G day All,

Thought I’d throw up my boat refurb for those who might be considering similar with an older boat or those that have done it before and can offer some advice.
It’s a 79 Guardian 5.7m WA built boat, I purchased it 8 years ago with an old busted Johno on it, over time its grown on me…easy to launch solo, gets me out 25nm plus and handles the shit conditions well for its size, have done overnight rotto stays on it also.

Wish I had something bigger and faster with more luxury but this is it unless I win lotto. So with the windscreen cracking again, been repaired so many times, the floor and transom solid enough but all wet due to a heap of holes and damage over the years it’s just a matter of time before it turns bad, and as the wife says…there’s no life insurance if they don’t find ya body.

So the decision was made to strip this down, total budget refurb completing as much as I can myself and re-utilizing as much of the existing gear as possible with a few changes to be made.
1 – Under deck fuel tank 120 - 130 litres
2 – Re-design the transom, remove the seats, create a small bit of extra space, include storage for batteries, oil and other bits.
3 – New windscreen, raise the roof 4”
4 - New seats, considering the suspension pedestals although this is outside the budget objective...
5 – New lick of paint 2pk….by hand with roller.

Other bits needed, strengthen the cabin, this you need to walk around for anchor deploy, retrieval etc. which I do a lot off, So a forward hatch door is being considered.
Since the start of the strip down it’s been google, utube and FB pages reading and learning as much as I can on the different ways to tackle this, and yes there is multiple ways people repair there transoms etc. Will cover this a bit more in PT2.

First thing needed was a shed, cant be grinding dust and shit everywhere in the front yard apparently, so first job was to clean my mums shed so I could move me Tory from my shed to hers for storage, I then had to re-organise my work benches so the boat could fit, very tight fit but it fits.
Carpet, wiring and all the auxiliaries came out pretty quick and easy, got the daughter to hold the spanners as most of the fasteners were rusted and would spin, motor came off easy, put this on a few years back myself…not hard at all. First item to buy was a multi tool, already had a Ozito battery so picked this up for $64 dollars, extra $30 for the carbide tool. This cut in around the cabin timber like butter, this will all get cleaned up and re-used so didn’t want to take to it with a hammer.

The roller door height meant the boat had to come of the trailer first, so always got a bit of steel laying around being an old plate basher, so knocked up some basic trolly frames and bought some caster wheels from bunnings, boat and trailer were just over a tonne, with everything removed including the motor I estimated the boat to be 500kg approx..

The rear access is tight…but we got it down, only destroyed one down pipe..blamed the daughter for that..paid her the agree $15 for the hour, was thinking to get a few mates around but thought fk it cant be that hard.

Getting it off was a bit agricultural but it worked, just used the ratchet straps that usually hold the boat on the trailer, came of easy…back and forth between the front and back straps.

She fits….just.

Carbide blade for the 5” grinder cutting through the floor, the timber was soaked, had a few holes in the floor over the years slowly filling the old girl up, the timber came up easy….claw hammer.

The stringers were glassed but nothing sealed, some of this less than ideal with some cracking evident. It did get a hard time, sometimes 4-6 dive bottles plus gear etc etc..bang bang bang! As some of us do..

These came out quick and easy also, multi tool…some of the stringers were wet on the bottom, but no rot, left these out to dry, the timber is still solid, so these will get cleaned up and re-used also. The stringer and new layout will change anyway to make way for the fuel tank..new main stringers running long ways not across.

The transom…fk, even with a few wet patches it took 3 hours plus to remove..strong is an understatement, seeing and knowing this now I might have reconsidered, there was no flex in it but knew water was getting in, but still they are strong and unless you can see flex or cracking in your transom glass I recon there’s a lot of life left, just keep it dry as possible, stop all points of water ingress.

The grinding…yeah its taken 10hrs to get to this point, internal only, this with a 7” Zec disc 24 grit and a shit load of 5” 36 grit discs, most days squeezing in 1 – 2 hours max, pic there shows a half full garbage bag, filled two full just from the grinding. Protection consists of shorts and long sleeve shirt with the disposable’s overalls over the top…when finished I remove the disposable and jump straight in the pool…good rinse off including the cloths, usually soaking wet after each session so it’s a great way to cool off. Then inside for a soapy shower….then some nights a third shower before bed. Itchy a little but not too too bad to be honest.

So that’s it, off for quotes today on the new glass, resin and marine ply needed to get the floor and transom back in…will cover that in Pt 2 which could be a month or two away.