NewTrawler
Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2023
- Messages
- 13
OK, I havent posted in a while. Work got busy, and I wanted to work on the trawler with all my spare time it's paid dividens, and we are having 150% fun with it right now.
It has been the most amazing project I've ever been involved in, and i want to share what my adventure has been, is continuing to be hope this is the right spot. = )
If anyone has an excellent idea on how to store media to create a link, per say id love to hear what everyone has been using, as I've seen a few of these types of links im not an awsome youtuber or anything like that so i feel like i could use some advice
Now down to the good stuff.
So way back in 2023 i acquired a Marine Trader 38 DC. No experiance what so ever with Trawlers or their sub systems I have always owned a boat just smaller stuff 19.5 chap ski boat, 21 wel craft 210 classic both very good boats that i still have. However that desire to go into the saltwater had come over me and i like most here couldnt pass up a nearly free boat. Im a Fanatic at this point and would recommend to anyone to get involved in this life style as fast as possible. Its rewarding and challenging and when you look back you have all these amazing memories. Might even have some scarey memories as im subject to all of it.
What i got when i aquired this was not what ive had thought is a gem that it is. This boat had been well maintained however when i got it they told me the motor is locked up you will have to replace it. Well that wasnt true , yes the motor was locked up but these FL120 engines are about as complicated as a lawn mower we removed the head and found the problems in about 20-30 minutes. Water had gotten in the fuel tanks due to plugged scuppers imagine that. the sleeves wernt damaged and im pretty sure when brokers were looking at it they had burned up at least 2-3 starters trying to get it to roll. The way we fixxed it was removed the Head, took it to a local machine shop 150 dollars later we had a polished head that was even and ready to rock. The lower end wasnt in to bad a shape, so we opted not to pop the crank out and to hone the cylinders best we could soak the sleeves in solvent and see if we could break it loose. It came loose with no problem and we rolled it a little bit and repeated the honing process being fairly careful to not go to far with the honing stones. Repeated the process a few times and we had a smooth sliding set of 6 pistons that we were willing to gamble would perform well. After putting it all back together we hooked it all back up and made a very stupid mistake of not purging the fuel system and cleaning it. ended up with water in it again and didnt realize it we thought we had gotten it all out and wernt even close. At the time we didnt realise what had happened as far as the water coming over the top of the fuel inlets and had that moment of what now. With very good motivation from my growing number of crew and friends and a tad bit of frustration eventually got all the water out of the fuel and started it for the first time. Had absolute hell with the fuel system on this thing since i couldnt get it to prime correctly and i have abit of advice on these single screw MT boats I added handling tanks so i could run fuel across the rancors and watch it go in the handling tanks which i added first a 16 gallon day tank then one other. This helped more than anything i could have imagined. once i put a pump bulb on it and have the 2 smaller cubes plumbed to the fuel inlet on the injector pump this thing purs like a kitten it smokes but i feel like the water that had went into the injectors has damaged them in some way but i feel pretty darn good about the ford diesels performance it just smokes ill do the injectors later. I was in a rush to complete my own goal of having this boat operational with in 1 year of aquistion and we did exactly that. The first day we cranked it up and actually pulled out of the marina was down to with in 2-3 days of when i had planned it to be. It was a very good feeling and we havent stopped using it since. almost every weekend we have had it out and if you have been in and around offats bayou in glaveston area there is a good bet you have seen this boat. We have been offshore on some very select days and we have gotten in that ohh **** moment a few times of where are the life jackers right this second why am i not wearing one and wow...
Some of the things we have dealt with and havent,
the bottom: we hauled out and took this thing down to its core fiberglass it had been in the water over 7 years. it was nearly destroyed there was a few up sides. micro blisters there we 100's and big spots were a few. some de lamination was present but we took care of it to the point i dont think ill have to do much soon. Just haul out, clean recoat and drop it back in.
running gear: the shaft and cutlass bearing were in pretty damn good shape so we didnt mess with it. the propeller was in VERY bad shape it cost 2500.00 for a new one. its now over propped abit more than id really like but if i change anything it will be rework on the very fantastic prop it has now and it works very good.
Rudder: this was clearly not the factory rudder from the looks of the overall glass job we figure this thing had been crunched on the keel line at the stern of the boat the rudder is stainless not the factory bronze that these MTs came with and they had obviously redone all the fiberglass on the stern of this boat i didnt know what i know now at the time that if your dealing with these MT's the Stern is a problem area and needs to be addressed i got lucky. This one had a significant rework of the fiberglass on the back end and structure suports reworked and added to the stern.
