71 tri cabin pictures

[mr elevman]

she dosent look that bad to me if you want to see a real project boat look at mine its about 10 posts lower then yours ( pics take two)

[David Kane]

I bought a '75 tri-cabin this fall. Have it in inside heated storage this winter fixing it up. Had rot in the port cockpit area reminiscent of what I see in your pictures. Believe the prime reason on my boat was a hatch that I have in that area of the cockpit floor. It has a fingr hole to pull it up, which let a lot of water get inside. In redoing the hatch, I'm covering the finger hole with a metal pull ring. The canopy only came to the back of the bridge deck, leaving the cockpit fully exposed to the elements. I'm having the canopy totally rebuilt (it got tore up over last winter anyway-the owner'd dad died & he didn't get it layed up properly for the winter) so it will extend all the way to the transom, enclosing and protecting the cockpit. I'd be concerned with carpeting in the cockpit area-it will hold moisture. You may want to consider replacing with non-skid. Make sure you have plenty of clearance for the drain channel where the cockpit floor meets the transom, not only for water, but for you to be able to get your hand in & clean out the channel. From what I can see in your pictures, the glass wraps all the way around the wood forming your drainage channel-that's good. Be sure when you repair the cockpit floor you protect the edge at the channel-west marine epoxy or silicon, as water will tend to hang in the channel and, as you can see, attacks the floor from the edge.

Any idea how good your drive shaft packings are? I replaced mine-they were pretty shot. Also, take a look at the bilge area under the forward vee berth. If your boat is like mine, there is a narrow, deep channel where a bilge pump just can not get into to sump out the water. I filled mine in to get rid of that channel to better sump out all water in that area. Saw another post about putting a bilge pump in the transom area-sounds like a good idea to me & I'll probably do that on my boat.

I feel very fortunate that there are not soft spots on the top decking, so cleaning up what rot I had , cauking under all railing stanchions, windshield, around the forward hatch, etc., and waxing the exterior along with the canopy redo should keep the boat fairly water tight.

I'm renaiming my boat the Di Anne Marie, honoring my wife Dianne's name. So now when I walk out the door and she asks me where I'm going, I can honestly say I'm going down to work on the D.A.M. boat-LOL!!!

Dave Kane