1996 Sport Nautique Restoration Project

[Chris Parsons]

I also have my old one if you wanted it for any reason as you figure out what's wrong. Lmk

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[Canuck-Surfer]

Hey guys I need to update the status of my restoration. I promise I’ll get to that soon. It’s really chugging along right now. Here’s a quick question for you guys...

What have others done along the bottom edge of the rear couch seat? When the seats are up, the exposed fibreglass doesn’t look great. Also I’m planning on creating some sort of plate underneath the middle seat as a stepping point with the cushion removed for a step through. Because the seat base and the back of the seat don’t meet up I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do this. Here’s a picture of what I’m talking about:




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[SilentSeven]

On my 97, there was a piece of carpet glued in along that strip giving it a nice finish. When I replaced the seat back skin, I used some left over trailer bunk carpet to refresh it....it looked great.

Also, on my boat there was a flat carpeted insert that sat in those channel recesses you can see in your base. The seat cushion sat on top. We mostly left the middle cushion out and used this as the step thru to reduce people walking on the seats. Looks like that insert is missing....do you have it?

[Canuck-Surfer]

SilentSeven That totally makes sense. I think mine had it too. I think I pulled it off when I started pulling the staples our of the upholstery in the fall and forgot that it was there!

[Canuck-Surfer]

Okay, big update time.

In my last update last summer, we had the rebuilt engine in and during the water test the transmission developed major issues. Despite feeling my wallet start burning my pants, I always knew this was a possibility. Once we took the transmission apart it was painfully clear what the issue was. The splined housing had completely sheared from the main drum. Entire transmission was completely unrepairable. The transmission guy said it was the main issue with the 40A and why PCM had moved to the 80A. He didn't charge me anything for opening it up.

I know the arguments for replacing with an 80A, but with being in Canada and the USD/CAD being so bad then, it was just out of the question. I ended up finding a brand new 40-1A at FredWarner.net in Seattle. It was new in box and on clearance for $749 USD. The kicker was during checkout it only calculated shipping from Seattle to Toronto as $49. I figured it would come LTL freight in a few weeks. Imagine my shock when a FedEx man showed up at my door with it 2 days later! For comparison...the new rubrail shipped from Florida did take a week on UPS ground and cost me $120!!

After the transmission failure, I brought the boat home from my buddy's shop to start working on the cosmetics while we sorted the tranny. We got all the hull decals off (note: the whizzy wheels on Amazon are your best friend for this!). We also got the windshield and all hardware off the boat including the old rub rail which was pretty beat up.

Over the summer, we bought a new-to-us cottage so my time was split settling in and working on the boat in my free time. The cottage is part of a lake community and they don't allow boats to stay in your driveway. You can bring them to your driveway to work on them briefly or wash them but they can't stay for more than a day. There is a big storage yard. I didn't realise this until day 3 or 4 of it in my driveway when I got a very pointed letter from the property managment office. Not having it out front definitely slowed progress over the summer.

I did manage to get about 30+ hours sanding the hull with little progress. I started with 800 wet using a Shurhold DA. That got some of the chalkiest oxidation out, but didn't touch the deep oxidation or any of the many scratches. After consulting with a local fibreglass shop, I went down to 600 wet (not much change) and ended with hand blocking with 320 grit. After 2 days of hand blocking I was starting to get through oxidation, but was in constant fear of going through gel. I also realized at this stage how deep some of the fine "little" scratches were.

I also ordered some 90's high voc Silvercloud repair paste from NP. I drilled out some of the spider cracks that were running from out under the now removed windshield and old tower mounts. Pro's: The stuff works well as advertised. Con's: On a boat as faded and oxidized as mine, the colour was not remotely close. It looked horrible. Despite my best intentions, I realized that the hull was going to need some professional help.

I didn't get the new transmission in until the end of August which is already starting to get pretty cold up here in Canada! We got in in the water for ab out 3 weeks, completely naked without windshield or hardware, but man she runs soooooo well now! I was especially surprised how quiet she was.

Here are some of the pictures during this phase...

[Chris Parsons]

The 2000 I owned actually had a fiberglass box that slid over the entire bottom bench seat. All the photos I could find...

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[Chris Parsons]

Let's see the hull! 320 grit is nuts.

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[Canuck-Surfer]

More pics to continue my update:


















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[Canuck-Surfer]

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[Canuck-Surfer]

Chris you can see the oxidation in these:

[Canuck-Surfer]

Some of the last set of pictures were out of order...sorry, I'm uploading these from my iPhone!

