Soft Transom and Stringers
 

I believe my question has a "politically correct" answer and a "what would you do if it was you answer".

So, you are at the gas station spending the next 40 minutes pumping a couple hundred gallons of gas in your boat and a fellow boat admirer walks over and starts checking out your boat while chatting. He happens to tap on your transom casually while chatting and loading up the gas and then he stops and intentionally taps a few more times. He looks up and says, bud, you know your transom is going soft don't ya? Your confused looks leads him to show you how tone triggered by his tapping shifts at certain points on the transom. He says. dude you are wet, better get someone to look at that. Besides thinking this is the most expensive tank of gas ever, the question isn't if the transom and likely stringers will need to get pulled and replaced.

Now here is the question, how long can you go before taking on this repair? I suspect the politically correct answer is you should do it right away, it presents a "clear and present danger". I suspect the "what would you do if it happened to you" would likely be "i'll keep an eye on it and be cool with the boat till I can afford to get it fixed. Or maybe it would be "I'll get it done over the winter"?

I'm curious, I also suspect there are factors at play that drive the urgency of getting this fixed and I'm curious what those are? Things that come to mind are how you use the boat; are you running at higher speeds? do you spend an above average amount of time in the air? do you stomp on the gas at every opportunity? do your friends refuse to ride with you because you scare them? does your boat look like it has parts dangling loose? ...

Lastly, are boats these days less dependent on wooden transom and stringers? I see the need for them in the past, but we have come a long way in terms of making very strong and element proof materials that should essentially eliminate soft/rot as an issue (unless soft is caused by glasswork itself and the wood is fine? is that common?) and only add additional strength to hulls.

Stand/bounce on the drives and trim tabs and see if you get any movement. If not, wait until winter. That is my opinion. I wouldn't go wave crushing it either but you can at least enjoy the summer. It isn't as big of a deal as people think. If you are handy and can pull everything/reinstall everything yourself, you are looking at 3500-4500 for glass work. The problem is when you start doing the.......well, I should go ahead and fix this, and this, and this:)

pretty much sums it up. Its tough to establish a "time to failure" guideline there really are just to many factors. If its a Bravo boat you will start to wipe out couplers when they get really rotted. I ran my Scarab III for two years till i put a transom in it and it was pretty bad . . . . and i know a guy that does that kinda work lol. If you can get a look at the cutout edge and do the bounce test you can get a good idea of just how far along it is. I would suspect half the boats out there running merrily along are in dire need of a transom and the owners will never know it . . . . .

If you are talking about the Monza (which didn't hold that much gas so I'm hoping not) it doesn't even have "stringers" so to speak, just fiberglass boxes and the transoms were made from "iron wood" and almost never rot. And if its a Volvo Penta that motor can sit in there sideway it wouldn't matter. If it's not the Monza and Volvo the folks above have good advice.

If someone at a gas station came up and started knuckle banging the back of my boat, We would have a problem that didn't involve the transom or stringers. :duel:

it's not the monza, it is a prospective 2nd boat.

How much $ per post ?

Well then it had better have just gotten a lot cheaper.......

Run! and don't look back. It would have to be something very special to ever make me consider going through all that work again.

If the guy at the gas station is right you owe him a case of beer btw.

Did the guy at the station have a friend or know a guy that can fix you up ? Sounds really fishy that he walks up out o f the blue and starts banging on the boat . Maybe he's seen a lot of this particular boat with issues, more than likely he's looking for a payday!

This took place in an area where you can't swing a cat without hitting a boat and 15 people that own boats. I believe no malice was intended.

Well my friend, If you are seriously thinking about buying this boat, you either need to have someone look at it that knows what they are doing or spend some money on a decent survey.. If you dont, you most likely will either start a thread about some marine shop bending you over, taking forever and charging 3 times what they said to fix it or you will start a 47 page restoration thread,asking a ton of questions then doing everything the way everybody told you not to because its easier and cheaper. Of course you will spend a whole lot more than you thought, the little woman will get pissed, and you will get two thirds of the way done, get burnt out and give up.

I would have broke his arm and told him that he should go see a doctor. Ha !

I grew up where you don't touch other people's property unless you get permission. You even lean up against my car or truck, even if it's old, you are going to get an earful from me.

I had a used Parasail boat I was borrowing that had some time on it.

