Wellcraft Boat Owners Forum

I picked this boat from the wife of a Gentlemen who passed away, apparently this boat was his passion into his seventies, she didnt want it to sit so I ended up with it. Last in the water in 2019, overall not in bad shape. I do plan on an extensive restoration probably one to two years and of course $$$. I have read that this boat has some inherent stringer / bulk head issues, is this a design flaw or the nature of the beast? has anyone encountered this or have hands on experience ? Any advice/ incite would be apprectiated, keep in mind I am doing the work myself, and do have a lot of mech experience and basic boat knowledge. I have very little invested so far. I fully intend if feasible to keep this boat for many years. Thanks in advance.

It's not just this boat, a lot of boats from that era were built the same way. They used wood stringers covered in fiberglass after they where installed so after some years of flexing and expansion/contraction bilge water gets to the wood and after 10-15 years the wood rots. The transom is made by laminating sheets of plywood together the gluing it into the fiberglass and then covering the rest in fiberglass, same result as the stringers. It didn't happen to every 80's Wellcraft but it happened a lot and also to a lot of other boats. There's a lot of how to videos' on the web for the fix and a lot of time ,patience and some $$$ but it's very doable if you have some basic skills and can follow instructions, and way cheaper than buying a new boat

Great thanks, I thought that was the case, just trying to figure out the best way to identify any deficiencies as I cant see anything visual, no noticeable stress cracks in hull either.

You can do some test drill holes into the stringers and transom from the inside to see if there's any rot or wet wood, it's pretty easy to tell by the wood that's being discharged by the drill bit

Any idea what this is? Loks like some sort of NAV. system.

That's a radar display

I THINK that's one of the earliest of the Furuno CRT units...