1972 Mako 16 Suspended Cockpit Boat Restoration

[slewit]

Hello Reelboaters

I am starting a new project with Jamestown Distributors. We are restoring a 16 foot 1972 Mako boat. The hull laminate is in good condition, but as with many boats built with wood stringers, they have rotted over time. I will document the repair as it happens.

The boat is owned by a couple of the guys at Jamestown. They will also document the effort and put this as a training guide on their website. I am treating this job just as I would anyone who contacts me and wants to replace or restore there composite structure.

You will find a previous thread on reelboating where we discuss the repair of a pathfinder stringer. (search pathfinder and it will come up). As I posted the project, I had some comments that stringers always need to contact the deck. This is the case in the vast majority of boats 30 foot and under. However it is not the only approach. We have designed off shore race boats, stunt boats and combatant craft boats with suspended cockpits. The idea is to float the cockpit so that slamming loads are not transmitted though he hull into the stringer into the deck and into your body ! With the suspended deck the deck now acts like a shock absorber.

This project caught my eye as it is a 1972 boat that took advantage of the suspended cockpit approach to improve the ride. As you can imagine the beating you can get going fast in rough conditions in a 16 foot boat. By suspending the cockpit the ride is greatly improved. For me the project is very timely as I am in the middle of a Navy R&D project where we are suspending the cockpit on a Navy RIB. We are doing it to reduce weight (less structure needed) and to reduce shock to the crew.

Here is a picture of the boat hull

Note the large gap between the stringer top and the cut away gap. The cockpit floats about 5" above the stringers.

Here is a picture forward

The Jamestown guys sent me this layout to help work stringers

After talking to TJ at Jamestown we decided on two of our standard Prisma stringer shapes. The suspended cockpit made the stringer selection much easier as we do not have to worry about landing the deck on the stringers. I sent TJ samples of the two stringers that I thought would work.

Here they have cut out the old stringers and you can see the two Prisma preforms samples in position.

Today we discussed cleaning up the hull laminate. The are areas where the stringers were that have some delamination. Also you can see some areas of delamination in the aft section. So the next task is to remove this damaged laminate and lay new glass with Epoxy resin. Once the bottom is prepared we can start to put the stringers in. So next week the hull prep is on the schedule followed soon after with the stringer install.

Thanks much to TJ Harris, Product Manager at Jamestown distribution for sharing this project with everyone on REELBOATING !

Scott