Here she is mechanically sound after we got the new transmission in. My joke was: we turned her into a Sea-Doo jet boat!

In the bow, you will notice we had to drill 4 access ports to get to the bolts for the bow hand rails. They must have installed the rails before they attached the cap to the boat. At the time, I wasn't planing on putting speakers up front, but by the time I ordered the Roswell R1 system I changed my mind. I will have to either place the new speakers in the front most hole seen or drill a 3rd hole mid way. What do you guys think?

[Canuck-Surfer]

One thing I am really curious about is the thermostat installed. I suspect she has an incorrect 142 F that was made for salt engines. The few hours of use we got in September the dash temp gauge only got between 120 and 160. However, our lake water was so cold by September and nights were even sub 0 C that it could have just been the crazy cold lake water. I will assess more next summer.

[Canuck-Surfer]

Once I got her out of the water and winterized, I started looking for a good fiberglass shop but one that also wouldn't bankrupt me. I settled on Northern Lakes Boat Shop in Gravenhurst. Ryan is the owner and had some good reviews in the area. He agreed that lots of area's on the hull and a large part of the cap would need get new layer of gelcoat. His price was great compared to 2 other shops (the other 2 shops would only do a "full" re-gelcoating and wanted $15k CAD). Ryan was less than half of that. I think the other 2 shops mostly deal with insurance repairs, I don't think either wanted the job.

They both told me I was crazy to want to restore the boat and that I should just buy a new one. I don't think they realized the crazy price increase tow boats have had during COVID. I always knew this project would likely cost more than the boat was worth, but I wanted the boat exactly how I envisioned and I wanted to know the state of every part of it. But with COVID, I think the boat will still be worth more than my investment, at least up here in Canada. The newer Nautiques have lifted older Nautique prices significantly here.

I left the boat with Ryan and didn't plan on seeing her again until the snows melted in April or May. That's how winter boat repairs work up here.

Then, the week before Christmas, Ryan calls me and tells me she is done and to come get her. I was so stoked that they did her early in the repair season. But my other issue is that I didn't have a place to store her. The storage yard I normally use is completely snowed in for the winter. I mentioned that this wasn't clearly communicated and that "winter marine work" in Muskoka always means they keep the boat. I respect his position though which was they don't have the space and don't want the liability of keeping finished boats. Regardless it put me in a pickle to find a place for the Sport.

I had always wanted to be able to put her in our heated garage and work on all the other projects over the winter, but our house was built in 1977 and back then garages were built 16 ft deep by 19 feet wide. I can barely fit our Grand Caravan and Subaru Outback in.

After a few days of calling around with no success, I finally decided to load the dimensions of the boat into a basic autocad program and verify I could not get her in the garage diagonally. To my shock and thanks to the Ramlin trailers short tongue, the math said I could get her inside with about 1-2 inches to spare!

Armed with a huge dose of hopefull optimism, I took the 45 minute drive up north to fetch the boat and bring her home. I had absolutely NO backup plan if she didn't fit in the garage when I got home! It took about half an hour and 4 attempts to get her backed into the correct angle, then I had to roll her by hand the final few feet as the truck would not fit into the garage at that angle, but sure enough, she fit! I'm super stoked to work on her throughtout the winter now.

And the gelcoat restoration was amazing. They matched the colors perfectly and man she is a perfect mirror finish. The spider cracks are gone and you can't tell where the old tower mounts were. There is one imperfection on the transom if you are standing in the right light, but Ryan promised to fix it in the spring so I was happy.

Here are some of the shots of the shop, finished gloss, and her fitting in the garage!

[Canuck-Surfer]

So before I brought the boat home, I started researching my next step...new vinyl for the seats. I have known from the beginning I didn't want to go the C&S marine route. I want a new updated design, not the original 90's look.

There is a great shop in Huntsville that does great work. But we are in lake/cottage country and rates are crazy high. The lowest project cost I could get was $8k CAD and that was specifically with a "very simple" design and minimal curves or double seam work. This really bugged me as I always envisioned the new vinyl to be really eye-catching.

Chris Parsons has been an amazing resource for me during this project so far. The prices of upholstery in Central Florida are a fraction of what they are here. I ended up deciding to ship the entire interior down to Innovaos Upholstery in Orlando. They have dozens of online reviews and hundreds of project pictures on Instagram, FB and their website. And Chris has worked with them and recommends them. Even with LTL shipping from Toronto to Orlando, I will save a huge amount. The real kicker was when I talked to the owner the first time. We discussed the project for almost an hour. He worked for years at Correct Craft before starting Innovaous a few years ago. He knows Nautiques inside and out. It was such a different experience talking to him in so many ways. And when I showed him pictures of my design (I had painted it onto the old seats) he encourged me to spiff it up a bit and get a bit more pop...which is what I wanted from the beginning!

