Saving a McKee

[randlemanboater]

My buddy Dave's son bought a house last week, in the yard was a 1969 McKee Craft 14 ft. The guy he bought the house from said that he had told his nephew to come get the boat but that if it was still in the yard on closing day, he would sign it over.

So Dave went and retrieved the boat yesterday to get started on the redo.

It was sitting outside for a while, but from the looks of it and the lack of rot, I'd say it spent most of its life in a garage.

Question 1 for the McKee experts...how do you decide if the foam is waterlogged?

[tsubaki]

My experience with a couple of non McKee boats has lead me to believe the water logging is not as big an issue as most people put on.
We redid an old AshCraft copy that was in the weather and full of water for 9 months.
During the 3 months of replacing the floor and transom while in the garage the boat leaked less than 5 gallons of water and the foam area's we removed for various reasons lacked in retained moisture.
Number one, keep in mind there is likely an abundant quantity of glass in that boat making it heavier than you would expect in comparing to other boats.
Any way you can find out what the original hull weight on that thing was?

[spareparts]

Tsubaki just nailed it. I drilled holes in from the transom with a long drill bit. Who ever had the boat before me drill one hole from the bottom. I put another one in approx the same location on the other side of teh bottom. I went ahead and ran that hole all the way thur the floor. I used that pilot hole for my hole saw and cut a 3" circle out of the floor. I dug the foam out(it was dry) and put the shop vac hose in the hole, taped it shut and let it run for about two hours. I may have gotten enough water out to fill a spoon. I left the boat jacked up real high so in case anything ran out of the holes in the stern, I sat buckets under the holes. I may have gotten a quart out total. Long story short, don't worry about it. As long as it isn't springy, your good to go. BTW, Mckees are real heavy, a lot heavier than you think
heres mine when i started


fisnihed


on the water


BTW, when you redo the boat, they run better with weight forward, trim wedges on teh motor help a lot as well. Mine had a 60 Mercury on it and it was just about perfect, my buddy had a 70 Johnson on his, and while it was able to pull water skiers and outrun my 60 by far, it was just a little too big

[randlemanboater]

Thanks for the info guys.

They are going to see if the 33 is ok first, it looks brand new under the cover...except for the nest that was in there.

If its no go I have a 1984 35 Johnson we are going to throw on there.

[bradford]

Randle I've had 4 McKees so far and what Tsubaki and Spare said is true. I did have one 14 that weighed a TON! Took 5 of us to load it on a trailer and one of the helpers was dam near a sumo wrestler. I drilled the holes like Spare mentioned and it drained water for about 18 hours or so slowing down to a small drip. It still weighed alot but was to the point where I could transfer it to another trailer by myself to sell it. I saw it on craigslist about a month or two later and the new owner said in the ad that it was water logged. Something that a previous owner had done to one of mine, a 18 Offshoreman, was drill with a hole saw between the drain plug hole and the bottom of the hull and wallow the foam out with an auger bit and install a threaded PVC fitting with a screw on cap for when you were running her. Seemed like an idea to allow water to drain from the foam when not in use. One Mckee I had came with an old Suzuki 50 on the back and it ran out well, easily 30-35 mph I suspect. Spare had a thread about his buddy in Charleston that does the marine welding who was selling his 14. Try to find it, it's the best looking 14 I've ever seen. (Besides Spare's of course;) ).

An old guy told me once that after a nuclear war the only things left would be radiation, cockroaches, and old Mckee Craft hulls.

[spareparts]

i did add another drain plug under the one in the hull. I just used a hole saw to drill a hole big enough for a brass garboard plug assembly to mount flush. I ran a bit in a little longer just in case water was puddled. Every time I pulled the boat out, i removed the garboard plug, never got more than a few drops out. I never saw any signs of water saturation in my 14, but it was heavy. i could not move the hull around by myself

[phatdaddy]

i haven't messed with mckee's, but on whalers and other foam cored hulls, i've drilled small holes and hooked up a vacuum pump(like the ones to evacuate a ac system). i never got a lot of water, but always got some water.

[randlemanboater]

Dave is leaning toward an open cockpit and tiller steer.

[tsubaki]

Dang, that thing is real clean looking!
Really it do look good!
40 horse and bigger tiller is usually a booger to find everything for it.

[tsubaki]

Now that you've gone that far you gotta put a sump/bilge in it, just for the meanness for it.