Decks: i havent ripped the teak of yet. this boat has pretty dang good teak and i have a lot of questions id like to ask ive seen alot of vidoes of people reworking them and it is a leaky teaky but i dont have the same problem that others have had its leaking in the right spots if there ever was one. its not leaking into the boat and dripping on the interior like ive seen others have problems with. what i have done is we took a sander and skined the caulk off and polished the teak and stained it in one area using a poly coat that is supposed to be sun resistant (poly urethane) I really like how this worked. i see what some folks have told me in referance to the poly but i can tell ya if you do it on a regular basis rescore and reapply you will have luck with it. The probable end to this deck will be a fiber glass finish but not all the way i want to leave the bow with a good bit of reworked teak on it and change the sides back and partialy onto the bow just havent got there yet would rather play on the boat right now. Item for next off season.
Fly bridge: its a dumpster fire, we have removed anything that was on top and now have patio furniture on it. This is a kick the can down the road project the steering and throttle work so it has an upside. I almost want to close the area in and place a hatch with a ladder on it. just really hadnt made up my mind on what to do. instead of doing and expencive canvas so in the mean time we have a 8x6 chaep harbor freight tarp. if someone here would like to share what they have done in a like situation im open for some bashing and suggestions. right now i have the 8x6 and my patio furniture with the framing that came on it and its kinda ghetto but it gets the job done. Also and this is important i have a spare 12 dollar tarp....... incase the other one desides it doesnt want to be there anymore.
Salon: i had to remove a couch and a 70inch TV that was on this boat when i got it. Someone had been living on it but this crap had to go. stripped it down to nothing and added a few folding charis with the very near future coming of a double hinged futon style device with a fold down table. im going to get this done very soon ive got about 10 sketches ive made of ideas and ive settled on one single folding piece with double hinges and a removable table that i can strap to the bulkhead its simple and deals with the fact that who ever tore out the factory seat and table i feel made a pretty bad mistake. Has the small squares of wood flooring just like the other boats ive seen havent refinshed it yet but i dont feel a challenge here will be one of the last things i do. Kitchen is in very good shape had a decent replacment counter in it. with a microwave, 2 drawer fridge/freeze toaster oven big enough for a pizza and a decent sink with infared two burner cook top got the right pans cook ware for it havent looked back.
Cabins: didnt have alot to do here. the boat came with a window unit in one of the rear windows and this for my purpose in the TX/Galveston area has worked really well underway it stays 60 degrees in the back cabin i absolutly love it had a full size matress we replaced it with a brand new one and used the interior parts of the old one to make the vee birth cushions. The cabins have very good storage and i dont feel like there is any need to reinvent the wheel everything is mahogany and beautiful.
Air Conditioning: This part of this boat is very important in the south were temps regularly hit 100 and its sunny and humid. i removed the water cooled unit and replaced with a new dometic 12k btu. I made a mistake. i should have gotten the 16k there is a silver lining to this i have a window unit in the back and the 12k will run with the window unit on a 5000w or 5kw generator with no problems but the salon mid day is regularly around 78-80 i can keep it at 75 when by myself. i want to be clear here if you have guest they will not keep the doors shut on it. i dont care who they are i feel like a door nazi trying to keep the dang access doors closed when taking guests cruising its why i feel like a 16k would have been the better choice but i didnt want to spend the money again was about 2k alil bit more for the dometic replacment. Ive done a couple of things to cool the vee birth at night. pretty simple i add a 6 inch duck from the discharge of the salon and close it off in the hatch to the top of the bulkhead on the vee birth with this in place the temps stay at sub 70s with out any problems. soon as the sun goes down a nice box fan will keep the vee birth at around 75 which is were i sleep when cruising with guests. i always give up the very large rear cabin in favor of being under the helm and hearing anchor alarm and bildge alarms very easily. i am a very hard sleeper and staying close to that station seems important enough for me. ( cant freaking wait for next march, april, may = ) dont need the a/c's.