Noticed one day the bilge pump was running an awful lot. Pulled the boat out and bounced on the drive.

The whole lower half of transom plate was trying to go through the transom . It was prying out from the top where the transom was good yet and pushing in on the lower where they all start to rot down by the drain plug.

And the guy I had borrowed it from said he had just put a new coupler in it.

Glass Dave's assumption about 1/2 the boats out there having rotten transoms and stringers is spot on I think.

Especially in the non performance world where people don't take that good of care of them.

I bet I know the boat admirers story...

Your at the gas station with the sales guy for the boat you may buy. The admirer notices this and realizes that's the company that screwed him or a friend once. So over he comes and the rest is history.

phragle - I hear ya. with respect to seeking out a boat, I have a number of irons in the fire following up on the possibility of getting an AT in need of some glass work is just one. I also have an sr-1 lined up that I absolutely love but pre-purchase enhancements have dragged the availability of that boat from this may until potentially next may so I am very quickly pursuing options to help me determine if I should wait till next year or change plans. Yet another reason why so many questions from me recently.

Back to the AT. I am going in expecting the worst. This is why I have reached out to a highly respected glass man on OSO for feedback on transom & stringer replacement efforts and duration. I've had some conversations with members that have had personal interaction with the boat. If pursuing this is what I chose to do, funds to fix this would be reserved and factored into this equation (and I have been given numbers on what this would cost). I also have the engine builder i have used in the past liked up to make an assessment there. Boat shop is lined up and I may even chase down a surveyor (and I have done enough of these to be both impressed and terribly disappointed by the work done - I also find it odd there is no certification process for a surveyor, anybody can declare themselves one). Back to the glass, if I am being told that even the best guy cannot properly replace a transom and stringers, I missed that.

In the interest of following all wisdom being conveyed, have I missed anything?

Interesting, I believe some comments have been removed from this thread?

... and especially on the ones that either sit in the water, or sit in the driveway on the trailer with the plug in and a torn up cover on the boat. After all, it is a boat, right? It's meant to get wet!

I didn't have time to read all the responses so maybe it has been said.

First thing I would do is get a second opinion and not take the "random guy at gas station's" opinion. That's just me.

And why does it take 40 minutes to pump gas???

40 min to pump gas - 2 - 100g tanks (one of which has a sensitive overflow and gas can't be fed in full bore), potty breaks, snacks, lunch ideas, ice, coolers filled, running into folks ya know....it's easy to burn 40 in there

You know you're pumping gas slow when you need to stop to take potty breaks.

So fix the vent.... :party-smiley-004:

We have a marina near us that takes about 40 minutes when taking in 150 gallons or so. Used to be more tolerable when they had a small convenience store, boat parts section, and ice cream stand. New owners as of about 20yrs ago got rid of all that. So.....no one wants to go and gets gas 10 minutes further down the lake.

scottgjerdingen - sometimes you can fix that vent issue. You need some room to straighten out the vent a little and make sure that all of it is running downhill. If some fuel gets in the vent and 'sits' there, it becomes a partial block to the vent and you get gas that chuggs out of it when trying to put gas in the tank. This will also stop the chug back of gas from the fuel fill.

Boy did I ramble ! LOL.

I wish you would just get to the point. You say you were putting 200 gallons of gas in a boat you don't own and a stranger comes up and tells you," Hey, this boat is a piece of shi_". Interesting

Darr

Darr

Smells like it, but Doesn't seem to be Darr
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...5sj6vvXyhWWVBn

Big Scotty with out the cash?

Imports are down 20%. Transportation s taking a huge hit . We are on the verge of another recession.

Hold onto your hat for another year, if you still want the boat than offer them 50 cents n the dollar.

On the story of pumping gas and pissing off people , which was my speciality in a Very kindly Demanor.

Pull up to the chit hole gas station that sold gas the cheapest and proceed to grab 4 to 5 nozzles that were in reach and start pumping.

200 in the boat and 500 in the transfer tank in the truck. 3 nozzles in the truck threw most people over the edge , especially when you grab them from the other side of the island and tie up the pump there.

By the time they got done having a conniption and complaining to the store manager I was full and out of there.

Everyday occurrence when your Rockin 12 hours a day in the boat and fueling 8 wave runners.
Good Fun back than

I highly recommend this way of fueling if your fills permit multiple nozzles

The exasperation on people faces of you tieing up the pump on their side of the island when they want to just pump 5 bucks n was priceless .

