Haines V15 rebuild

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

#2 son came for a visit yesterday morning, so I enlisted him to help me turn the boat over.
I had an idea to use an engine stand bolted to the transom and the engine crane somehow attached to the bow-eye to flip it myself, but when opportunity knocks...
It took us probably 5 minutes (if that) to get it over.

Set it up level, with the straight edge placed on chine extensions, and reading off the digital level:
IMG_3929(1).jpg

1st job was to prepare the transom and end of the hull to properly glass the outer skin of the transom to the hull:
IMG_3930(1).jpg
Thats just the beginning of the grinding. Enough was taken off to attach with 2 layers of Basalt and then fill to fair.

Next, I set up a speed board with 120 grit and sanded the entire hull, removing decades of crud and highlighting stress fractures.
When I could see them, I ground out the area in preparation for epoxy glassing, but only got 1/2 way before it got dark and this morning, I was too keen to do the plank, so I finished the sanding then got into the plank.
IMG_3935(1).jpg
But there's lots more stress fractures. Maybe tomorrow...

THEN, it was time to cut the keel off. This was quickly achieved with the diamond wheel on the grinder:
IMG_3931(1).jpg IMG_3932(1).jpg Told you those packers wouldn't stick. Came out a treat.

Then the hard part - grinding it fair in preparation for a plank.
I know I said no plank, but 'ol mate Cyril (ex outboard racer and Merc Guru), insisted on a 7" plank with a 20mm step:

Grinding:
IMG_3933(1).jpg

Planking:
IMG_3934(1).jpg

Levelling:
IMG_3937.jpg
The timber tabs up the length of the plank are glued top and bottom to hold the 1/2" marine ply for the plank dead level.
The idea is to then tape the ply so it won't stick, then back fill the gap with epoxy glue:
IMG_3939(1).jpg IMG_3940(1).jpg

I left it to dry overnight, and I'll have a play with it tomorrow.

More soon.

[giddyup58]

Got a little bit done today, given that it was all epoxy work, which when finished, stops all play until the next day.

The 1/2" ply plank was released, and all of the stress fractures were ground out for basalt/epoxy attention:
IMG_3942.jpg

The basalt weave and peel-ply were prepared:
IMG_3941.jpg

4 layers of basalt down the centreline, to reinstate the outer fiberglass skin from where I cut off the keel:
IMG_3943.jpg

Lastly, bassalt/epoxy on all the stress fractures under the hull:
IMG_3944.jpg

And that was it for the day.

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

The next day, I applied a double layer of Basalt Twill with epoxy resin to attach the outer skin of the new transom work to the rest of the hull:

IMG_3946.jpg

I taped up the underside of the plank and screwed it down onto a slurry of micro balloons and Aerosil, to fill in the low spots.

Let that sit overnight and the next day, driven by OCD, I again checked that the boat was dead level and that the plank was level in both planes (side to side and lengthwise). I found it was a couple of mm out here and there which was pretty easy to massage out. I made a nose piece for the bow end of the plank and got it and the plank glued down with epoxy, checking all the while that it was dead straight and level.

IMG_3949.jpg IMG_3950.jpg



IMG_3951.jpg

This morning, it had gone off nicely, so I final faired the bow section and routed and hand sanded a radius along the edges for the glass to follow.
IMG_3952.jpg

Then cut out the 3 laminates of Basalt and the peel ply, ground where necessary on the hull to het rid of newly set epoxy, acetone wiped everything down and glassed the plank on permanently:
IMG_3957.jpg IMG_3958.jpg

IMG_3959.jpg

Quite happy with the result.

Next on the list is to bog and fair all the hull repairs, paint the hull and turn her over again.
I can then address the repairs to the chines and prep and paint the topsides (bottom of chines to bottom of deck - the "sides" of the boat) and transom.

Then, more epoxy fun with glassing the entire deck and then getting it ready for paint.
But I have to decide whether to keep it as a run-about, a centre console, or add a wave-breaker

Plenty of time to decide.

The joys of restoring a 50+ year old boat.

[Noelm]

Why did you decide to build a "plank"? It seems like a lot of trouble for unknown benefit,

[giddyup58]

Why did you decide to build a "plank"? It seems like a lot of trouble for unknown benefit,

Every boat manufacturer ran away from keels in the late 60's. Keels, like "reverse chines", were a hold over from timber boat building days. Can't possibly be better that a smooth hull, right?

An old mate of mine, 30 years my senior and long passed now, a dedicated power boat racer and builder, impressed the importance of the plank to me.
He put a plank under an old 19' Mustang (wasn't that old then - late 80's), with a 150 straight 6 merc and he says he picked up 7kts. He was not prone to exaggeration...
'ol mate Cyril is all for them and argued in their favour.