Electronics: I got blown away by how much you could spend on this topic and i want to tell ya that i chose not to at this time. i think some of the electronics are overated and i want to share what i have done so i can tell you there is a very good option that people seem to be quite impressed with. it cost me roughly 400.00 dollars. i purchased a mini PC and a 28 inch monitor. I installed openCPN and spent a very good amount of time learning how to use the extensions add ons and learned this software in and out. Ive had some problems with the openCPN the software has a memory leak somewhere and it tends to eventually freeze up but remmber i only spent 400 dollars i could have built alot better pc to run this but i just dont think its necessary at this time. i am running to many overlays and I'm considering splitting the tasks up with 2 minis or just removing some of the things that aren't that neccisary. i can state with good regarads to the people that have made openCPN accessible and avalible with very good walkthroughs on youtube if your one of those people Thank you very much for your efforts. I do have the humingbird 18 and its a small screen but everything works on it and when i loose 110v you bet it works like a champ its just extremly dated tech. Ive never lost 110v underway but trying to come in at night with the 28 inch blaring at me even in night mode i have to shut if off so i dont wreck the boat. especially when there is no moon.
Boat electric in general: got lucky here to someone had been to everywhere i had ended up on this boat. everything in the wiring is in fairly good shape i have a pretty decent background with electrical so i found no challenge here cleaning wires up reterminating and after i got everything the way i wanted it i dont think id want to sell this boat since it did take alot of time. I feel like i know everything in the harness now and thats why this boat is of extreme value to me. guess it would be different for anyone else.
Fuel tanks: I posted what i was doing on this forum and we completed the tasks as stated. I will never do this again. it was HARD WORK. i have coated functional fuel tanks now and i dont think ill have to mess with them again. if i had another boat which at this time seems like a stretch i may consider doing this work again but right now i feel like i ran a marathon with it. one thing i recommend is that if you have room like my single FL120 has put handling tanks in like i have done 36 gallons at 6 knots goes further than i ever thought possible and is a very good number for day tanks. the x2 200 gallon saddle tanks on this boat give it an operating range that is more than i expected its well over a 1000 miles.
all told i want to say ive 2000-2500 man hours into this refit and run and its a working trawler now with a bright future imho. ive found something that i love with this boat.
Ill probably edit this post a few times i just wanted to post an update and express the efforts that were made with this marine trader 38. These boats are salvagable and they are around i didnt have to pay money for mine. That is the thing tho. it has cost me a good deal of cash to do the things i have done but i feel like the reward is so much more.
Ill add somemore to this story as it progresses. hopefully this isnt overwhelming i just wanted to share my adventure with like minded people thanks for being here.
= ))
It has been the most amazing project I've ever been involved in, and i want to share what my adventure has been, is continuing to be hope this is the right spot. = )
If anyone has an excellent idea on how to store media to create a link, per say id love to hear what everyone has been using, as I've seen a few of these types of links im not an awsome youtuber or anything like that so i feel like i could use some advice
Now down to the good stuff.
So way back in 2023 i acquired a Marine Trader 38 DC. No experiance what so ever with Trawlers or their sub systems I have always owned a boat just smaller stuff 19.5 chap ski boat, 21 wel craft 210 classic both very good boats that i still have. However that desire to go into the saltwater had come over me and i like most here couldnt pass up a nearly free boat. Im a Fanatic at this point and would recommend to anyone to get involved in this life style as fast as possible. Its rewarding and challenging and when you look back you have all these amazing memories. Might even have some scarey memories as im subject to all of it.
What i got when i aquired this was not what ive had thought is a gem that it is. This boat had been well maintained however when i got it they told me the motor is locked up you will have to replace it. Well that wasnt true , yes the motor was locked up but these FL120 engines are about as complicated as a lawn mower we removed the head and found the problems in about 20-30 minutes. Water had gotten in the fuel tanks due to plugged scuppers imagine that. the sleeves wernt damaged and im pretty sure when brokers were looking at it they had burned up at least 2-3 starters trying to get it to roll. The way we fixxed it was removed the Head, took it to a local machine shop 150 dollars later we had a polished head that was even and ready to rock. The lower end wasnt in to bad a shape, so we opted not to pop the crank out and to hone the cylinders best we could soak the sleeves in solvent and see if we could break it loose. It came loose with no problem and we rolled it a little bit and repeated the honing process being fairly careful to not go to far with the honing stones. Repeated the process a few times and we had a smooth sliding set of 6 pistons that we were willing to gamble would perform well. After putting it all back together we hooked it all back up and made a very stupid mistake of not purging the fuel system and cleaning it. ended up with water in it again and didnt realize it we thought we had gotten it all out and wernt even close. At the time we didnt realise what had happened as far as the water coming over the top of the fuel inlets and had that moment of what now. With very good motivation from my growing number of crew and friends and a tad bit of frustration eventually got all the water out of the fuel and started it for the first time. Had absolute hell with the fuel system on this thing since i couldnt get it to prime correctly and i have abit of advice on these single screw MT boats I added handling tanks so i could run fuel across the rancors and watch it go in the handling tanks which i added first a 16 gallon day tank then one other. This helped more than anything i could have imagined. once i put a pump bulb on it and have the 2 smaller cubes plumbed to the fuel inlet on the injector pump this thing purs like a kitten it smokes but i feel like the water that had went into the injectors has damaged them in some way but i feel pretty darn good about the ford diesels performance it just smokes ill do the injectors later. I was in a rush to complete my own goal of having this boat operational with in 1 year of aquistion and we did exactly that. The first day we cranked it up and actually pulled out of the marina was down to with in 2-3 days of when i had planned it to be. It was a very good feeling and we havent stopped using it since. almost every weekend we have had it out and if you have been in and around offats bayou in glaveston area there is a good bet you have seen this boat. We have been offshore on some very select days and we have gotten in that ohh **** moment a few times of where are the life jackers right this second why am i not wearing one and wow...
