14ft '78 Starcraft Seafarer "Willet"

TinBoats.net

Help Support TinBoats.net:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Frankenfish

Well-known member
Joined
May 18, 2020
Messages
71
Reaction score
0
Location
NE Kansas
Hello folks,
I wanted to post my work so far on our 14' 1978 Starcraft Seafarer, named Willet (all our watercraft are named after Sandpipers).
Towing home
20200405_190457.jpg

She was sitting for years outside in a field, uncovered. The first step was removing the waterlogged flooring and cleaning leaves out. Probably at least 80lbs of wood was pulled out. Lucky us, some of the floorboards were screwed through the skin!
20200406_204232.jpg
20200408_174805.jpg

Next came light sanding of the old paint, priming bare spots, and a rattle can rustoleum job. Lastly my wonderful wife volunteered to paint the numbers since vinyl number stickers were sold out everywhere nearby. I blame the COVID watercraft and outdoor equipment rush.
20200608_193344.jpg
20200609_101221.jpg
20200610_215423.jpg

Replaced rivets and filled holes as needed and took it fishing.
20200425_133105 (1).jpg

Lost my anchor and burnt up my trolling motor first time fishing out of it and had some trouble with the 9.9 Johnson. Those things were talked about in other threads and I greatly appreciated all the wonderful help from this forum.

It was also clear it's far from waterproof.
 
Next up came all the rivets that were solid, but "half in" and the other side of the rivet had fallen out. In the end, we drilled out and or filled about 30 bad or missing rivets. Need to do a few more, but she's down to leaking very little.
20200621_103438.jpg

Other plans and things done that aren't shown.
I got the 9.9 Johnson fixed up and sold. I just screwed with it so much and lost a lot of trust in the thing.
I got a '76 25hp Evinrude to fish out of in it's place. End goal is to get a new 20hp 4 stroke. Wife really loves how quiet they are.
I re-did the wiring and added a bilge and small fish finder (to be eventually replaced). I also traded my data for an old Motorguide Brute to mount on the bow.
Old Wiring
20200509_195307.jpg

Next steps:
Wife has requested a place to lounge so I'm extending the front bench forward into a deck and maybe a bit backwards to fit batteries near the front. I've also got a platform to form the front trolling motor mount. Waterproofer is currently drying on both deck and TM mount.
After that, I plan to add a floor that meets the bottom of the benches to make walking around a bit easier. This will be 1/2" ply on 2x2s run lengthwise with supports connecting them to the ribs. It has a nice groove on the sides for the ply to slot in to.
Lastly, I plan to replace transom wood and bench top wood. I'll update as things go along.
 
Transom and back two seats were removed. The top of the transom had a formed aluminum piece holding everything together as a cap on everything. It was held in place with the "brad nail" pins on the far right in the picture, driven through holes in the Al and into the transom wood. The same nails were used to hold the aluminum capacity plate onto the transom. Any idea where to find replacements or even what to call them at the hardware store? I'm guessing they're stainless?
20201212_135459.jpg

Bracing for front platform and floors were soaked in Old Timer's formula, dried, then received two coats of oil enamel.
20201210_082801.jpg

Two layers of 3/4 inch ACX ply was glued up with PL Premium for the transom. Went against my carpenter father's advice of waterproof Liquid Nails; will probably take that secret to my grave.
20201211_123634.jpg

Next it was cut out by measuring the previous transom and tracing the curve. Weird camera angle, but I promise they're the same length.
20201212_170039.jpg

Lastly I did some experimenting with adding an oil-based stain to the Old Timer formula to give the transom and seats a darker tint. Here's the resulting stained OTF on the transom and the exterior outboard mounting board (what is that called? a doubler pad?). I plan to spar varnish the face of the transom and paint all the unseen surfaces. The outside 1/4 inch ply will just be painted to keep things simpler.
20201212_192254.jpg
 
Update - Transom and bench seats turned out gorgeous. Old timers + Stain followed by un-tinted varnish did the trick.
20201221_160157.jpg

Next I cut out a plywood platform to use as a step and also serve as a mount for the trolling motor off the bow. Support for this is the gunnels and a 1.5x1.5 angle aluminum. The trolling motor will also be a 1x6 bridging the nose cap and aluminum and will provide extra support. Should be sturdy! Not shown, but everything was bolted down with ss bolts and finishing washers.
20201231_115148.jpg

Not shown, but the transom went in well. It was stressful drilling holes through my work! Made sure to over-caulk everything with boatlife life-calk.
Next wanted the plywood floor up against the bottom of the bench seats and fitting in the grove on the sides. Plywood is 1/2 inch, vinyl floor says expect an 1/8 inch, so I clamped 5/8 inch particle board under the seats to use as a spacer. From there, I was able to clamp my floorboards to that spacer and measure and cut brackets out of 1.5x1.5 1/8" aluminum. After that, I bent the aluminum to match the boat rib angle.
20210108_163425.jpg
20210109_161710.jpg
20210110_160930.jpg
 
"Here's the resulting stained OTF on the transom and the exterior outboard mounting board (what is that called? a doubler pad?)."

I don't know what it was called, but like that. From now on I'm calling it a Doubler Pad.

The way you handled your floor framing is very cool.
 
Flooring framing is and finished except near the front - still not sure what I'll do for a storage solution yet.
it's not pretty, but it's pretty sturdy. "Silicon and paint makes me the the shipwright I ain't"
20210124_152224.jpg

The next step was tense - would the plywood nicely slot into the gap between bench seat and frame? Took some fiddling and shaving, but it fits! Should have an 1/8" gap to allow for the vinyl flooring.
20210124_152230.jpg
20210124_155751.jpg

I plan to track down some rubber T-mould with a barb to fit between the two sheets as a finishing steps. The added bonus is that my edges and tolerances between the two pieces doesn't have to be too exact.

