1970 Seafari I/O for sale

[cSickNick]

Nick, what do you mean if she holds together, having problems?

Hey Nestor,

I goes back to the cabin door issue i posted awhile ago. I have some thoughts, but will not start for another month or two.

Basically i think the whole cap/door frame needs to be beefed up and glassed to the sole floor and sides inside & out. It needs to be bonded as one, especially with any hardtop. The door frame area is the week link on these model boats. There is not enough "meat" around the square door frame top corners and thats where she is flexing.

But maybe Potter did not plan on us abusing them offshore ??



- Nick

Keep us posted especially if you head to a 23 Scepter ....

[nestorpr]

I see, maybe Potter didn't! Besides, you do have a lot of weight with the hardtop and such, something I didn't have and maybe that's why I didn't experience those issues. Good luck with the project and I hope it comes out great, Seafaris still rule!!

[oldbluesplayer]

Nestor / Nick -

Nestor, Congrats on the sale !! I hope the right boat comes along for you - have to admit, either a 23 sceptre or 25 seafari would be real nice - as long as you got the rig to tow them - the sceptre probably isn't tooooo much worse than the seafari ?!?

Nick - did you ever look in the forward locker ? I remember that discussion we had last fall about door frames, I felt my boat was starting to loosen up, and discovered, in the forward well, were the cockpit liner was supposed to be tabbed to the hull, that the glass had -all- broken away on those tabs. Take a look at the inside of the end wall of the notch between the births - on mine, inside the forward well, you could see a plywood re-inforcement panel glassed to the end wall, and tabbed down to the hull, and to the sides of the forward ends of the stringer boxes. With that tabbing broken, the liner could no longer add structural stiffness to the hull, making it much more susceptible to twisting - which is a force mode probably amplified on yours, due to the hardtop - this twisting mode is whats causing you such grief with the cabin door opening/ frame.

Plus, I'm now worried about what effect it had, with the liner coming significantly loose from the hull up front, and at the back end of the liner, is where the two brass thru hull scuppers join between the liner and the hull - if you pry open at the front of the shoebox, the back end is now taking some stress as well.

I will be looking thoroughly at these points this spring, on mine, before geting wet.

Bill

[cSickNick]

Hi Bill,

Yes i did remember and took a quick look in the forward hatch. it looked OK, but have to admit i was not exactly sure where i was looking for any separation. The inside forward hatch seemd be all gelcoat and no tabbing/plywood or stringers noted?

Do you have any pics? I will re-read your post and try again.

I am trying to get the big picture before i start, you may be on to something .....

Thanks Nick

Nestor, gottcha .... and keep us posted ...

[oldbluesplayer]

Nick -

On the berthing platform, in mine, there are three wooden hatches, if you lift up / take out the cushions; one on either side as you walk in, they have molded in fiberglass bottoms, and forward, there is a larger hatch in the berthing platform - I'm not talking about the forward rope locker - I had a marine head, in mine, at the end of the cabin walkway - the two head hoses went forward,thru the liner wall at the end of the cabin walkway - the thru hulls for those hoses were under that berthing platform hatch. On the inside of that liner / walkway endwall - now, your looking down into that hatch, and backwards towards the walkway endwall, was a glassed-in piece of plywood, glassed to the liner walkway endwall, and tabbed to the hull, and tabbed to the forward ends of the stringers - you should see those, down in that hatch. (mine is a '73, with the large foam filled box stringers) On mine, I discovered last fall, this tabbing was completely failed / broken, on both sides, all the way up.

This would have had the effect of releasing a major capture point for holding the liner to the hull. As the liner structure stiffens the hull, this release, I am sure, caused the looseness in the hull that I began to feel, particularly to torsional loading - as in quartering into a head sea, taking the hits unevenly, on one side of the hull... coincident to this I began to observe the cabin bulkhead wall screws loosening up.

This same torsional loading would have produced the doorway corner cracking you were beginning to observe.

I thought of taking pictures last fall, and never got to it - Let me know how you make out.

Bill

[nestorpr]

Well guys, the man made it in from New York today and backed out of the deal. Apparently he fixated on the photos and didn't pay too much attention to the description of the boat. I'm not really sure but apparently he expected a beautiful boat but the details on the advertisement said that there were some repairs to be done, when we spoke on the phone I was also very honest with him and told him she's been dry for a year now and needed some TLC. I even lowered the price on the spot replacement so he would take it but he didn't go for it. So he went back to NY empty handed and $500 poorer (the auction deposit). I really feel bad for the guy, such a long trip for nothing. Anyway, she's back for sale at $3000 for a fast sale!

[Matt]

Too bad. I could not believe how hard it was to sell mine either. Hang in there, she'll sell.

[oldbluesplayer]

Nestor - I'm bummin for ya big time, heck, I paid 3400 for mine two years ago, and it had a crappy old trailer, an unknown hours 83 OB, and ended up needing to have a transom rebuild - Yours is in much better condition than that!! and doin that motor would be easy - I'd much rather rebuild a car motor than an OB - I wish you were close enough that we could get together and take care of that motor for ya !!

Hang tite, spring is coming...

Bill

[nestorpr]

Thanks guys! If she doesn't sell soon that may be exactly what I'll have to do. At least I'll be able to go out and boat once in a while but if I do that I'll have to put my other plans on hold for a while.

[Bryan A.]

Sorry to hear that. They say the two best days of owning a boat are the day you buy and the day you sell. I disagree. I'm sure the right buyer is out there somewhere.

You should have sicked the monkey on him.