'86 ADVANTAGE Bubbledeck

[Holorinhal]

Well I have been lurking in here for a while, but have not posted much, so I thought I would share a project that I have been working on for a while. Some of you may have already seen this, but I will share it any way.

For those of you who do not know, I spent a few years pouring my blood, sweat and tears into building a 73 Kona.
The boat turned out tits, and performed well right out of the box, but was short lived. On the second outing, two weeks after completion, the boat was destroyed by a drunk driver, not on the water, but while trailering home!
If any one wants to peruse the build here is a link. http://www.performanceboats.com/jet-...-build-ii.html

and here is a pic, after all Build threads are worthless without pics!



So, last season, I was going to be out of a ride and was really bummed. I had been watching this 18 Advantage open bow, that was for sale. I knew this boat and have always liked it.



So I called the owner and made a deal to go down to Laughlin and pick it up. Here is the funny part! Just as I was getting ready to walk out the door, to go pick up the Yellow Open bow, I decided to have a quick look in the spam section, on PB and there it was! River Dad had posted up a blue closed bow 18' Advantage hull and trailer. Now I had been looking hard, for a 18 or 19 Rogers Bonneville, for almost a year, and there it was, the next best thing, an 18 Advantage bubble deck, laid up from the same mold as the 18 Rogers Bonneville.
I immediately sent Jason a message, telling him that I would buy it sight unseen! So I bought two boats in one day

So here it goes. The wife and I hauled ass up, from Vegas, to Jasons shop, Roke Trailers, in California and picked the thing up and drug it back home.
The good. It is the hull that I wanted, The gel is in pretty dam good shape, the stringers and floor are in good shape and seem to be solid, and it has a pretty straight and solid Competitive tandem axel trailer, under it.
The Bad. On the transom, there is a sun faded spot that has faded thru to the base, there are hardware holes all over and one of the fiberglass fenders has been blown out. Sounds like fun right!

Here are a few pics from when we got it home.

The good!

[WMC]

Good post. Welcome to Hotboat

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[Holorinhal]

Good post. Welcome to Hotboat

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

Thank You,

[Holorinhal]

Ok so for the bad. The faded spot and the holes that I will have to do some creative covering on.







]



Oh yea, and the rotten bulkhead



Got it cleaned up

[Holorinhal]

Set up the rail kit, fabed from 2x2x 1/4 aluminum angle.





Battery bracket






Seat brackets.





The trailer did not fit this hull, so I had to rebunk the trailer. I had to cut off the old bunk brackets, and fabricate new ones and re weld them in the proper position.

[Wendi]

Wow that is an awesome project and great write up thanks for sharing

[Menace Marine]

Looks good so far. I love the blues in the gel. Classic boat with classic lines. Should come out real nice.

[Holorinhal]

Wow that is an awesome project and great write up thanks for sharing

Thanks Wendi!

Time to tackle the rotten bulk head. I cut out the old bulk head an bilge bulkhead, and ski locker bulkheads.











I used the old pieces as templates and cut out new bulkheads from 1/2" marine ply. I the encapsulated them in one layer of CSM and one layer of cloth.

[Holorinhal]

next I cut up some 9" wide strips of 1708 to use as tabbing. I fitted the bulkheads and tabbed them in place.

[WMC]

Awesome thread

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