[holorinhal]

Well here we go again. I picked this project up at the beginning of the summer. It is an 18' Advantage bubledeck,which is the exact same hull as a Rogers Bonneville 18.
The boat is in pretty good codition. The Gell coat is in pretty good shape,with the exception of a sun faded spot on the deck of the transom. It is a solid boat and it did come with some decent hardware, which i probobly will not use any of it. The plan is to use every thing out of the Kona, which is all brand new hardware.
Although I won't be thrashing on this untill the fall and winter, I have started cleaning it up and stripping it down.









THE GOOD

The good things about the boat are, The Gelcoat is in decent shape.





The stringers are solid.




It came with some good dash hardware.





Has a decent tandem trailer.

THE BAD

The transom deck has a real bad faded spot that I will have to figure a fix for.



The deck and transom have holes where there were deck hardware, thru transom exhaust, and swim steps.
I do not plan on disturbing the gelcoat to fill these holes, so I will have to get creative with some cover plates.









The trailer has a broken fiberglass fender and needs to be rebunked and repainted.




I think I will need to replace the front bulk head, because Ifound a little rot in one of the corners of the bow opening.




All in all I think this will be a fun project.......Hal

 

[jyeager]

Good luck Hal. Love the color of the gel. Knowing how great you did on the last one, you'll do a awesome job . )THumbsUp

 

[smupser]

Good lookin' "starting point"

 

[greg shoemaker]

18 Advantage

What year is that boat. I rigged alot of those boats for Harry but most of them had e pumps in them. It was a very popular boat on the stetch river from below the Parker strip all the way to Yuma. Harry and Debbie had a trailer at Shaggy Tree which Debbie still has to this day. Great boat for that part of the river espically in the open bow .

 

[Last Mohican]

Great looking boat Hal. Look forward to the progress this winter.

 

[sandeggo]

First thing I'd do is fix the bunks. It looks like it isn't sitting right

 

[holorinhal]

What year is that boat. I rigged alot of those boats for Harry but most of them had e pumps in them. It was a very popular boat on the stetch river from below the Parker strip all the way to Yuma. Harry and Debbie had a trailer at Shaggy Tree which Debbie still has to this day. Great boat for that part of the river espically in the open bow .

Hey Greg. The boat is an '86. It is funny You mention the open bow and Debbie. I have a 83 Advantage openbow ( same hull as the blue one) that I baught at the beginning of summer. We had it out at the CP regatta and Debbie was out at the sandbar, She saw the boat and was talking about how clean it was and how they did not make that boat any more and how much She lked it and would like to have it.
I got numbers from 3 different people that were begging Me to call them if I decided to sell the openbow. Here is a picture of it. The open bow does have an E pump in it.

 

[holorinhal]

First thing I'd do is fix the bunks. It looks like it isn't sitting right

Hey Kevin,Yes the trailer does need to be rebunked. The boat will be comming off and put on a dolly and the bunks cut off and moved to propperly fit the hull, before any real weight ( engine) is put in it.
I need to find out where I can get the weld on bunk brackets.

 

[HotRodJosh]

Sweet looking boat! Love the colors.....except why does every '80's boat have those kinda "stripes" on the deck? It'd look SOOO much better without them.
Good luck on the build....not like you need it though....
RIP Kona.....

 

[greg shoemaker]

Open Bow

Hey Greg. The boat is an '86. It is funny You mention the open bow and Debbie. I have a 83 Advantage openbow ( same hull as the blue one) that I baught at the beginning of summer. We had it out at the CP regatta and Debbie was out at the sandbar, She saw the boat and was talking about how clean it was and how they did not make that boat any more and how much She lked it and would like to have it.
I got numbers from 3 different people that were begging Me to call them if I decided to sell the openbow. Here is a picture of it. The open bow does have an E pump in it.

View attachment 174207

View attachment 174208

Saw that boat at the regatta and commented how clean it was and told a few people I'm sure I put that boat together originally. Harry really loved that little boat and beleive it or not we actually built quite a few.

 

[sandeggo]

Hey Kevin,Yes the trailer does need to be rebunked. The boat will be comming off and put on a dolly and the bunks cut off and moved to propperly fit the hull, before any real weight ( engine) is put in it.
I need to find out where I can get the weld on bunk brackets.

Cut them off flush with a cutting wheel on a grinder, wire wheel them, weld them in the right place. They should be plenty tall. That's what I had to do when I fit my Schiada on a trailer for an 18'. Even lowered it on the trailer so the boat didn't sit so high.

 

[holorinhal]

Cut them off flush with a cutting wheel on a grinder, wire wheel them, weld them in the right place. They should be plenty tall. That's what I had to do when I fit my Schiada on a trailer for an 18'. Even lowered it on the trailer so the boat didn't sit so high.

Hey Kevin, Thanks for that tip. I dont know why, I just did not occur to me to do that.

I got the boat cleaned up a bit.

 

[Duke]

I'm excited to see how you work this boat. I have a matching yellow and blue advantage, closed bow. Have fun with it Hal!

 

[TrollerDave]

I'm excited to see how you work this boat. I have a matching yellow and blue advantage, closed bow. Have fun with it Hal!

With the awesome job you did on the Kona, boat and thread, I think everyone is looking foward to this thread.)THumbsUp

I hope that isn't too much pressure

 

[holorinhal]

I'm excited to see how you work this boat. I have a matching yellow and blue advantage, closed bow. Have fun with it Hal!

Hey Duke If You have any pics of Your boat ,post them up, I would love to see them.

 

[holorinhal]

Square peg in a round hole, sort of.

The idea for this build is to use all of the parts from the Kona to put this boat together. That being said, I thought I would mess around with trying to mock up and fit the interior in the boat,
Needless to say it was kind of like fitting a square peg in a round hole.
The bucket seats will work fine, but the cocktail seats are a different story. Here are a few pics.

This is the rear seating that I would like to make work.





Here is what it looks like in the boat. The seat is too long, and it has a hump that was made to fit the hump in the Kona.
I would have to do a whole lot of modifying to make it fit and then I still do not know if it would work.
I wonder if I could just build a new frame and have an upholstery shop cut up and modify the vinyl covers to fit?
If any one has any sugestions, I would love to hear them.







Maybe I will just rigit as a two seater with the front cover.

 

[holorinhal]

A little Rigging

I just could not help myself, so I started mocking up some rigging.
I started with fabing up the rails and stringer plates for the engine mounts. I made the rails 36" long and i set them 1/4" below the top of the stringers.





I cut the ears on the rails and drilled the stringers for the bolts.



Battery Box and Bracket

I mocked up and drilled the holes for the battery box bracket that I had fabed.



Mocked up the battery box.





Seat Brackets

Fabricated seat brackets for the the two bucket seats.
I mocked up the steering post and wheel, so that I could judge the distance back that I wanted to mount the seat. The steering post is from the Spectra and will be ano blue or polished.

 

[HBInHeat]

twenty bux says you fill all those transom holes and re-gell those sections )THumbsUp killer work as always

 

[holorinhal]

twenty bux says you fill all those transom holes and re-gell those sections )THumbsUp killer work as always

Thanks Adam That's a bet I would probobly loose. I have been resisting the urge to do that, but it is like a crack head jonesing for a fix!... This is supose to be a budget build......H

 

[sak]

Hal

I was one of the people that talked to you on the sand bar about your open bow are you still thinking about selling it? I have a place in shaggy tree a couple spots up from Debbie