The Project Fishing Boat

[eman]

So we just picked up a 23' Huntsman powered by a 350 chev over the weekend. Needs a bit of work but once finished it should make a really nice family fishing boat even if we don't catch anything!

Photos below when it was in better condition







Work to be done
- Unfortunately due to the storms in late Jan the boat was slammed against the jetty and created a nice hole.
- Some work will need to be done inside to freshen things up a bit (new uphostery and a good clean)
- Motor has hydro-locked (leaking risers).
- New covers
+ anything else that we find!


Current condition on the trailer being towed by the NJ (first time on the trailer that we built for it, the winch on the NT was handy in moving the boat so it was centered!)


The NJ did a great job towing it from Lake Macquarie to Sydney until we got to Berowra... Radiator cap fell apart and we think that caused the top radiator tank to crack all the way round! We ended up nursing it home by filling the engine with water and joining the top and bottom radiator hoses with some hose from the boat. Every few K one of the hoses would blow out and we would have to repeat the process, letting it cool as we went. What should have been a 90 minute trip ended up taking 5 hours arriving in Sydney at 2am!

Let the fun begin!

[chriso of penrith]

Nice score.
Ive rebuilt a lot of boats. Most of the work is sanding....sanding.......sanding and a bit of painting.
The first thing you should do is use the 350 as an anchor and get a good diesel.
Put some project pics up when you get going.
Have fun.

[tomwithannl]

So we just picked up a 23' Huntsman powered by a 350 chev over the weekend. Needs a bit of work but once finished it should make a really nice family fishing boat even if we don't catch anything!

Good luck with the project, great looking hull.

Tom

[RUGGA]

Just found this section of the forum..... Cool

How is the boat going eman???

[91Tourer]

Yes I agree with chriso re the motor I've installed many diesel stern drives in both motor boats and sailing cats and they are much more reliable and efficient, looks like a score will be watching for your progress!

[Dicko1]

Few negative replies regarding the petrol 350. Good reasons too. Had a few mates throw them overboard . 2 put pods and 200+ hp outboards and one went inboard diesel. Good hull and if money permits and you dont mind the bulge in the floor area, diesel is the go. Most motor boat fires are caused by inboard petrol motors.

Food for thought. I would never own an inboard petrol motor just on this fact alone. 23 foot is a decent length hull and if in good nick I,d do it up to be as safe as possible, comfy , reliable and safe. Make a good offshore game fishing platform, if you like that sort of sportsfishing.
Enjoy the project.

cheers

[eman]

Completely forgot about this thread... Still have the boat, it's currently at a mates farm waiting for some time and money.
So far we have
- replaced the 350 chev with a 400 chev that a mate had, would have loved to throw a diesel in there but for $500 we couldn't say no
- fixed the hole and sanded it back
- rebuilt the stern drive
- replaced the toilet
- a thousand other minor annoying bits and pieces

To do
- Sand, sand and sand some more
- Respray
- Rewire, apparently the previous owner did this but all the wiring is either red or black, plus they left all of the original wiring!
- Fix more of the interior


We also picked up a 34' Bayliner cheap which also needed some work. Motors need a going over, interior is ok, exterior could use some TLC