1956 Skagit 20'

[tbreaux]

Hello All,

My name is Terry, I'm new to this site. My wife and I have been restoring a 1956 Skagit 20' cuddy. We are looking to turn it into a weekend picnic boat and take her up the inside passage. So far we have rebuilt the transom and replace almost all the original plywood.

We got the boat with a Volvo I/O but are now thinking are mounting 2 Honda 40HP off a bracket. We still have a lot of questions.
- Replacement windows, windshield
- Painting
- Rub rail

Looking forward to talking more to you all.
Terry

[Helmar]

Hello All,

My name is Terry, I'm new to this site. My wife and I have been restoring a 1956 Skagit 20' cuddy. We are looking to turn it into a weekend picnic boat and take her up the inside passage. So far we have rebuilt the transom and replace almost all the original plywood.

We got the boat with a Volvo I/O but are now thinking are mounting 2 Honda 40HP off a bracket. We still have a lot of questions.
- Replacement windows, windshield
- Painting
- Rub rail

Looking forward to talking more to you all.
Terry

Welcome to the Forum Terry.

I have a 20 Skagit Offshore that has the early Volvo B-18 in it with the same Outdrive (QA or AQ-100 which are pretty much bullet proof) only thing, the 55-56's had the Volvo B-16 engine, little weak in the oiling of the center of the crank I was told.
Mine is a Heavy boat with a bunch of Oak cabinet work on the inside and lots of upholstery done to it but she still gets up to right around 28mph on the GPS.
I will add some pictures of mine (one of them as I still have 6 boats. (just a quick note about that many boats. In the club we started a addition club which was a 2 step program that was called, NMB meaning No More Boats. Well, I and some others that had plenty of parking, confused the NMB as Need More Boats ;-)

One of our members, John Nelson has a stainless bracket off the rear of his Uniflite so its more than doable other than transferring the weight a little farther aft and bringing her tail down in the water. Twins are always sweet for sure but one larger engine will do fine.
The Skagit hull was not designed for much over 35mph and will start porpoising and become unstable. Me, I picture a flat bottom boat with no skeg going fast, they are all over the place or like a barn door with a big motor on the back ;-)

The cabin windows were pretty simple as I think those were flat so 1/4" Plexaglass, not poly as you need it thick and secure in case you take a big one over the bow, And, in the rough water, you will.
Middy Plastics? or one of them up in the Seattle area used to be able to bend the plex for the helm window that was a wrap around.
I didn't see pictures of what you have for that?

Painting, pretty much any marine base paint will do the job. I use the two part epoxy paints that seem to last Years and tends to lay down pretty darn well with doing the Roll and Tipping. (some of the paints that do not lay down flat, I call 20-20 paint jobs, looks good twenty feet away and twenty mph ;-)
If you put on several coats, then it can be find sanding and polishing to make them look like they were sprayed on.

Rub Rail.
Most of us use a company down in California calle Wefco Rubber.

On there website, they have a section were you can download the PDF file that shows all the products they have.
You can literally cut out the image and take it out to the boat to see how it might look.
I don't remember which one yours needs but if I get to looking at it again, I can figure it out for you. There is only One that is right for it and you can get it in White or Black.


So, questions, bring them on as we have several people still around that do this kind of work (some of us have passed on to the boating heaven in the sky) but we all shared ideas and process's

[Bflaherty]

Hello Terry! Welcome to the forum!

I just had a windshield made for our '69 Chris-Craft at Middy Plastics in Renton. Skip is a great guy to work with, slow as a snail, but very helpful and does awesome work! There are only 2 or 3 guys working in that shop now so things don't happen very fast but when you are ready I can give you Skip's number and you can make contact (the information listed online is for the business phone which the owner only checks about once a month)

As for painting, I just finished rolling on 8 coats of Interlux Brightside (single part polyurethane) "Fire Red" (see my thread "finally working on cosmetics") with 8 coats I have enough thickness that I have been wet sanding and polishing it a show finish, I didn't have the resources or skill to be able to spray it on and rolling did a fairly good job but still had a few imperfections to clean up. The big draw back to the two part paints is that they are highly toxic and you really should be using a fresh breathing air supply when working with them. The polyeruthane paint is far less damaging and can be safely worked with while just wearing a respirator.

If you can make the original motor and outdrive work there are big time servicing advantages to the I/O setups (most of the motor parts can be purchased at any automotive parts store, and they're dirt simple to work on. Outboards are a little more unique and unless you spend the money for newer models parts can be tricky to find. I know from my days designing boats at Aluminum Chambered Boats in Bellingham, our customers almost always opted for dual smaller motors when they were planning to do serious cruising like the inside passage (redundancy is very comforting when you are in unfamilar waters).

Keep up the good work! Ask questions when you have them cause the folks on the forums are always willing to share their opinions!!

[mike pingatore]

greeting welcome to the club,,,,,,,great find look nice

[Kelly]

Nice work thus far. Welcome!

[John Nelson]

I have made some longer trips, one from Port Gamble to Nanaimo and one from Blain to Princess Louisa Inlet via New westminister Vancouver and Squamish. One day it was going to blow 50 so I stayed at a lodge Went into town for dinner and watched tv I would plan for that next time a shower and tv make a difference. You have to make your own bracket store bought are just too long. Mount needs to be tipped out 1 1/2" or 2" cavitation plate goes at lest 1" above bottom cause the water comes up. Twin 50s is what you usually see. Make an original looking window frame out of teak, maybe a little higher. In Johns fantasy with the work you have done already . Id hop up a B 20 and make a rigid surface drive.

[Helmar]

John has a 20 Skagit Tyee ? Forget how to spell that one. His is a Inboard too.

Forgot to add pictures of mine which is the 1959
Again mine has the B-18 with dual webers and honks on pretty good with all the extra weight.

The last picture was moving the boat from Sandy Oregon down Veneta Oregon. Bearings went bad after several saltwater launches.

[tbreaux]

Hello All,

I've been head down working on our 1956 Skagit 20' Offshore refurb. The last thing we need to do is find the proper rub rail. Does anyone know which Wefco rub rail to use for the 1956-1957 20' Offshore? Her sister boat, the Welike, (green deck) has a weft rub rail but I'm not sure which style.

Would these be attached with just the rubber rail and not the rigid insert?

We decided to go with Twin Honda 40s with a transom bracket with a 20" setback.

Take care,
Terry

[pats]

Absolutely beautiful . . .

wow ! ! !

[John Nelson]

Kelly was the last one to order one. Wefco also knows witch one it is. Bet you have a story about finding a windshield frame and glass.

[Helmar]

Kelly was the last one to order one. Wefco also knows witch one it is. Bet you have a story about finding a windshield frame and glass.

I am not sure of the number of the rub rail myself as they kind of remember who and what they sold to our club members. There IS a PDF format of the images you can download and just Cut out the paper and I have found its pretty Dead On. White and Black are your options.
The 55 - 58 used a all rubber rub rail, the 1959's used a aluminum railing with a rubber insert.

Kelly, do you remember what you got for yours ??

[Kelly]

Terry I'll see if I can locate my WefCo invoice to get you the correct part number. In the meantime you should share more info on your project as your handy work looks great!