I did one on the 1600SO, but I don't know if it was successful as I was never brave enough to give it full throttle.

On this one, I've often wondered if the keel could literally be sliced off and the hull rounded out, as I had problems with the 19C's keel interrupting smooth delivery onto the trailer. But it was too big to man handle upside down on my own in the driveway. This little V15 was the "goldylocks" boat. Just the right size. So, if I was going to remove the keel in any case, why not spend 2 days more and add a plank? Couldn't hurt, right?

It wasn't particularly difficult to do and was a bit of fun.
It didn't take long - less than a week to have it ready for bog, working whenever I felt like it, usually no more than 4 hrs a day - (I'm retired)
It may show performance improvements, but I could only know that if she pops up onto the plank, which will be iffy with only 90hp on the back.
If it doesn't pop, I have a 115 optimax I could put on to try, maybe...

So, in a nutshell, the answer would be, Because I was curious...

[ranmar850]

Curiosity is a good thing. I especially encourage it in others, so i can stand back and say later, "glad I didn't try that" I sometimes think, that, if I needed a title for my biography, it would be " Well, that didn't work."

But on a more serious, well, why not? The whole planing plank idea, IIRC, was to aid planing and reduce drag at lower speeds on the really deep--vee'd hulls which were all the rage back in the day.. Do Cruise Craft still use them? I seem to recall a thread in another forum about someone trying to fit a flush-mounted transducer in their planing plank on a Cruise Craft, after being warned about it. Seemed like a perfect place to fit it, but, the people who were warning him were correct, results were crap. Very disturbed water flow over the area.
So, yeah, go for it. If we all did exactly the same thing, all the time, we would just stagnate as a species.

[Noelm]

Lots of manufacturers tried it over the years, most scrapped the idea, my mate had a 21' Alison that had a flat "plank" keel......worst boat I have ever been in, but that might have just been his?

[ericcs]

A few people i know own Baysports which have a planing(concaved) plank, and they are all happy with their purchases. Be interested to see how different the concave v flat planks perform!

[Flex]

Heaps of boats run a plank, very big in america .. Americans call em "padded V "

nearly every racing hull has a plank. they are awesome if the boat is adequately powered. The problem is 9 out of 10 boats are underpowered and cant get the hull up on the plank. I believe a raised plank makes a boat easier to handle at speed and minimises chine walking. The boat gets up and runs on a nice flat surface and the edges of it help the boat release from the water. A stock deep V at high speeds is like running a boat on a knife edge and can be bit harder to handle at speeds if not balanced perfectly.

I think we will see alot more boats running planks going forward. especially raised planks due to the cost of fuel and distances people travel, a boat with a plank will be cheaper to run to the reef and back

You generally pick up approx 10% speed and alot better economy.
They dont really make a boat run any harsher in the rough. Generally you're out in 15k winds or less and a plank will benefit you more times than not and get you on the plane at lower speeds

I have a mate that runs a tx on his plank (gt51 thru hull). reads bottom at 60km/h easy and sidescans at 40km/h. I havent seen anyone get better performance from that tx than he does.

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

Slow going at the moment. As the boat is upside down, I have the opportunity to essentially blueprint the hull.

The new stringers went in so fair, that the hull was very straight and flat.

Bogging the plank and working on the entry:

IMG_3963(1).jpg Attachment 126856

Lots of long-boarding and refilling until I had it right:
IMG_4024(1).jpg IMG_4025(1).jpg IMG_4027(1).jpg

The transition from the stem to the plank took a bit of extra effort, but looks perfect in the end.
The old engineering adage "If it looks right, it probably is" applies:
IMG_4029(1).jpg IMG_4028(1).jpg

Good enough for the 1st coat of highbuild:
IMG_4033(1).jpg

Followed a couple days later by a good 240g wet sanding with speed boards
IMG_4042(1).jpg

Now ready for final highbuild and a 400 wet rub.
IMG_4044(1).jpg

Hoping to get the H/B on tomorrow, which means can be sanded on Monday, and maybe painted. Yay.

In the meantime, I have started on repainting the 90 Merc:
IMG_4046(1).jpg

'Ol mate Cyril is screaming for the bits so he can reassemble the motor.
We have given it a birthday and replaced everything that needed replacing, including engine mounts, water pump, various bolts, seals and gaskets.
Luckily, the compressions were perfect and the engine ran very sweetly.
I had no idea, but these late 90's Mercury 90hp 2 strokes are a comparatively large displacement (1.4 litres from memory) and a very robust motor.

The hull and plank fairing has taken quite a while, as it is absolutely critical to get it all dead straight and fair.

I'm pretty confident that it should be good enough for paint after the next highbuild.

I'll guess we'll find out soon enough.