Anybody have an opinion on drains? I have some tiny stainless drains, but I suspect my inexact cutting will allow enough gaps for water to flow out? I have the drain, but don't want to overengineer when it's not necessary. Also getting the drain to sit below plywood level isn't something I'm excited to tackle.
 
Great thread! I'm following with keen interest as I started working on overhauling a 14' Seafarer last year. I can hardly wait for the weather to improve in Michigan to get back to work on it. Looking forward to more updates on Willet.
 
Makaw said:
Great thread! I'm following with keen interest as I started working on overhauling a 14' Seafarer last year. I can hardly wait for the weather to improve in Michigan to get back to work on it. Looking forward to more updates on Willet.

Many thanks! It's currently a high of 15 so a lot of my work has moved indoors, but progress is being made.

Had a false-start on my electronics. The beautiful box I built doesn't fit the fuse block. Working on making a larger one because the other components were a tight fit as well.
20210210_134453.jpg
20210210_134433.jpg

Other carpeting and finishing work is going well
20210210_134308.jpg

The attachment points for the wood benchtops are full of holes from previous owners; still structurally sound, but don't look very nice. To pretty this up, I made carpeted aluminum "veneers" to go over the top of existing brackets.
20210210_134533.jpg

Lastly, I've been working on wiring. The switch panel I bought came with everything pre-wired, but had some things I didn't like about it. First of all, it had inline fuses, but all fuses were downstream of the switch and I'd prefer the fuse pre-switch. It also had a common positive-in that it jumped to all the switches. What I ended up doing was remove the positive "jumper" for all switches, but left it jumping among the USB, Cigarette socket, and Voltage monitor. Then each positive was wired up between switch and fuse block so that each switch was on it's own positive-in line with a fuse pre-switch.
The other thing I'm really happy with is that I had an extra switch in the panel so I wired it up to control the cigarette, USB, and Voltage meter. These glow red and I didn't want them constantly glowing every time the battery was hooked up. You can see that I took the positive-out of the far left switch and use that to control flow to the upper panel.
20210210_134632.jpg
20210210_134640.jpg
 
Got the whole boat wired up and the SECOND plywood box I made deconstructed itself; a couple of the T nuts I put in to make the lid removeable stripped out, combine that with general difficulties with it and I threw in the towel. Two boxes built, sealed, carpeted, and 100% wired before throwing in the towel. What a frustrating mess.
I went to look at premade boxes, dry boxes, ammo boxes, gear cases, conduit boxes, etc. Ended up buying a 8x8x4 junction box. The thing went together beautifully and I'll share pictures once I have them. A lot of joy with it working so well, but the joy was on top of the frustration on all the time I wasted building boxes.

Before wiring, battery compartment was finished out.
20210228_181224.jpg
20210228_181742.jpg
Reinforcements were made for front bow seat mount.
20210306_111357.jpg
Bow deck was test fit along with hatches.
20210224_181922.jpg
And the trolling motor was mounted.
20210305_174404.jpg
All the wiring is working well, I have a master switch controlling power to switch box and starter. The switch panel runs to bilge, a flood light, nav lights, and some interior lights for the front compartment and under the benches for tying rigs. Trolling motor is a bit old, but has some life in her!
 
Assembled and taken on a camping trip! Only got out once for an hour before rain drove us off the lake, but spent that hour breaking in the new motor! Rained out the rest of the weekend, but she should be ready for warmer weather and crappie fishing. Took Willet out again yesterday and did the second hour of outboard break-in. I suspect the motor is sitting too low and I'm far from working out setup of the fish finder transducer, but felt good to be out again. At WOT and just me in the boat, vent plate is about an inch under water and the OB throws water in a dramatic V off either side. Taking her out again in a week for stocker trout in the strip pits of SE Kansas.

All assembled
20210311_145939.jpg
20210312_100540.jpg
20210312_113210_001.jpg

Pictured: 2 really good sports
20210312_104200.jpg

Named it Willet and then found a nice bottle of whiskey by almost the same name. Even has the willet bird at the top of their crest. Kept us warm during that first hour of break-in in the rain (in moderation).
20210312_104518.jpg

Some lessons I've learned:
It's a good deal harder to balance with the slightly raised floor. I know there's a number of warnings about that on this site so please take that into consideration. It's not too tippy that it wasn't worth the trade-off for me, but to each their own.

Adding to the tippy statement, I put the electronic panel in the middle along with my fish finder on top. The middle is where I naturally want to walk to maintain my balance. Unfortunately due to wire routing, the middle was the simplest solution.

It's SO much heavier on the tongue now. I was used to manhandling it to accommodate my poor skills backing a trailer into my driveway and my inexperience loading onto the trailer at the boat ramp. I wouldn't say I added a ridiculous amount of weight in total, but most of the weight I added was towards the bow (i.e. in front of the trailer tires) which makes moving the trailer much more difficult.

I installed two hatches in the front that were high quality Tempress hatches. Both are nearly 100% plastic and can get deformed as you screw them in. The flip hatch works okay, but the screw out hatch to access battery charger cord binds horribly. Will probably take that out and try to redo. What I think happened is that the screws pushed on the outer ring causing it to close up a bit and not sit fully round.

I ended up with a strange situation where my bench wood is ever so slightly suspended over the lower supports. I screwed it in on brackets, but I suspect my bench seats are ever-so-slightly too thing and now the brackets hold the boards hovering just enough over the supports that I can feel them click down when I sit. Probably will decrease the life from that flexing.

The front flip hatch doesn't have room to open when the swivel seat is in it's stand. Annoys me way more than it should.

Thanks everyone for the advice and hope you enjoyed following along. Will update as things come up!
 

Latest posts

Top