Hello all. I purchased a 1979 Pantera 24 back in July 2011. It had a 350 magnum and an alpha as well as a bunch of incorrect hardware that the PO installed.

My plan was to use it in the summers and work on it in the winters year after year until it looked period correct and had a big block and bravo.

July 8, 2011 - the day I bought the boat:









Photobucket stopped working, so I will have to continue this later.

August 20, 2011 - The first trip out

The tired alpha shifted like crap and kept getting stuck in reverse. The 350 was low on power. The floor felt soft and the cabin carpet was nasty.

In late October 2011, I towed it to my parent's barn and decided to get to work. Unfortunately the barn was 3.5 hours away from home, so progress was intermittent and slow.

November 5, 2011 - Starting to strip hardware









November 25, 2011 - Continued to strip hardware, started to clean hull, stripped carpet from cabin


















November 26, 2011 - More stripping, discovered rotted core under companion way hatch, suspect looking structure under cabin floor

let the fun begin!

I didn't get back to the boat until the end of January 2012.

January 28, 2012 - The floor was garbage, so I cut it out




Not what I expected to see










The stringers felt solid and looked wood colored through the glass, but I began to worry that they may be wet.

The 3.5 hour drive was too much. there was barely enough work time left in a weekend. The winter was mild, but the barn was unheated.

I drilled some areas and found that the stringers were indeed wet. I had a lot of work in front of me.

A friend generously offered to let me store and work on the boat in his hard 45 minutes away, so I went to the barn in late March and towed the boat back.


April 1, 2012 - Pulled the motor with help from friends

Wow ! Your boat looks like a mirror image of mine when I bought it in 99 .

Yours has definitely come a long way from looking like this!

You have NO IDEA ! Nobody on OSO has seen mine in over a year . I chopped it up . The only thing that will be original is the hull . We are installing one of our new poker run top decks on it , run 110 mph and then sell it .

It was an incredibly hot April.

April 7, 2012 - Still removing stuff









April 21, 2012

cut the back seat out so I would have room to work and a way to get new stringers in








cut the area out under the cabin hatch




I gave my buddy, Ken, a set of snow tires, and in return he offered to glass in the hole left by the hatch. I took a break from the destruction.









I get tired of taking pictures, and it looks like I didn't take any of the core install and glass work.