What do we do with a boat that won't float?

[Samantha ann]

Thank you Skipr John! Yes Samantha Ann is my boat's name! Not the first time that's happened!

I would like to see the damage to the boat, have you or are you relying in what you have been told? You mentioned hurricane damage and a hard grounding could you tells us more please? We haven't had a hurricane here since Hugo years ago. Can you give us some history on this boat. You have me going hummmm!

[hlev00]

What a disappointment. I'm sorry to say that I don't have any suggestions, just wishes of success in finding your way out of this.

[snort]

Rudolph - The Island of Misfit Toys - YouTube

[sailpower]

Originally Posted by John A

The main problem is that boats don't last forever! At some point insurance companies will no longer insure them and marinas won't allow uninsured boats in their marinas.

In the US the IRS has stopped the donate for cash value scam of years ago. I donated my boat to a licensed IRS approved charity in Florida after a qualified appraiser donated his time to appraise the boat and assign a marketable value to it. A lawyer donated his time to draw-up the legal documents and complete the IRS forms used when I filed taxes. The charity is required. by law, to attempt to sale the boat at the appraised value for THREE years before parting it out or chopping it up.

The donation laws were taking a beating and the IRS tightened them up.

Now if the donee disposes of the asset prior to three years the IRS revalues the donation at that actual sales price and the original deduction is modified to reflect that.

After three years there is no revalue.

There are still reputable donation companies that will accept the donation and then sell it via a lease purchase which satisfies the IRS as the ownership doesn’t change hands until after the three year lease term.

Generally those companies hire their own surveyor at their expense to arrive at value which often comes out above what you might actually be able to sell it for after applying the IRS’s own guidelines.

In this case given what has been stated, I don’t see a donation company wanting to get involved.

[Zach]

This guy might be able to help... Post is from 2010, but it talks about re-hulling a gulfstar.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post387293

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post442734


I honestly don't know, other than money... Why you couldn't have the hull peeled down where ever the delamination stops and then fiberglass back alternating layers of mat and roving, effectively just building another boat around your boat.

This isn't brain surgery, buts it is a lot of work... It is not uncharted engineering territory. The loads are there, but you can also work off a suggested laminate schedule in any number of trade publications, and pull in a laminate engineer to ease your mind. Naval architects aren't laminate engineers, nor are most surveyors... nor are most boat builders which is why these problems arise. There is an element of cut and try, where a 1/4 inch is to thin for a bayliner ski boat, unless its a Ultra Light Displacement Olson on its way to hawaii. Some boats (Pacemakers) have 1 inch thick bottoms for the sake of having 1 inch thick bottoms and having a heavy smooth ride.

In the days of yore, we'd look at Skenes book of Yacht Design to figure what was field tested to use in a boat our size. Nowadays we can lean on David Gerr's books to guide us. You can call up VectorPly or 3A Composites and get something engineered, with load paths and overlap distances.

Polyester would be fine, and woven roving and stitch mat would make the job fairly mundane or at least less Messy.

Most of the cost would be in fairing it out. If your expectations were not yacht like reflection and an eggshell flat paint then it wouldn't have to spend the months fairing it.

Your best bet would be to get in touch with a custom boat yard like Merrit down in Florida that does big, custom, fiberglass boats and see if they would be interested... Merritt's Boats and Engine Works - About Us
Merritt's Boats and Engine Works - About Us their 86...

Another that could handle you would be thunderbolt in georgia:
Thunderbolt Marine Inc

Other than that, its a rough mix of finding the right yard that knows what to do... that also has the space to do it, and is willing to take it on in polyester. Its not "thinking" work other than getting it blocked solid and building a cradle so she holds her shape.. Its the kind of work that has a high turn over for your labor! Everyday you basically throw away your clothes.

Smaller yards have a hard time with that size job because they have to turn away jobs while you use their labor, and have a hard time bidding the time it will take because its a bigger job than they normally bid... They come in low, and have to feed their workers, and the price goes up. That is why the smaller yards turn you away, as they have to wrestle with their conscience of a walk off for 1 big job worth the pay of 10 other ones.

It takes 4 guys at the least to do the job the old fashioned way with a wet out bench, a roll of PVC pipe and some weights to hang the fiberglass cloth over the side and a whole lot of paint buckets and rollers/roller frames.

If the laminate isn't porous, a more modern shop could do a vacuum infusion over the hull and reduce some of the labor. The Boat Smith Guys down in Florida might have some advice on labor in SC and will know how to do the job as they build in polyester. There isn't much different between building a custom 50 foot hull from scratch, from the work you need done. BoatSmith

Whatever the case, bid the job as close to fixed cost as you can get it. Find your marine surveyor to broker the job and verify that everything goes smoothly... If the guys your surveyor take you to make the short hairs curl up on the back of your neck, fire your surveyor and don't take your boat there. Find another surveyor until you are certain you aren't a 60 minutes story, and then go and ask to see the boats that have been built/repaired and meet/talk to the owners without the yard guys there. The folks with bottomless pockets can say "They are expensive but I get absolutely what I want..." The same yard can generate a horror story of evaporated life savings, from those with lesser means... You need to talk to enough customers to hear both sides.

