A little thought on Marine industry regulation

I just read my current copy of  “Professional Boatbuilder ” magazine. Aaron Porter wrote in  his front page editorial about the self regulation of the recreational marine industry. I agree that those of us who work in the recreational boating business have been fortunate that we police ourselves with very little interference from the Coast Guard. However we has humans have a tendency to get complacent. There are boats out there that should not be on the water. Too many of these substandard boats, and the government is going to come knocking. Then the whole industry is in trouble. So think of that when you are servicing or building a boat; quality and freedom starts with our industry members not legislation. Just my opinion.

Overhauling an aluminum jon boat

Having worked with wood and fiberglass boats, this project is interesting because the boat is made out of aluminum. The old standby known as a jon boat, a flat bottom boat with a square bow and low sides has been a favorite in many lakes and swamps of coastal USA.

IMG_5219

The jon boat I am working on is a 14 foot, 30 plus year old Aluma Craft jon boat.The goal is to put this boat back in tip top shape and sell it. There is no doubt this boat will go on many years.  A survey of the boat found that the wooden  transom stiffener was rotted. It caused excessive pitting in the aluminum transom. Luckily no intense depth to the pits.  Because pieces of flotation were found in boat bottom in the aft section, we opened rear seats and found not only Styrofoam flotation but FLORISTS FOAM! The wooden transom piece was a re-build and when done the rear seats had to be opened and the repair person must have needed to replace styrofoam When that got wet it held the water and that also caused pitting corrosion on the bottom of the aft section of the hull.  Other than that and a few minor dents plus the need for a new paint job the boat is in good physical condition.

Already started re-furbishing the insides of the rear seats and transom. You can see in the photo the inside of one of the rear seats. The inside was thoroughly cleaned, undercoated and painted. Also notice the black dots(holes) in the bottom of the boat inside the seat in front of the bracket. They are pits that ate through the aluminum hull. They are the next project to be worked on.

IMG_5218

Designing a Boat

One of the tasks that I thought would be interesting for this blog is to chronicle the design of a boat from concept to finish. Finish meaning that all of the drawings required to build the boat are finished. I will try to be as clear as possible in the explanations of what I am doing as well as including some pictures of the design process as I go along. This boat will not be complex but it will illustrate the design process. I will be putting the first post of this series up in a couple of days. I hope you enjoy it and learn something about the boat design process.