I can understand doing that on the outer skin for sure, just not the core.

If the finished outer surface is epoxy then paint should be fine for a finish coat. A good epoxy paint or two-part urethane, if you can get it to match, would give a very long life as a finish over West System. That stuff is fantastic, isn't it?.

The whaler story is, well, another story. So sorry to hear that. And on a brand most have great belief in it's integrity. Unbelievable.