Randy's Boat Shop

Fish Taco is getting a face lift; a few additions and repairs are needed to get her ready for the 2017 season.  On the way to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival I had bumped the outdrive of the Suzuki 15 HP motor. The transom and stern knees were cracked.  I purchased some #14 x 4 inch bronze wood screws to stiffen the crack in the stern knees.  The screws have been installed and the screw hole plugged with a bung.  A bung is a wooden plug cut out of similar wood that has the screw hole.  I still have to trim the bung to fit, fill, sand and then paint.  When I am done the repair will be invisible.

I am adding pole holders; the brackets are flush mount and to make them less obtrusive I am routing a recess in the gunwales.  I cut some 1/8 inch plywood strips and then glued them to 6mm plywood, 1/8 inch wider than the bracket.  I drilled a 1-1/2 inch hole in the gunwales for the bracket and then clamped the template to the gunwale so I could route the recess.  I then used my baby router with a 1/4 inch straight cut router bit and a template guide.  The result is a recess that has the bracket just slightly proud of the gunwale.  I still need to seal the area with epoxy.  I will use stainless steel screws and marine caulking to finish the installation of the bracket.

I launch Fish Taco yesterday at Hagg Lake in Gaston Oregon.  Fish Taco is not finished but finished enough to launch. I still need to work on the bridge and anchor deck, install the inwale, finish the thwarts and paint the insides.  The Suzuki 15HP outboard worked well and I am very happy with it.  The power tilt and electric start are very nice.  I did some test runs with 1, 2 and 3 people aboard and she is a little more tender than I would like.  I need to do some more testing to simulate fishing and I might add some water ballast.  I estimated that Fish Taco only weighs about 175lbs and I hope to weight her this week to find out the actual weight.

Launching Fish Taco off the trailer was very easy; I just gave her a push and she rolled/slid off.  Retrieving was a little more difficult as we got one of the bilge keels on the wrong side of the bunk.  We had to lower her back in the lake and bring her up again.  I do have a problem with the trailer; even though I bought a wide trailer it is narrow and I can’t see it when backing up.  I think I will add some trailer guides.

I started painting Fish Taco’s hull.  The paint is Systems Three WR-LPU water-based polyurethane.  The color is Whitby White which is a cream/ivory color.  The very nice thing about this paint is that it can be re-coated in 2 hours depending on the weather/temperature and up to 24 hours without sanding between coats.  It is a little tricky to put on and by the third coat I had improved the process.  Being water-based cleanup is easy as long as you don’t wait too long.  I settled on using a 4 inch wienie roller used for door and cabinets.  I then tipped out the bubbles and streaks using a 3 inch foam brush. While the final paint job is not perfect, there are dust, streaks and runs in the paint, I am happy overall all.  I decided not to put the blue stripe on now so I will have to sand before I do.

I accomplished two more milestones.  I ordered the trailer for Fish Taco; an EZ Loader EZWB-12-14 1200.  This is a bunk trailer and I will add keel rollers and a tongue jack.  The standard 12-14 ft trailer has a width of 44 inches between the fenders which might have been OK but I was concerned so I ordered the wide trailer which is 54 inches between the fenders.  The trailer is 64 inches wide over all and Fish Taco’s beam  is 59 inches. This trailer is only 17 feet long which is better than my old trailer which was 19 feet long.  The trailer has 12 inch tires instead of the much preferred 13’s but with such a light boat there should not be a problem.

The second milestone was the cutting of the transom to mount the motor.  The plan was to make a router pattern that I would use to do the final trim of the cutout.  I would rough cut the opening with my VersaCut 3-3/8 inch circular saw and then use the router to clean up to the final dimensions.   I made a measuring mistake and the two sides were not symmetrical; strike one.  I decide to use only one side of the pattern and route half the opening and then flip the pattern over to route the second.  I was cleaning up the good side and I took a little too much off and it looked funny when I cleaned it up; strike two.  I still had the other half of the pattern that was mis-measured so I cut the formally good side off the pattern leaving just over 2/3 of the pattern.  This time when I cleaned up the pattern without mistakes.  I used the pattern to mark off where I would be trimming to and then used my VersaCut and cut wide of the line except one spot where I touched the line.  OK, I can fixed this; I moved the pattern out by 1/4 inch on both sides.  Using my big router and a pattern cutting bit I trimmed the cutout to the final shape.  It looked very good except for a couple of spots were I started or stop.  A quick sanding cleaned every thing up and it looks very good.

I have decided Fish Taco will be launched on June 26th.  This is also RiversWest Hagg Lake Messabout so it was a convenient target.

I made templates for the Bridge Deck and the Anchor Deck.  The Anchor Deck has been cut out and I have put the second fairing coat on the inside of the hull.  I have a little more sanding to do then I can prime, sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, paint, paint and paint.  Yes the boat gets three coats of primer and three coats of paint although except for the outside of the hull it might not have all the coats of paint for launch day.  Before I install the Anchor Deck and Bridge Deck I need to have painted that part of the hull so I won’t have to crawl through the hatch to paint.  A little more gets done each day.