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My Epic Rib Rebuild!
Ok, so the beginning of the year, I had a problem with the rubbing strip coming off the side of the tube so I thought I would get it done properly.
Anyway I contacted a gentleman by the name of Ed Carter(lovely chap!!(hopefully this will get me discount!!)) who came to have a look at my boat.
Anyway, I wont post any pics of my boat previous to the rebuild as I brought it off a Ribnet member about 3 years ago and I think he is still an active member. I ve had 2 1/2 years trouble free(ish) motoring anyway..apart from electrics but thats another story.
We decided to go with new tubes in the end as the originals were starting to get on a bit..Heavy duty 1500gsm numbers.
So, back to the story at hand, the boat is a ribtec 6.5m, started life with an inboard but the transom was cut down to suit the previous engine.. The main problem with this and the other thing I wanted Ed to look at was the amount of backwash I got over the boat transom.
He offered 2 suggestions...increase the length of the tubes to offer more lift at the back or raise the transom by 5 inches and fit an XL engine.
I thought being clever I would be able to pick up a good second hand engine relatively cheap...Unfortunately cheap and good rarely go together when discussing oputboards!
Finally, I ended up taking the plunge and got a new 175 opti..Best have the safety of a 5 year warranty.
So, anyway the boat went away to Ed's.
Job done so I thought!...Afraid not.
Problem..The previous owner decided to fit inboard stainless fuel tanks but didnt do the best of jobs apparantly..He had repaired the deck and stringers when refitting using standard 5mm ply from B&Q!..As a result it had rotted away to nothing...Ok, repair the parts of the deck..Simple enough.
He had also used a bit of an old door or something to hold the tanks in position..As a result, the ply had blown and pushed against the reserve tank and split it!
Could it get any worse, I hear you ask...Yep!
The petrol that had leaked out of the reserve tank was sloshing around in the hull and had managed to rot away the stringers of the hull down the left side.
So, I had to decide whether to scrap the boat or carry on.. We took the decision to carry on; he said the ribtec hull was a very good one and by the time he had finished it would be a brand new boat.
So he ripped it out and started from scratch.
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