The center console conversion of a 1970 Silverline Comoro 165 tri-hull boat.
In August of 2002 I purchased the 1970 Silverline Comoro 16.5T for $800. It
had been sitting in an open field all summer and the owner wanted $1000. I
knew the hull was essentially worthless, but the 1969 Mercury 1250 outboard,
if running good, would be worth it by itself. After arranging to see it run,
I showed up that Saturday with $800. He wasn't going to get more than that,
and I was certainly going to try to pay much less. I told him over the phone
if I came and the motor wouldn't run, he wasn't getting more than $300.
I got there, and we struggled to get it running. It was cranking slow, but
eventually it started. I had brought my own gas, had the oil mix on the rich
side, just because the motor had been sitting for who knows how long. I
showed him the cash, and towed it the 45 minutes home. It was ugly, filthy,
and basically an embarrasment, but I figured the motor was worth it. I was
originally going to just take the motor, trailer, and anything else, and
take the hull to the dump, but the ugly boat started to grow on me. I liked
the curves, the general shape. After killing the many wasp nests in it, I
stripped the interior out, and parked it in the back yard. I had another
boat, and I used that boat through September and sold it. I decided to just
recarpet and put new seats in the Comoro and call it good, but that wasn't
going to happen until spring. As winter progressed, and it got into January
of 2003, I started to think about the boat again (it was burried under a
snow covered tarp). I also started to think about something that was
bothering me about the floor. It had nasty indoor/outdoor blue carpeting,
and in places it was ripped, and bare plywood was visible. The floor felt
solid, but something still wasn't right. What followed was a nightmare
beyond comprehension.
It was still January, and quite cold, but I had to know. I got the company
skid-steer loader and dug the boat out of the snow and hauled it around into
my carport. The dissection commenced. I tore the carpeting out to see bare
3/4 plywood nailed down. I could not get it to budge, and knew I could not
in my right mind just believe that things would be fine underneath. I pulled
out the trusty circ saw, set the blade for 3/4 inch, and cut a 2 foot square
hole in the middle. Stunned horror is the best way to describe what was
underneath. The actual floor was long since rotted to mulch, the stringers
were mostly rotted. The floatation foam was completely saturated, and there
was a good six inches of water trapped in the bilge. I had to think things
over at this point. I talked to relatives, friends, my boss, anyone who
would listen. I was about 98% inclined towards taking the hull to the dump
and looking for another hull. The only thing that stopped me was I needed to
section it into 4 pieces so the dump would take it, and I could not find
anyone willing to let me use their chainsaw for the task. So I
soul-searched, slept on it, went back and forth on it, and decided to
rebuild. I then researched costs of wood, resin, cloth, mat, all the stuff
needed to rebuild the beast. The costs looked like they would mount up
quick, but I kept this one thought in my mind: You never know the condition
of a boat. I could get another hull and end up in a similar situation. Now
that I made my mind up, it was time to get to work.
Originally, I was going to just rebuild it into what it was, a runabout. I
fish a lot though, I fish more than any other thing I use a boat for, so I
realized that there was no reason why I couldn't gear my rebuild towards
something fishing oriented. I was looking through one of my favorite boating
websites, Iboats.com, and came across a message forum called Project Boats.
As I looked though this forum, I came across a boat someone built from
scratch. It was an 18 foot center console bay type boat. I immediatly had an
epiphony. Why could I not build my Comoro into a Center Console? I started
to look at other center console boats, and the Boston Whaler Montauk stood
out. It was still January, and the Spokane Boat show was going on. I drove
the hour and a half from Sandpoint, and went to the show. I was there 30
minutes. All I wanted to see were center console boats, and the only one
there was a Boston Whaler Montauk. Just what I needed. I crawled all over
that thing, gathering info. The Montauk is of similar dimension, so I could
see how things would work. Now that I had an idea what I wanted, and a rough
idea of cost, it was time for teardown. I live in Northern Idaho, and it was
January, and I was working out of a carport. That basically meant that the
rebuild would not take place until it warmed to high 60s minimum. That
wasn't until April, so I had some time. As I was looking at the boat, I
realized that I had two problems. One was that the bow seating area was part
of the entire uper deck mold. I would have no way to repair the floor
properly underneath that section. the other was the transom. I quickly
realized I would have to take the upper deck off. This added a lot of work
to the project. I had to remove the 125 horsepower Mercury inline six
outboard, a motor that weighs in the neighborhood of 270 lbs. I had no
way to lift it, so I built a frame into the roof structure of the carport,
braced it to the floor, and used a heavy duty military ratchet strap to lift
it. Once removed, I put it on an outboard stand that I had from a previous
project. I then stripped all wiring, controls, windshield glass, anything to
lighten it. The rubrail was then removed, all the screws were a rusted mess,
so I had to grind all the heads off. Once the aluminum rubrail was removed,
I was then horrified to see 1 million staples holding the flanges of the
upper and lower sections together. After a few hours, the staples were out.
I enlisted the help of my neighbors, and we lifted the upper section off,
and walked it out to the backyard where it sat for the next few months.
It was time to get to work on the hull. First all the mulch and nasty old
wood came out. There are six stringers, and I lucked out in that there was
one of each size that still had enough left to use as a template for the
hull shape. I set those aside to dry. It took a few days to get all the
rotted wood out, especially the transom. I had decided to replace the
transom, even though it felt solid. It was a good thing, as when I cut into
it, I came across a dormant carpenter ant colony. I am an exterminator, so
the irony was not lost on me. Once the wood mulch was out, it was time for
the foam. I cut it into small blocks and popped each block out. None was
reusable. I had a growing pile of material to take to the dump. The final
task was to cut all the stringer glass and anything else out in preperation
for final hull grinding. Once completely ground out, I washed the entire
inner hull and rinsed all dust and dirt out. The waste I removed filled a
fullsize pickup truck to the top of the cab. I was left with a bare hull and
temps that were too cold, as by this time it was mid February. I purchased
all my supplies, and waited. It wasn't until mid April that I could get back
to work.