Times have changed........
I remember back in 1980 on a boating weekend at a lake outside of Melbourne (Aus) we didn't have enough money to buy fuel. I went into the general store on the lakes edge and bought a packet of chips and a Coke to distract the store owner while my mate filled a 2 gallon gerry-can from their bowser out front, then took off into the bushes to rendezvous with me and the boat 200 yards round the bend.

Took less than a minute to steal enough fuel for 2 hours more skiing!

RR

EDIT BACK ON TOPIC ..... After my holiday, some guy told me my transom was wet so I sold the boat......

When we were kids we knew a farmer that left his gas tank unlocked and unguarded .12 pack of Miller High life for 5 bucks , 5 gallons of stolen gas , never get greedy, and another 5 bucks for Mcdonalds.

Good night out at 16

Geeze guys, come on. Can't a guy make up a story to frame a question? And why all the hangups on how long it took to fill gas?

here is deal & what I thought was relevant to weave into the story

I am looking to buy a really nice boat that some surveyor a few years back flagged with a soft transom, moisture reading 35. i'v never seen the boat hence the part of the story where someone just told me this. I also heard it had been raining a while days before this moisture test was taken, possibly could have influenced the reading, but i'm assuming there are issues.

I have contacted a very well respected OSO member on replacing the transom and stringers so I had an idea of what i would be getting into (thanks for the info dave). I also wanted to know if I could possibly still use the boat this summer in a gentile capacity, leaving glass work for the winter...I think this and the remainder of the post are pretty easy to follow,

So what sh!t did I catch for this?

* I think there was a bit of a passive aggressive comment because I have been posting a lot

* where some of you fixated on the duration it takes to go to the gas station blows me away, but I did appreciate the insightful comment for fixing the vent line, this happens occasionally on my current boat

* lets see, then I get the Darr comments (without even hounding you, insulting you and your boat)

* I apparently have motivated one check out some of my youtube profiles etc. to confirm I have a public folder with tons of boat related videos. I've even got the twitter account where my history could be checked...I have a facebook account as well, linkedin and many others too. Unlike many, I have no need to conceal anything, I represent myself as myself and have no need to hide behind a chat name.

* then I think I am getting slammed for having a fixed amount of money I can spend enhancing on boat and buying another...yes, I am poor and not a fat cat like many of you must be.

Well, I guess some just feel the way to raise their esteem is to diminish it others.

Can we move on and play nice?

Wait, what? :band:

To the op, sorry for my part in derailing the thread.

Now, I have revisited the thread and I don't see that anyone is having a dig at you. Your questions have been clearly stated and a few helpful responses are there with the light-hearted stuff too. You're getting advice from a respected expert in fibreglass work and that should be the strongest indicator for your purchase decision.

Threads move in different directions for better and for worse but usually revert back to the topic at various points. I wouldn't be too upset if it was my thread, I truly can't see anything that seriously "diminishes your esteem" or condescending towards you.

Answer the serious posts here to keep the momentum of the thread going and ignore the off topic stuff.

RR

Wow, lot of butt-hurt going on here. Personally, all these references to Glass Dave as "well respected" are throwing me off. Hell, the guy is from fricking Ohio and everyone knows ya can't trust those types... ;)

Personally the gas jokes have kept me in stitches all morning I wouldn't take it as ball busting necessarily. But from experience uncertain future boat repair bills can make one overly sensitive. +1 on the vent tube info

Yeah, he's from Ohio, but he takes "Up North" vacations in Monroe and is a HUGE U of M fan, so he's cool.

On topic edit to OP- If a surveyor already flagged it as bad (35% moisture reading) a few years ago, I'd be concerned with what corrective action has been taken since then. And personally, I'd plan on hiring the transom job if required, as my free time becomes a little more valuable than cash each day I get older.

I think the back half of the building is in Michigan and the front is in Ohio. That might explain it. Lol.

You stuck with the original story along time before you gave it up as fiction. Perhaps that's why some people thought you were Darr. On to your new story, so you own a boat, have a Formula on the way and now you're looking at a third boat. You describe it as nice in the sentence before you say you've never seen it. There's a survey involved that's some years old that you didn't pay for that you want to rely on and meteorological records indicate that this survey was done right after it rained. About right?