Trojan Boat Forum

I'm looking at purchasing a 87 Trojan tricabin 36'. It needs tones of restorations but my main hang up is the starboard side gunnel or walking area is soft about 6-8' forward from the aft.
I have read that it is Very easy to access under the area but of course fiberglass sing is not easy but at least it's supposedly accessible.
I haven't seen how to get access and I am wondering if it's worth looking deeper to decide if I want it.

Do any of you have experience with this issue on the tri cabin?
You can see in this pic where the water got in where the fiberglass is cracked.





I need advice.

The access under that area is pretty reasonable. By that I mean that there are no mechanical systems or tabbed-in bulkheads (OK -- there is 1) that would really get in the way, mostly just the soft goods that cover the ceiling, and panels which unscrew. Of course, once you BUY IT, then open it up, you are stuck removing all of the rot no matter where it takes you, which may be far from where it looks like it is right now. And once you start, you have to finish, because the only thing worse than a boat for sale that is in need of repairs is a boat for sale that has incomplete repairs.

You should also ask yourself why the deck is wet. I suspect the windows. There is no point fixing the deck and not addressing the cause. Did you put a moisture meter on the cabin side below the window? Does it read off the scale? What about the opposite side deck? Did you tap everything out with a small hammer or screwdriver handle to look for areas of delamination elsewhere?


If the boat needs "tons of restoration", I would ask you why bother? Do you want to go boating, or do you want to work on a boat? I enjoy each, but the "work on" part has never been so bad that it interfered with the "go boating" part. It always cost more money and takes longer than you think it will to restore something, and your best maintenance dollars are spent finding defects in a boat that is not yet yours. Think long and hard if you've never undertaken such an endeavor. On the other hand, I love my tricabin to death. If you decide to go forward, you may want to check out this place http://minicraft.com/colormatch.htm I've never used them, but I've heard good stuff.

Two questions for you: How many other tricabs have you looked at? Why do you want this particular one?

I'll share something with you. I looked at ten 1981 to 1985 tricabins before I bought the 11th one that I looked at. Good luck whatever you decide. And please keep us posted.

Don't consider repairing from the underside...... you are working in a restricted area and gravity is against you.
Why not consider the obvious... repair from the top. You shouldn't worry about cutting the old deck finish, replacing with a new finish is always best as you get a tight seal to the replaced core.
As said previously there are many boats for sale out there that do not require a project to get them going.
NOTE: the lower the initial price the greater the $$ put in after purchase! That is my view and experience.
Deck repair from top in process....

I've been working on a deck repair on my F-26, here's the link to the thread with some photos I have of it. http://www.trojanboats.net/wforum/viewt ... f=1&t=7235
Some things that I learned while undertaking this project.
-None of my cleats showed any signs of having any type of bedding, whether it was butyl tape or caulking, there was nothing.
-Some of my bow rail stanchions had been caulked, it seemed liked some of them were skipped, which is kind of odd.
-the original gas filler neck had no caulking.
All of the above contributed to my deck core getting saturated and needing to be replaced.
-When I started, we had thought we had only two areas that were soft, when in fact I ended up replacing all of the original balsa coring on the main deck with new foam coring. Once we opened it up I was amazed at how deteriorated the original core was, and it ended up being a much larger project than anticipated. The cabin top need some core replaced, but not all of it.

I do agree with Ready123, that it's better to repair it from the top.

Have you checked the deck with a moisture meter? Before I started, I had mine checked with a moisture meter showed mine to be mostly wet. If it shows a larger area being wet, more than likely there is further unseen damage.

If you really like the boat, and are pursuing it I would have a surveyor look at it. It wouldn't scare me, but more than likely there will be more expense in repairing it than expected.

good luck

Ok, I think I will keep looking. There are not too many tri cabins around here on Lake Lanier in Georgia but maybe I will find one.
I current boat is a 79' Carver 28' Cruiser that was sitting for approx. 8 years or so. I got it for $5500 but it was in great mechanical shape other than just sitting and needing cleaning. We gutted the interior and redid everything. Still need to buff the exterior but I am removing stripes and cleaning it up first.
Here is it when I bought it in May 13'

I restored the Teak



I tiled the counters and replaced the Alcohol cook top with and Electric version, added a new fridge and new faucet, Vanished all the Teak inside, and re-upholstered all the cushions and fixed the hot water heater and many other little things that were easy fixes.





Here is the only pic I have since we've been using it this year. You can see it's clean but the exterior really hasn't been changed too much other than the Teak cleaned and vanished


I don't have any on the water pics of it yet I suppose.


The trouble with it is it's too small for my family. A few years back we had a F44 Trojan and LOVED it but we had to let it go due to my medical issues, now I'm healthy again and wanting to be comfortable on the water again.
Our F44 was gorgeous and mint

The '87 Tri is rare and the best of the Tri series, it was the 1st. year for the layout change but sadly the last year for the series. We lived on ours for 1.5 years......that's how comfortable she is!
Some questions
Have you actually seen the boat?
What other repairs are needed?
What's the price?
My friends and family are Truly amazed at the interior space and layout
Check out my pics
RB

Wow!, Your tri cabin is what I would imagine I would want to make of the one I'm looking at.
He WAS asking $22k, now $17k. It's not worth that. It's really only worth around $10k to me if the rot isn't too bad.
I have seen it in person. It is originally from Baltimore, MD and was stored in a outside slip. All the windows have leaked and it's obvious in the interior with water stains on the fabric and teak. It has never been updated AT ALL... It needs full upgrading. I didn't go into full inspection mode because after I noticed the soft decking I got scared and left soon after.

