23 Ft Hourston Reno

casper5280

Crew Member
Well I thought that I might as well start a thread on my 23 Ft Hourston Reno Project. I’ve had this boat for a few years now and knew that at some point in time that it would need some major work done to it. The boat is a 1975 model with a 351w and Volvo Penta 280 leg. The boat was a 2 owner boat when I bought it. The first owner bought it right from Bill Hourston himself in 1975 and bought it to Namimo were it lived in a boat house. The boat was a sedan at that time. A few years later he sold it to his friend the 2nd owner because he moved up to a 26 Ft Hourston W/fly bridge. He then bugged the 2nd owner that he didn’t have a fly bridge on his boat so he sent the boat back to Hourston and had them install a fly bridge. This boat had lived it’s entire life, in a boat house in Namimo and had never been fished in and was only cruised around in the Namimo area until I bought it. The boat was in great condition as “far as the eye could see”. The interior was all original and in great shape and the motor and leg had all there service records to show work done. I bought the boat and began to turn it in to a fishing machine. All the while upgrading as I fished and cruised around. All new electronics( VHF, Chartplotter/Radar) new kicker, with remote steer, electric downriggers. Everything you could need. I also redid the electrical and upgraded the interior. Redid all the counter tops, table, icebox door, and the gunnels. Bought a new trailer.
 

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I bought the boat and began to turn it in to a fishing machine. All the while upgrading as I fished and cruised around. All new electronics( VHF, Chartplotter/Radar) new kicker, with remote steer, electric downriggers. Everything you could need. I also redid the electrical and upgraded the interior. Redid all the counter tops, table, icebox door, and the gunnels. Bought a new trailer.
 

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Over the years the boat slowly began to loose power it was never a rocket ship to begin with. I thought that it was all the **** I had on the boat. It seemed like it was always loaded for a minutes notice to leave on a fishing trip or cruise for a week or more. I put on a new aluminum manifold and new 4 barrel carb and electronic ignition and tuned the motor up and this seemed to help a bit but not what I was hoping for. So I started to think that it was time to rebuild the motor or Pod it.
Last summer the boat was a SLUG and it just didn’t seem right. I thought that it was time to look at things a lot closer. One day I was washing the motor down and wiping some oil stains off. I was using a mirror to see what I was doing, I noticed that there was a ½ drilled hole in the stringer. Checked the other side and sure enough there was one on that side too. I then poked a wire though the hole and water started pouring out of the hole. F$%K. I then cut 2 6” inspection plate holes in the back floor on the outside side of the inboard stringers. Sure enough water all most to the top. I vacuumed out almost 45 gallons of water. What had happened was someone drilled holes though the stringers and water had made its way in thought the hole (probably me partly from filling the bilge to wash it out and also later learned leaks at the cabin door bulkhead

So I built a work cover for it. Can’t believe I didn’t do this years ago
 

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So now it was time to start the Boat Reno.
Now the work begins. I started with the there’s no turning back approach of cutting a huge hole in the back deck on the outside port stringer so I could test how bad the stringer was. Just as I had thought it was rotten badly as far as I could inspect. What I also found was that the floor was not treated on the bottom side. It had rotted and fell off and now became a one way value at that hole drilled in the stringer and so no water could get out. I then started to remove the interior. The table was the first to go. This it when I discovered that a new piece of ¾” plywood was installed to cover a rotted floor. Then it was on to the rest of the interior Icebox, counter, sink, seats. I pulled the motor and leg and swim grid and kicker, then start cutting the transom out. I used a skill saw and cut a grid pattern and start chieseling them out piece by piece.
 

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Next was the cabin door bulk head. This was a bit more work to figure out how it was installed. Turns out there is a wood strip above the door on the outside cabin roof that need to be removed and then a wooden piece above the cabin door in the bulkhead to remove which leaves you the 2 sides. But in order to do this, you must pull back the first panel of the headliner. You then unscrew the top and bottom of the bulkhead and swing them out. Now you really see how big the boat is. Thanks to Albernifisher for that info.
 

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I have now removed both inside stringers and about a 2 feet of the outside stringers as that is all the room I needed to install the new transom. The transom was rotted just below the transom shield and badly where the old transducer was installed and the trim tab area. Basically below the waterline and around the leg collar was rotten to some degree.

This is all that left of the port side stringer. There was a piece added to the top of the stringer about a 1.5” to build up the height I guess. That piece was rotted most of the way along top of the stringer. The port stringer was completely rotted from the cabin door all the way back to the transom.
 

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For anyone who has not done this you can not image the dust this job makes. I haven’t kept track of the hours ,but am guessing that it must be 40-80 hours of grinding and taking it all apart. I have now picked up all the plywood and am starting to get the transom ready to cut and laminate together and them installed

Picked up some supplies day.
 

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Laminated the 2 sheets of 3/4” plywood together with PL premium and clamped it together with screws every foot. That is almost 2 full sheets of plywood. I will remove the screws once dry. Once dry I sealed all the edges with penetrating epoxy Sealer. Where ever the is something to be fastened to the hull I will cut out over size and fill with glass and screw into the glass and not the wood core. That long notch at the bottom of the transom core is for the trim tabs. Hopefully this will extend the life of the hull another 40 years.
 

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After sealing all the edges with the epoxy I realized that there was going to be some issues with the epoxy and the poly resin for tabbing it in. After some reading and emails with Albernifisher I'm going to epoxy the plywood transom core in with Coldcure expoy and grind the outside surface back to good wood and continue with all polyester. This weekend hope to test fit it all in and drill all the holes though the core that I am going to use as clamping points. Once all is good I'll epoxy it all in.
 
lookin forward to more updates. hourston admirer.
 
Make damn sure that the epoxy is fully cured before sanding and that you Never Ever get any of the sanding dust on your skin. Very painful, believe me! Good luck with this huge project - done that 5 years ago - would not want to do it again even though it was a full success in the end.
 
Not sure on if I'm going to pod or not. As much as I really want to pod I can fully rebuild my motor into a 400-500Hp Stroker for the price of the pod, steering and controls alone. Then what ever the price of a motor on top of that. I won't cut out the keyhole until I see how my finances are after I'm finished all the fiber glassing.
Chris73 don't worry about that I've got the full HASMAT suit and fresh air respirator.
I ground down all the epoxy that will come in contact with the epoxy today and worked on the test fit and clamping system. Must of crawled in and out of the boat a hundred times today doing that. Sure could of done with a extra set of hands today. Don't know why the photos load upside down
 
Well after a LONG absence because of work,weather and life I'm back at it. Thought I would bring this back to life. The transom, Stringers and keel board are all in.
 

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Started working on the floors one coat of resin and a coat of mat on the bottom and added a few gussets to screw the front and back floor sections together. Covered the top 2 coats mat
 

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Added a spot for the batteries and some inspection ports
 

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Got the gunnel shelves in today. 2 coats of resin and mat on everything
 

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IMG_2943.JPG IMG_2943.JPG IMG_2943.JPG Started fitting the rear buck head back in. Want to make sure it all fits in and then remove and cover the whole thing in arborite to match the gunnels. Just waiting on some 2" mahogany to cut all the bulk head and door trim out of. I can't believe the room back there now. That's it till next weekend.
 

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Sorry about photos not sure what happened there.
 
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