Some of the things we have dealt with and havent,
the bottom: we hauled out and took this thing down to its core fiberglass it had been in the water over 7 years. it was nearly destroyed there was a few up sides. micro blisters there we 100's and big spots were a few. some de lamination was present but we took care of it to the point i dont think ill have to do much soon. Just haul out, clean recoat and drop it back in.
running gear: the shaft and cutlass bearing were in pretty damn good shape so we didnt mess with it. the propeller was in VERY bad shape it cost 2500.00 for a new one. its now over propped abit more than id really like but if i change anything it will be rework on the very fantastic prop it has now and it works very good.
Rudder: this was clearly not the factory rudder from the looks of the overall glass job we figure this thing had been crunched on the keel line at the stern of the boat the rudder is stainless not the factory bronze that these MTs came with and they had obviously redone all the fiberglass on the stern of this boat i didnt know what i know now at the time that if your dealing with these MT's the Stern is a problem area and needs to be addressed i got lucky. This one had a significant rework of the fiberglass on the back end and structure suports reworked and added to the stern.
Decks: i havent ripped the teak of yet. this boat has pretty dang good teak and i have a lot of questions id like to ask ive seen alot of vidoes of people reworking them and it is a leaky teaky but i dont have the same problem that others have had its leaking in the right spots if there ever was one. its not leaking into the boat and dripping on the interior like ive seen others have problems with. what i have done is we took a sander and skined the caulk off and polished the teak and stained it in one area using a poly coat that is supposed to be sun resistant (poly urethane) I really like how this worked. i see what some folks have told me in referance to the poly but i can tell ya if you do it on a regular basis rescore and reapply you will have luck with it. The probable end to this deck will be a fiber glass finish but not all the way i want to leave the bow with a good bit of reworked teak on it and change the sides back and partialy onto the bow just havent got there yet would rather play on the boat right now. Item for next off season.
Fly bridge: its a dumpster fire, we have removed anything that was on top and now have patio furniture on it. This is a kick the can down the road project the steering and throttle work so it has an upside. I almost want to close the area in and place a hatch with a ladder on it. just really hadnt made up my mind on what to do. instead of doing and expencive canvas so in the mean time we have a 8x6 chaep harbor freight tarp. if someone here would like to share what they have done in a like situation im open for some bashing and suggestions. right now i have the 8x6 and my patio furniture with the framing that came on it and its kinda ghetto but it gets the job done. Also and this is important i have a spare 12 dollar tarp....... incase the other one desides it doesnt want to be there anymore.
Salon: i had to remove a couch and a 70inch TV that was on this boat when i got it. Someone had been living on it but this crap had to go. stripped it down to nothing and added a few folding charis with the very near future coming of a double hinged futon style device with a fold down table. im going to get this done very soon ive got about 10 sketches ive made of ideas and ive settled on one single folding piece with double hinges and a removable table that i can strap to the bulkhead its simple and deals with the fact that who ever tore out the factory seat and table i feel made a pretty bad mistake. Has the small squares of wood flooring just like the other boats ive seen havent refinshed it yet but i dont feel a challenge here will be one of the last things i do. Kitchen is in very good shape had a decent replacment counter in it. with a microwave, 2 drawer fridge/freeze toaster oven big enough for a pizza and a decent sink with infared two burner cook top got the right pans cook ware for it havent looked back.