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

The last high-build went well:
IMG_4053.jpg IMG_4054.jpg

Left it for a couple days to harden and knocked it all back with 400 wet, then on with 3 coats of Jotun:
IMG_4056.jpg IMG_4057(1).jpg

Left that for a couple of days to go off properly, and flipped it back over and set her on blocks again.

Epoxy glassed the outer reverse chines, where they were severely sun damaged:
IMG_4063.jpg IMG_4064.jpg

Next job will be to glass the rear deck on:
IMG_4067.jpg

After that, heaps to do:
Fair and highbuild sides of boat;
Epoxy glass all of the decks where the sun damaged gelcoat was removed;
Fit and glass (from the inside), the rest of the deck;
Fit and undercoat decks;
Fair and paint sides of hull and decks;
Fit up gunwhale rubber;

Plus about another 180 things.

But it's all good fun!

More soon...

[giddyup58]

Hi again.

Got a full day in today, but it didn't advance as far as I'd have liked...

1st job was to fully basalt fibre over the exposed top edge of the transom timber core, in poly.

When that was done, I poly and Basalt'd the inside attachment of the engine well and aft decks to the transom:
IMG_4072.jpg

Next, same treatment on the outside attachment of the same area:
IMG_4070.jpg IMG_4071.jpg

Then I had a look at the mess of a for'd deck.
All the gelcoat had been removed to facilitate repair of the micro cracks.
I know from experience that if the gelcoat is not completely removed and the bare original glass re-glassed,
the cracks will show through again in very short order.
I use epoxy for this step, as there is no need to use CSM and I can get away with a fairly light surfboard mat.

Final prep involved giving the front deck a going over with the grinder and a good wash down with acetone.
I then cut the 'glass to size and the peel-ply.
Squeegee an epoxy/cabosil glue mix onto the deck, add glass, wet out and add peel ply and wet out again.

A little difficult and frustrating, as it is a slightly complicated area with lots of ridges and curves and the glass didn't want to sit down properly.

But a bit of perseverance paid off:
IMG_4075.jpg IMG_4074.jpg

And that was it for the day.

If all goes well, I'd like to get the rest of the deck epoxied and perhaps get a start on internally glassing the hull to the deck.

We'll see what tomorrow brings...

[giddyup58]

Had a bit of a play today.

You may recall that I did not strip the gelcoat from the dashboard and well between the dash and the screen, as I was not sure how I was going to configure the boat.

There were always 3 options, given that the entire deck gelcoat was severely sunburnt and it's not a 5min fix.

1) Configure as a centre or side console - This is the least work and the least cash, as the majority of the sun affected areas will be disposed of and it's a lot easier to make new combings than to repair the sunburn. Centre/side console is easy enough to mold and lay up and seating is cheap and easy - cushion on an esky;

2) Fit a timber/glass wave breaker as I did on the V146R ($100 in materials as opposed to $1,200 for a new screen - just a bit more work...) and cut out the entire dashboard and replace with a much simpler and better looking custom molded dashboard. Seats would be optional, but I have a couple of beaut pedestal seats with lift up bolsters which would be perfect

3) Return the boat to stock, with the original windscreen and Haines Hunter convertible back to back seats...

I was on the Noosa river on the weekend and saw an early V15 in it's original state and really liked it.
I remember when I was a kid, my dad bought a Sportsmancraft V150 Concorde and fitted his ancient 75hp Evinrude Starfire electric shift outboard to it and we chased fish every weekend for years out of that little boat. We'd usually go out 3 up and I recall that the aft facing seats worked a treat for fishing...

So, I bit the bullet and quickly knocked up a seat base for 1 of the original HH "lounge" seats taking up space in the garage and rescued the (unusable) windscreen from the "pile" out back.

Quickly put them on the boat, and I was really happy with the look:
IMG_4077(1).jpg IMG_4079(1).jpg IMG_4080(1).jpg

Dropped the seat down to form a couch:
IMG_4081.jpg

Honestly guys, how Cool is that?

So the decision has been made. Original it shall be. I think this would make a great little bay/broadwater cruiser/fisher once finished with new upholstery and covers etc.

I spent a couple of hours grinding out the dashboard area and filling the holes that had been cut into the dash to house 2 way and am/fm radios.
There's lots of other holes and damage, but I should be able to get it looking pretty good.

More to come...

[Dignity]

Had a bit of a play today.

You may recall that I did not strip the gelcoat from the dashboard and well between the dash and the screen, as I was not sure how I was going to configure the boat.

There were always 3 options, given that the entire deck gelcoat was severely sunburnt and it's not a 5min fix.

1)

Oops, something went wrong,

[giddyup58]

Oops, something went wrong,

Note to self - don't press tab - it posts the script!