He has text me, now, 3 months later to see if I'm still interested. My inner thought is that he has absolutely no luck with selling it and will probably come off his price tremendously. This is not his personal boat. He is a auction buyer and got this one that way, so he probably has very little in it and he said his wife is on him to sell it when I first met him. If the rot is not bad I would consider trading my Carver even for it and he could sell my Carver pretty fast since it is well maintained. BUT if the rot is more than I am thinking then it's not worth my effort and $$$

You can check it out here. It has twin 5.7L with a 6.5k ONAN of which I am grossly familiar with from my former Trojan F44. I have a love hate relationship with Onan.
























After looking at the pics what do you guys think?


Here are the LARGE cracked areas in the fiberglass

This one here is the one I think that really let the water in under the fiberglass

It's the same old question, buy cheap and put more money into it than a nice one costs or pony up for a nice one. At this point in my life (and I'm not that old, I think?) I won't buy a boat that needs tons of my time and effort. To many surprises and not enough fun time. That being said I still look at these older project boats and vision about what could be.

That boat really doesn't look to bad so I guess my first question is why is it not selling? is it just the decks or is there engine work that needs to be done as well? Did he buy it to flip it (chuckle) or did he find something that makes him want to get rid of it? If was selling a boat I think I would at least put the window back in place.

QUESTION: On that Gunnel or side walk way, how is it made? Is it mostly fiberglass with a center runner of Plywood down the center for core support or does the wood run down into the hull or what? If it's a simple blank of wood cored inside the fiberglass? I don't see that being difficult to re-core and refiberglass.
If there is a lot of wood wrapped around this, that and the other, wrapped in fiberglass, then there is a TON of work that might detour me even more.

If it's a simple board running down the side then that is easy to fix. I can do fiberglass etc.... I'm worried more about having to cut a LOT of glass off and then fixing more than the walk way.

Anyone have any idea's what's all inside the fiberglass? What am I looking at here?

summer storm wrote: If was selling a boat I think I would at least put the window back in place.

HAHA! Yea, I thought the same thing. He DID buy it to sell it. He works for a Marina on the North side of the lake that buys boats at auction mainly from up North. He bought this one personally, outside of the company, but is using the companies web sites to help sell it. It seems that he isn't all that mechanically inclined.

Personally, restoring things like this, cars, ATV's and houses is VERY entertaining to me and I like making something plain into something gorgeous and unique, having other people gush over my work is icing on the cake. My Father is a carpenter for 35 years and I get it honestly.

I don't mind a lot of work, I just don't like an extreme amount of work.....
For instance I spent all last winter fixing up my Carver but was able to enjoy it by summer time and the timing was perfect. A Winter, to do the work is a lot of work, 2 or 3 winters is and extreme amount of work.

I think mechanically it is sound with a good tune up and change of all the fluids. Both engines run smooth and rev well but are just hard to start. Probably need the carbs cleaned and adjusted. The Onan purrrrrs like a kitten. Matter of fact I have never seen one runs so smooth. The Genset has something like 800-900 hrs on it, the motors have 500 hrs on them. They are 5.7L Chevy engines. Very easy to work on and maintain. That is NICE to me that they are in good shape.

My big concern is getting everything else re-done and gorgeous and then having a HUGE hole that I have to cut into the side of the boat and then getting in there and finding that I have to keep cutting more and more out because it wicked all over the starboard side......

I'm concerned about the wood around the windows as well by the looks of the fabric and teak on the inside of the Salon. Makes me wonder.

summer storm wrote:It's the same old question, buy cheap and put more money into it than a nice one costs or pony up for a nice one.

I agree with you here, but then again, in the process of correcting it's issues I can put my own personal touches on it to make it unique as to where If I spent more for one in decent shape I still would want to spend more on it to personalize it. Just don't know which I would spend more on....

Here are the pics of the bottom before he stuck it in the lake

I remember those 28 Carvers. Cool boats from a bygone era.

Love that old 44 of yours. I looked around at some 44's before I decided the next boat would be a 13 or 14 meter.

Offer 12 for the Tri. Do it in a nice way as to not insult the seller. Something like: "Well, I'd like to make you an offer, but I don't want to insult you." Most people just shrug and say offer away. Worst thing that could happen is that they say no to you.

jwrape wrote:QUESTION: On that Gunnel or side walk way, how is it made? Is it mostly fiberglass with a center runner of Plywood down the center for core support or does the wood run down into the hull or what? If it's a simple blank of wood cored inside the fiberglass? I don't see that being difficult to re-core and refiberglass.

Mine is an F-26, but it was constructed very similar to the photo that Ready123 posted of his F-32, and probably similar to the Tri-cab. The photo below is of my port side walk way. It was 1" thick in total. The top layer with non-skid was 1/4" glass, 1/2" Balsa core, which was replaced with foam core, and the bottom layer is 1/4" glass. The toe rail is cored with plywood, as is the base of the cabin top below my side framed windows. The F-26 has a solid fiberglass hull, I believe most of the F series boats were built that way. This walk way section actually went together pretty quick compared to the rest of the project

Thanks for the info. That makes me feel better about the soft deck. That looks much easier than what I was originally thinking. Is the foam core better? I would assume it doesn't absorb the water like wood or Balsa... Is it more expensive? Where do you find it?