Most of these yards you should be able to buy the labor at $20 or so an hour, and $40 for a spray hand for paint if you do your horse trading right... The guys doing this type of work aren't making close to that, and this is a big enough job that the yard can keep the lights on and people around. We are in a pretty decent recession... Quite a few big motor yacht and sport fishing guys are opening up to work on trawlers and sailboats just to keep the lights on.

If you have to, flat bed truck the boat to somewhere "Safe" the transport and crane fees are the cheapest money you will spend. These sorts of jobs can spiral into a blank check. Don't let it... There should be a fixed cost to peel it, and everything else is per pound weights for resin and cloth. Labor and sanding discs are on the boat yard, but you yourself and surveyor can get fairly close once you know what laminate schedule you want going back onto the boat.

The labor should be around a month to peel it and assess the damage and generate a game plan. This should involve multiple bids for materials. Eastern Burlap out of Virginia deserves a call. 4 guys should take about a month to get it back structurally sound. IF the guys are good, then 2 months to get it fair... If they aren't, then 6 months and a whole boat load of fillers and primers to get it painted. In fairing, 4 good guys do the work of 4 good guys. If the work is bad, then 4 guys work a lot and 1 guy fixes and finishes it.

I would try to get the job re-gelcoated. Gel coat makes good high build primer, Good vinylester Gelcoat keeps blisters from happening.

The rest of this is a crash course, mostly having to do with fairing. You won't get what you put back into it out. You won't get what you bought it for back out if the boat looks like its had major surgery and was put back together by hacks.

I would mandate that Ashland or CCP resins and vinylester gelcoats, with the outermost layer being ounce and a half mat, in vinylester before the gel coat goes on. That is the blister barrier... and in the scale of the job would be within a few hundred dollars. I would have it faired with a pre-made fairing compound. Adtech makes some good polyester products, as well as ATC Polyfair. You'll probably go through 15 gallons to get it smooth... If your yard hand mixes Qcells, microballons or the like, or worse yet cabosil then you are liable to spend the next millenia in the fairing stage. Its cheap on materials, but hard on labor as the densities are different every mix. You end up with soft material beside hard material, that is all softer than the fiberglass it is supposed to bury. Bury meaning, that the fiberglass is hidden under the fairing filler until the boat turns one solid color.

They should make templates and gauges of the hull now, scribed to fit perfectly on 12 inch centers. Those templates should be set against the hull when the time comes to start fairing, and packed up full of goo until a perfect vertical stripe is set in place. The stripe should be painted, and then battens should be wrapped around the hull and filler applied using the vertical stripes as a guide. The hull should be hand sanded with foot long boards until the paint is taken off the vertical stripes, and the battens should fit perfectly to the surface with no air space visible. Then spray high build primer repeatedly until you get the desired finish...

The alternate method is to start with the battens and pull the hull, but this involves chasing your tail.

Another method is to apply putty everywhere and sand everywhere, forever. If they pick up a tube of 3M Acryl White, take the boat away from them before the gelcoat goes on.

There are boat painters, and boat fairers. Lots of people can take a fair boat and paint it... much fewer people can take a boat that looks like a gravel parking lot and make it slick like a bowling ball.

If you go epoxy and biaxial glass, then hold your hat... Quite a few more boat yards would be proficient but your materials bill is going to be extreme, the labor will go up as well because of the slower application and curing time. Polyester you can get two or more layers on in a day where epoxy you get one... Polyester you can sand and fill twice an hour during the fairing stage, epoxy you get to apply once a day.

If you chose to awlgrip it, fair it in polyester and gelcoat it... Paint it black with cheap paint and let it sit in the sun making sure to turn it so both sides get the same amount of sun for a year. That will post cure the fillers, and fiberglass so that you don't pay for an awlgrip job that looks quite wavy and different next year.

Zach

[Richard5]

[QUOTE=boatpoker;1365949]

Originally Posted by Phoenixsea

Curious, what you mean by "rotten" since fiberglass does not rot.

Au contraire. I guess nails don't get sick either but there is nail sick wood. That phrase is about wood that has so suffered under a multitude of mechanical fasteners as to have lost it's structural component.

So to is it with 'glass. FG can certainly succumb to rot but the rot is not like, say the mold which infects cotton fabric too long at the bottom of the laundry bin. FG can be so rotted that it actually wicks moisture which further continues the damage to structure.

