19ft prince craft Hudson rebuild

Hello everyone.

new to the forum and happy to be here.

well here’s my story and how I ended up with this project. In Sumer of 2022 looking over kijiji adds in my local area I came across this 1999 prince craft Hudson. 19’3” long and 84inches wide. I got the fella to send me photos and was dimly interested as he came across as a jerk. The boat looked ok via the photos he sent but with a baby on the way my priority’s were focused on another direction. He was offering the boat and 60hp Yamaha and trailer for 4g. Wasn’t horrible but again don’t like arrogant jerks so I left it alone. Last week in between changing diapers and getting barfed on a text message showed up on my phone. “ would you still be interested in the boat “ being that jt was only 2 hrs away and I was heading down there anyways I went to see it. It’s rough but for what he offered it to me for I figured I could make something out of it.
So for 2500$ I got a fully custom loosely riveted hull that leaks like a siv a good 60hp Yamaha and a trailer that needs some new rollers.

We are in the middle of winter here in barriere bc so it’s presently defrosting in the shop. I was doing some measuring today and found two cracked ribs. I’m not concerned about them as I am a certified welder with 12 years experience.

I am planning on stripping out the bench seats and making the floor flat adding in two seats for me and the wife and two jump boxes for the kids. Putting the fuel tank below the floor and checker plating the floor so it’s easy to wash out after a day fishing.

I have a huge engineering question. I am planning on removing the bench seats as they have been chopped and hacked at by previous owners and I hate jumping over seats to set the hook off the down riggers.

I am going to cut tapered braces to run from side to side to brace the hull so it stops flexing and so I can put a flat floor into it. What thickness of material should I use. I was thinking 1/8” 5052 aluminum bar 8” wide.
How much material could be removed out of the centre of the braces to help keep the boat a reasonable weight as I’m not repowering. Is there any point in removing material or just leave it a solid brace ?

Any advice is always helpful so if anyone had suggestions on how to go about building a good family fishing machine I’m all ears.

James

 

Thanks for the reply Barry.

I wasn’t planning on welding over the rivets. I have ordered new bucking rivets from fastenal. 3/16x3/8 and 1/4x1/2. I am going to pressure test all the rivets with a modified blow gun and soap and water. Basically a blow gun with some 1/2 hydraulic hose hose claimed arround it so I can pressurize each rivet to 20 psi. Should I pressurize them to a higher psi ? Drill out and replace the ones that are damaged and re-buck the ones that can be tightened.

that’s a valid point and yes a fish plate over top and then welded in place is what I will do.

so the plan for the floor was to build the aforementioned brackets 70”wide with a 2” flat bar welded onto the top. So that I can rivet down the dimond plate. The floor will need to be able to be removed so maintenance can be done ie rebuckin rivets.
I am not sure but I’m concerned about welds cracking as well. I see that princecraft riveted the bench seats in place so I may consider riveting the cross braces in place as well as the ribs are thin / mastic Under ribs
And the heat from the spool gun welds will cause distortion and burn up the mastic. . I was going to put a brace on every second rib to help stiffen up the hull. When it comes to the tank. I have purchased a used stainless 36x18.5x7 inch tank and was planning on removing a 19x7.5 rectangle out of the middle 3 cross braces and then boxing the gas tank channel in with 1/8 material to gain back the strength I would be loosing by removing the middle material from the centre three brackets.

I would like your opinion on this. Should cut two slots on each cross brace and run the 1/8 plate 8” wide from bow to stern and weld them at each cross brace to create almost a i beam floor structure. In my opinion the rivets have failed because the previous owners removed bracing causing the hull to flex and loosened the rivets. The braces from the top of the gunnels have had the hardware removed so they are presently not doing anything. The centre of all the bench seats have been chopped out and openings created for storage. From what I can gather someone who did not understand structural integrity hacked and chopped this boat and removed all structural integrity from it. It started flexing and rivets started leaking then they gave up on it.

as for foam I am going to put closed cell blue or pink sheets below the floor to add flotation. I was concidering using pour foam but due to leaking rivets i want access to the rivets so I can change them out or re buck them. I was going to put foam from bow to stern in between all the new braces.

that’s a great idea Barry. I will include the tray running down each side and drill and rivet threw the hull so that I can again stiffen up the hull. I could then possibly extend a few of the floor cross braces up the side of the hull and tie them into the tray? Or possibly cut a custom floor brace that would span the width of the floor and then up the side of the boat that I could tie into the gunnels as well as the tray? What do you think of this? If I was going to do full hight braces how many of them would you suggest doing ?

What thickness of material do you suggest building with ?

What type of material should I build with ie 5052 or ???

I like your idea if closing in the splash well to create more space. The previous owners have butchered the back and welded a 1/8 formed plate all the way across and riveted threw the hull with some aluminum and some steel rivets. I will be drilling all these out and putting solid rivits in with a dab of 5200 behind all of the new replacement rivets.

thanks for all your help and suggestions. You’ve given me some great things to incorporate into the build. I have attached a picture of the full hight bull heads I was thinking ?

 

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We’ll after a few weeks here is what we are dealing with !!!

I am still amazed at the corrosion caused by using the wrong bolts on a aluminum hull. Drilled out lots of rusty steel screws , remove steel self tapping screws , steel rivets and all the steel hardware that someone before me mounted the motor with.

Loose rivets drilled out and new buck in rivets installed.

I laminated 2 sheets of 3/4 marine plywood together for a new transom.

it’s always good to be back rebuilding!!

has anyone used Sherman Williams tile clad on the hull of a boat to create a water tight seal to protect against corrosion fuel and wear?

Thinking out side the box on that. Epoxy is expensive and you have to paint it anyways and cladding is used on the railway and in marine shipping for mitigation of wear and chemical barrier.

 

The foam you propose is fine for flotation but first find out if it is a polystyrene. Most of the insulation foams sold in home improvement stores are polystyrene. The issue here is if you put it under the floor it will be exposed to any fluids that are in the bilge. Water is not a problem, but cleaners, gasoline, oil and fuel additives are. They dissolve polystyrenes. So if you do this you need to bag the foam or enclosed it in such a way it is not exposed to fluids in the bilge.. It needs to be sealed up so that no fluids can contact it. Boat Building Projects | 1972 Sea Ray 190 Rebuild https://newboatbuilders.com/pages/SeaRay190.html This is a link to a project boat where I had to reinstall the foam and used the pink foam. As you can see the foam on the sides are covered with plastic sheeting and sealed in. The pink piece in the middle is high enough off the bilge it never touches water. (unless some catastrophe happens)

On the other hand, polyurethane and polyethylene foams do not have this problem. Most 2 part foams are polyurethane. But PU pour foams do have water absorption issues. So oddly enough bagging or putting them in sealed boxes is a good idea. Typical Polyethylene foams are used in pool noodles and other water toys and do not have either issue. the problem with PE is getting it in sizes and shapes for use as flotation and at a cost that isn't prohibitive.. However, some boat builders have used PE foams but it is rather unusual.

 

I think that’s a great suggestion. The foam noodles are cheep as well. Up here in Canada building materials are very expensive.

the sheet of marine grade plywood was 200$ Canadian for 3/4” 4x8

What do you think about coating the inside of the hull with the tile clad ?