1969 SF20 Restoration "Sandy Paws"

[TMala]

Hello all!

I want to make a post here documenting some of the restoration I did to my 1969 SF20. I am not a professional boat restorer, every project is a learning curve so hopefully someone tackling something similar to me in the future can learn a bit from what I did. I have used the site many times during this project and hopefully this will help someone else.

It all began after purchasing the boat spring of 2019 my fiance and I decided to use the boat in our wedding. The wedding was originally set for May 2020. The idea was to use the Seacraft as our vehicle for our entrance. The yacht club has a little bay beach, we would pull up jump off and start the party. In the end the wedding was postponed until August but the thought of using the boat in the wedding snowballed into trying to get as much done to her before May 2020, so here we are! The restoration started December of 2019 after the fishing season was done here in NJ.

This is the third boat I have owned from the 1960’s, somehow they keep finding me! My first Seacraft. I have always heard the great reputation and been on a 23 fishing so had no hesitations buying one. After finding one on Cape Cod a road trip was on order to trailer her back.



Here is the boat as she stood after I bought it. I used it like this for the first season, basically deciding from trial and error what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to change. Boat could hit 50+ mph with that engine any day of the week, but the transom needed to go and I was going to raise it at the same time. That engine was perfect for the boat, 387lbs and pushing out probably close to 175hp. I sold the engine and the guy that came to pick it up was going to put it on a 1974 SF20! Must be Fate!

Here is the list of things to do. I decided not to raise the floor, although I would have liked to, the deck was in perfect condition as you will see from some of the photos. Raising the floor is not out of the question for the future along with a new gas tank, we will see.

To do List:
- Replace/raise transom
- Thinner console
- Put gas tank under floor
- Batteries under console
- Remove part or all of casting platform
- New electrical and paint

The main materials used in the restoration: polyester resin, 1708, 1.5oz cloth, Penske board, and Alexseal.

The main reason for these materials is my local fiberglass supply up the block that I have been dealing with for the past 10+ years stocks these at great prices and they are excellent to work with. The owner and the whole staff have been restoring boats since before I was born so I basically just do what they say.

First step was to take out old transom. It was worse than I thought when I started to dig in.





After that I built a structure using the support framing from a party tent and shrink wrapped over that as the weather was too cold to glass. I purchased a propane heater from home depot. It could heat the place up in minutes no problem. I brought a fire extinguishing and CO2 alarm inside just to play it safe





A few issues that arose. I should have cut from the inside of the transom. It would have made everything so much easier in the end. I didn’t leave enough lip, and the core material 1.5in thick would not fit back in to the available space left if I beefed up the inner skin. As the boat was, the inner skin was paper thin, scary thin in some spots. It appeared the transom was redone before. So I decided to cut the lip away and wrap the fiberglass onto the hull sides and beef up the inner skin with a few layers of 1708. This would also enable me to build the transom as thick as I wanted.

Penske board going in, two pieces of 3/4in laminated together with 1.5oz mat and resin, two more layers of 1.5oz on the inside between the skin and the core.



After that voids were filled and further sanding/grinding up on hull sides and bottom. If you can avoid this, avoid this. It was very time consuming wrapping and sanding onto the chines and trying to get everything even in the end. A layer of 1.5 oz was added then I think a total of 5 layers of 1708 then some 6 oz cloth to form the outside skin. The total outside skin thickness landed between 1/4in and 3/8in. The transom was built 26.75 inches above keep and 27” width. With the johnzuki I can get the engine pretty high off the keel, if I could do it again I might have went to 28 or even 29 inches although that might limit different engine/prop configurations. I go back and forth about that.





From there I decided to give the transom a break and starting ripping into the forward compartment. I measured the previous center of the old gas tank in respect to where it was in the hull, and mounted the new tank’s center 3 inches forward of that to help compensate for increased engine weight but trying to keep the same COG. The console was also mounted in a similar position. I also eliminated the forward fish box but kept the most forward box as a compromise to increase foot space.



As you can see FRESH WOOD! Incredible, I felt bad ripping into the deck at this point.

New coffin built with Penske