[resilientg]

If it was my boat and i had a peice of land, then the answers simple, make it a bunker.

Strip all the boat hardware, engine and motor, as this can all be sold.

Truck the hull to my land, hire an excavator to dig a hole and bury it either half in half out or totally underground.

Makes for a great bunker / cyclone shelter / extra accommodation at your home.

Matthew

[Dulcesuenos]

Originally Posted by resilientg

If it was my boat and i had a peice of land, then the answers simple, make it a bunker.

Strip all the boat hardware, engine and motor, as this can all be sold.

Truck the hull to my land, hire an excavator to dig a hole and bury it either half in half out or totally underground.

Makes for a great bunker / cyclone shelter / extra accommodation at your home.

Matthew

Or you could turn it into a swimming pool?

[jeanathon]

I was at a salvage yard in Ga. (which was a joke), but the kid showing me around mentioned a guy was coming down from up north (Ct. maybe) to chip and recycle the hulls. Anyone know of fiberglass recyclers?

[rw58ph]

The biggest problem might be having the cash/credit to have the hull fixed? However, my gut feeling is it would be better in the long run to fix the boat so at least it floats and can be moored at a dock. Than any additional interior work can be done over time. That is what we did with the Eagle as we did a lot of up dating/remodeling repairing a little at a time over 3 years as mondy and time allowed.

[JPA Cate]

I think some of you may be underestimating the seriousness of the fiberglass damage. The fact that the insurance company stipulated having a naval architect supervise the nature of the repairs, layup, and so forth indicates to me that this is a lot more extensive damage than a small hole to put a lot of glass on the outside.

When the keel struck, it seems likely to me (pure speculation here, but based on experience of a keel to hull injury on one of our boats), that some of the fiberglass was actually crushed. From the stipulation that much of the interior ought to be removed to effect the repair, I think there may be structural damage in the floors and/or stringers that will need to be addressed. It could probably be fixed, expensively, but then there's so many other issues to address.....

On our boat, with a small leak, a patch roughly 4 ft. in diameter was needed, with one new floor added, and lots of glass and resin.

I am not saying it is irreparable, and I understand the OP's concern: In his shoes, I'd sure want to get something out of it, but it's going to be very difficult for him to get enough out to pay for the storage.

If it can't be sold "as is, where, is", find out who the county's salvor/wrecker is when there are marine messes to clean up. Perhaps you can have them remove the detritus, for the benefit of the goodies, and maybe even work in a share for you. I am sorry to sound so discouraging, but this one sounds really difficult to me to deal with from ~3200 miles away.

Maybe, somebody'll turn up who'll take it off your hands. Good luck with it.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Phoenixsea

The insurance company sent their surveyor down to review the damage from the flooding. He said that there was evidence that the damage happened over a period of time. So they declined coverage...

Which suggests the owner's "failure to mitigate".
There is generally a duty to mitigate damages, and perform necessary repairs as quickly as possible.

[rw58ph]

A fiber glass expert recommend that the yard not fix with out a naval architecture. So the insurance company has NOT required. I would also question who is the FG expert? To me the big question would be, will the yard do a partial repair to at least get the boat back in the water to stop incurring costs?

The floor and interior can be done with the boat in the water at the slip. I have helped several boaters lift and re support floorings, and rebuild bulk heads. Flooring and bulk heads can be done with the boat in the water over time.

Also its very difficult to get a navel engineer out to inspect a hull with out all sorts of red tape to cover their behind.

I have had several things done that supposedly a naval engineer should have approved. Each time I have had the yard do, had the hull surveyed and notified the insurance company, but NO Naval engineer.

[mr-canada]

oddball suggestion here

Call a boat tower. Get a quote on getting the boat out of the yard plus a per km charge.

Post an ad for the whole boat as is and call anyone you know with an excess of land (farmer, barn, commercial zoned land, etc.) See if they will let you set it up there on stilts/blocks.

If you can get the boat to the place where you can store it for free, you may rethink your repair problem as you will have unlimited time. You can also see if someone wants to buy the boat as is and they can see the bottom and topsides.

If you're completely demoralized (and I wouldn't blame you given your tale) call a boat broker after stripping off all of the navionics and electronics (but leave the essentials like winches) and tell them they can have it for free. They know the people who can make the boat sail again and are willing to take the risk in a distressed case.

Sorry to hear of your story. Sounds friggin awful

[Phoenixsea]

Thanks for all the comments. I never imagined that so many would respond. Due to these comments we are considering the option of moving the boat to someplace that we can work on it ourselves, then take the time to develop the knowledge and skills to make this boat float again. The name of the boat is not Phoenixsea but it might be if we get it back in the water. We hope to see you all in the next anchorage. (Samantha Ann - we will let you know if we decide to sell the boat and move on.)