1979 Dateline Bikini

[Sean2904]

Hi,
I recently acquired a 1979 Dateline Bikini. There's absolutely nothing to it as it has been stripped to the core, and consists only of the shell.

This is a project I'm looking to work on for the next while, and hoping to have it up and running and restored within the year.

I'm looking for a bit of advise on where to start. From what I can see, there's no wood at all, no stringers, no side panels or anything.

If there's anyone in the know, and would be willing to spare a little time to give some advice, that'd be much appreciated.

[Ianfs]

Hi Sean

Good to hear from you.

From what I can see, there's no wood at all, no stringers, no side panels or anything.

Most sports boats and in fact most boats, have stringers running from stern to bow to stiffen the hull, which tend to be Marine Grade Ply Wood, although in larger boats they can be thicker timbers of Teak or Oak but that is another subject. They are usually under the floor in what is generally is generally known as a HAT design or where the glass is formed over the wood in order to create a top-hat - type of design in order to add strengthen to the hull. The quality of the HAT forms the strength of the hull. Most of the older manufacturers used Marine Ply (which the standards were at the very least top grade at the time but in comparison today the wood and the glue was inferior to todays top grade standards) a high standard Marine Grade Ply, but absolutely not the stuff DIY shops sell at "supposedly" marine grade ply wood .
If you have these, they will be covered by glass fibre the length of the hull. Drilling into them and taking a core sample will reveal they are OK or wet. There is not much you can do if they are sodden apart from dry them out or if you can cut into the top of the HUT's and take out the wood to replace with Epoxy. Ife the HUT is 5-6mm thickness, which is OK, according to some boat builders, but as precaution, then you could add more to strengthen for a long period or dry to cut them out to fill with resin.
If it were me and I had most of them exposed I would take them out with some sort of multi tool and fill themm assuming they are wet of course.

Apart from that its only a matter of basically rebuilding from the floor up!

[Sean2904]

Thanks for your reply.

The problem we have, however, is that there is no floor. I've attached a photo, which is the best one I have at present, (but can take a better photo of the inside later on) and if you can make it out, there's just fibreglass casing. I sanded a bit of the glass down to break through and see what was inside the form but there appeared to be no wood under the glass. There was, however, a small pool of water formed inside which we will need to work out how anything is getting in.

The boat has been sitting in storage for a good few years from what I know so I'm hoping that the water is sitting in because of an exterior crack or hole rather than anything underneath

[Ianfs]

Screenshot_20200629_102739_com.android.gallery3d.jpg (384.54 KiB) Viewed 8604 times

Hi Sean

Thanks, from this photo there is no floor and I have to say it looks pretty dry which is pretty good and I suspect is fairly solid. The arrow on my picture is pointing to one of the stringers I was talking about.

This box section looks like a 4"x 4" section of wood laid along the length of the hull on both sides. It would be amazing if this were a 4x4 piece sections as this would be an extremely strong hull for a small sports boat, My feeling is that this is either a box section of ply covered by fibreglass or several pieces of ply sandwhiched and covered by fibreglass.

As you have it all exposed at the moment I would absolutely take samples from them. They can be replaced with plugs and epoxy so no strength issues. But if any of the samples are wet you will be able to drill the HAT take the rotten wood out and fil with epoxy.

[Sean2904]

Thanks again, Ian.


I'll hopefully get a chance over the weekend to get some more work done and get a proper look to see what needs done.

I'll keep this thread updated with progress photos if you or anyone else would be interested, and hopefully, should I require some more answers to any problems, I can post questions too