Cabins: didnt have alot to do here. the boat came with a window unit in one of the rear windows and this for my purpose in the TX/Galveston area has worked really well underway it stays 60 degrees in the back cabin i absolutly love it had a full size matress we replaced it with a brand new one and used the interior parts of the old one to make the vee birth cushions. The cabins have very good storage and i dont feel like there is any need to reinvent the wheel everything is mahogany and beautiful.
Air Conditioning: This part of this boat is very important in the south were temps regularly hit 100 and its sunny and humid. i removed the water cooled unit and replaced with a new dometic 12k btu. I made a mistake. i should have gotten the 16k there is a silver lining to this i have a window unit in the back and the 12k will run with the window unit on a 5000w or 5kw generator with no problems but the salon mid day is regularly around 78-80 i can keep it at 75 when by myself. i want to be clear here if you have guest they will not keep the doors shut on it. i dont care who they are i feel like a door nazi trying to keep the dang access doors closed when taking guests cruising its why i feel like a 16k would have been the better choice but i didnt want to spend the money again was about 2k alil bit more for the dometic replacment. Ive done a couple of things to cool the vee birth at night. pretty simple i add a 6 inch duck from the discharge of the salon and close it off in the hatch to the top of the bulkhead on the vee birth with this in place the temps stay at sub 70s with out any problems. soon as the sun goes down a nice box fan will keep the vee birth at around 75 which is were i sleep when cruising with guests. i always give up the very large rear cabin in favor of being under the helm and hearing anchor alarm and bildge alarms very easily. i am a very hard sleeper and staying close to that station seems important enough for me. ( cant freaking wait for next march, april, may = ) dont need the a/c's.
Electronics: I got blown away by how much you could spend on this topic and i want to tell ya that i chose not to at this time. i think some of the electronics are overated and i want to share what i have done so i can tell you there is a very good option that people seem to be quite impressed with. it cost me roughly 400.00 dollars. i purchased a mini PC and a 28 inch monitor. I installed openCPN and spent a very good amount of time learning how to use the extensions add ons and learned this software in and out. Ive had some problems with the openCPN the software has a memory leak somewhere and it tends to eventually freeze up but remmber i only spent 400 dollars i could have built alot better pc to run this but i just dont think its necessary at this time. i am running to many overlays and I'm considering splitting the tasks up with 2 minis or just removing some of the things that aren't that neccisary. i can state with good regarads to the people that have made openCPN accessible and avalible with very good walkthroughs on youtube if your one of those people Thank you very much for your efforts. I do have the humingbird 18 and its a small screen but everything works on it and when i loose 110v you bet it works like a champ its just extremly dated tech. Ive never lost 110v underway but trying to come in at night with the 28 inch blaring at me even in night mode i have to shut if off so i dont wreck the boat. especially when there is no moon.
Boat electric in general: got lucky here to someone had been to everywhere i had ended up on this boat. everything in the wiring is in fairly good shape i have a pretty decent background with electrical so i found no challenge here cleaning wires up reterminating and after i got everything the way i wanted it i dont think id want to sell this boat since it did take alot of time. I feel like i know everything in the harness now and thats why this boat is of extreme value to me. guess it would be different for anyone else.
Fuel tanks: I posted what i was doing on this forum and we completed the tasks as stated. I will never do this again. it was HARD WORK. i have coated functional fuel tanks now and i dont think ill have to mess with them again. if i had another boat which at this time seems like a stretch i may consider doing this work again but right now i feel like i ran a marathon with it. one thing i recommend is that if you have room like my single FL120 has put handling tanks in like i have done 36 gallons at 6 knots goes further than i ever thought possible and is a very good number for day tanks. the x2 200 gallon saddle tanks on this boat give it an operating range that is more than i expected its well over a 1000 miles.
all told i want to say ive 2000-2500 man hours into this refit and run and its a working trawler now with a bright future imho. ive found something that i love with this boat.
Ill probably edit this post a few times i just wanted to post an update and express the efforts that were made with this marine trader 38. These boats are salvagable and they are around i didnt have to pay money for mine. That is the thing tho. it has cost me a good deal of cash to do the things i have done but i feel like the reward is so much more.
Ill add somemore to this story as it progresses. hopefully this isnt overwhelming i just wanted to share my adventure with like minded people thanks for being here.
= ))
