DIY: THE REFIT STARTED WITH SOME WELDING

When we first purchased our retirement project.  We had her hauled to our yard.  We were living along the river on Henderson Highway at the time.  We knew we had a couple of years of work to do on her before we could ever launch, so we thought it would be convenient to have the boat in our yard to work on it, at our leisure. 

The first thing we arranged for was  the addition of large stabiliser fins to be welded down each side of the hull.   We had spoken to the commercial fishers in Gimli harbour who have similar Lake Winnipeg hulls and they highly recommended them.     These long fins, running most of the length on each side of the hull really dampen your roll, when you are being broad sided in rough water.  

The other thing was a couple of "Cat Walks"down each side of the engine.  When down in the engine room, the hull of course sloped right down under the engine.  It was very difficult for Dan to work down there without loosing his footing and having his foot or even his whole leg slip down under the engine.  So while the welder was there, Dan had him install these small open grilled platforms to each side of the engine to provide better footing while working down there.    

THEN NEXT UP WAS THE PILOT HOUSE ROOF