Below are some pics of my original "simple/budget" design followed by the new design. I've probably spent 50 hours in the last few weeks looking at Nautique pictures online, sketching and redrawing my ideas. I fell pretty confident about what I've landed on. I finally got to a point my hand sketches and coloured pencils weren't cutting it and I decided to take the time and do a digital sketch in Illustrator. I'm pretty pumped with the design.

A huge part of my inspiration has been the Anthracite 95 Super Sport that Roswell restored and has featured on their online gallery for the Aviator Pro (the tower I am putting on this boat). For a year I have looked at those pictures and just let my brain trick me into thinking they were showing the Aviator Pro on a late 2000's 210. But then last week while I was inspecting the vinyl design on the boat, I realized that the boat had a wooden swim platform. The more I started looking it dawned on me it wasn't a 210 at all. What they did with that boat it honestly blew me out of the water. I hope mine looks a fraction as good. If you haven't seen the boat I'm talking about, go look at Roswell's site.

At the Toronto boat show last year, I saw a 2020 210 that had Masters Blue boxing, White seats, and jet black piping with mocha seadek. That colour combo really impressed me. As I have pondered my design, the shade of blue has really challenged me. If I were designing the boat from scratch, I would likely go with Masters Blue. But I have the teal accent stripe on the hull of the boat. The Teal stripe I have to say is an amazing colour in itself. Its not really teal at all by my definition, its such a "blue teal". Its more of a Aqua Marine or Turquoise heavy on the blue side. The problem I have is that Innovaos sources and highly recommends Nautique vinyl direct from Correct Craft. Which I love, both from a quality perspective and the ease of knowing what my colour choices are. A number of people have suggested I go with Reef Blue. Guys...Reef Blue has got to be the most frustrating colour to get your head around by just looking at pictures online. In some pictures it looks baby/light blue. In others it looks Teal and others almost green-blue on the green side. I think I like the idea of reef blue, but I think its going to be pretty far off from the dark blue-teal on my boat. So in the end I "think" I have landed on Masters Blue. Its not a perfect match either, but on this boat it will be hard to see both the hull stripe and the interior of the boat at the same time anyways. And I really love the Masters Blue!

Another note about the vinyl project...I know that most of you mount the Roswell 6.5 R1 speakers on top of the old smaller speaker holes so that the grill of the R1 speaker protrudes out. I think it works that way, but I know it will drive me nuts in real life after I have done all the work on this boat. The grill is so deep, I want to recess it into the combing bolsters. There is room to do this in the bow and in the observers seat speaker, but the bolsters are too narrow for the 2 speakers near the back of the boat. so we are going to fill in the old holes and create new ones in the wider section about 6in further back right where the bolster ends and rear couch begins.

Lastly, I posted this question in the tech forums but I'm surprised I haven't had any responses. I am leaning towards the textured Jet Black and Anthracite vinyl in Nautique's current line. How do these "soft" vinyls hold up? I've seen them at the boat show, but I'm concerned about durability. I am going to steer clear of it for the mystic white areas because it seems like it would get dirty and mouldy way too easy. What has your experience with the textured/softmax been?

Okay, here are the pics. PLEASE let me know what you think!

[Canuck-Surfer]

Here is the new plan...

A few more design notes: I am doing the carpet to SeaDek conversion, and SeaDek is going on the cap around the boat as well, just like the new boats. I am removing the side handle rails entirely and replacing SeaDek on the 45 degree angle surface where they were. I don't understand the point of them here. No one can reach them from any of the seats and people like to side on the side of the boat when floating without the uncomfortable rail under yer bum.... Also both the bottom of the clamshell engine cover and the observers seat base are getting faired and gelcoated. I am leaving carpet on the inside gunwales.

Also, more pics to come this week, but I've been in 2 other mid 90's Sports that have the rear storage cutout behind the engine cover. On both boats, its always used as an improvised rear facing seat shelf. So I am adding a small seat base there and the upholstery shop is adding 1" of foam backing to JUST the back wall of the engine cover so its more comfortable. I played with tons of vinyl design ideas for the back of the engine cover to accent the new "seat back" but everything I came up with looked forced or cheezy so I am leaving it simple there.

Colours illustrated below: Masters Blue smooth (features and boxing), Jet Black textured/softmax (shields), Anthracite Softmax (accents and wrap around), Jet Black (piping).