Not Fishing so Some Wellcraft Stuff

Today was supposed to be a grouper fishing expedition however, thanks to the remarkable solvent properties of ethanol, we are doing boat maintenance stuff and watching youtube Mr. Fix-It videos. Fonz has injector/VST filter issues since his boat sits for a long time between uses.  Yamaha 4-cylinder outboard motors have 6 fuel filters under the cowling.  One filter/water separator that is easy to get to, four injector filters that are fairly easy to get to and one VST filter that is an absolute bitch to get to.  The VST filter is a fine mesh metal screen type filter which should never clog if the separate boat fuel filter/separator and engine fuel filter/water separator are properly maintained as the Fonz's filters were.  Time and ethanol tend to complicate boat maintenance.

Back to the Wellcraft.   Wellcraft was not designed for staying in the water.  The two deck boxes and cuddy step down will collect rain water like crazy and eventually sink the boat. So  one part of the project will be to convert the Wellcraft to a self bailing cockpit.  That just means making some spiffy looking hatch covers with good gaskets to seal things up properly and installing a dam under the splash well to reduce water flow into the bilge.  There will also need to be deck drains or scuppers installed which will require a little research before I commit to any design.  I may end up designing my own.

Before investing too much time and money I washed the boat which is about the only way to really get familiar with one.  Since the boat is an antique, born in 1976, the gelcoat has a lot of oxidation.  There are plenty of products on the market that help shine an old boat back up.

One is 303 Aerospace Protectant.  At $16 bucks or more as quart, it is pretty pricy

Another is Favor spray furniture polish.  At about a buck a can it is inexpensive and does a fine job of cleaning/sealing gelcoat.  It is easy to apply and you can almost hear the old gelcoat sucking it up. Since there is not a lot of information available on how well Favor works on things other than wood furniture, the Wellcraft will be a test case, but try it sometime instead of Armour All or 303 on rubber or plastic to see what you think.

The Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas