Not a Wellcraft, a Whaler redo

[phatdaddy]

I know this is not a whaler forum, but things have been kinda slow on here this summer, so i thought I'd show u guys what I've been up to.

this is a '63 13 ft that i have owned since '92. it was a total wreck when i got it, no wood or hardware, just the hull. I use it for scalloping and stone crabbing. it gets banged up a lot. that was not so bad, but a couple of years ago, it started leaking through the hull a lot. my solution was to put a bilge pump in and just keep going. found a 4 inch crack along the bottom of the transom, so decided to fix that.

you know how that goes, first one thing then another dozen on a boat; ended up redoing wood, total paint and kiwigrip on the deck and rub rails.


looks good the further u get away from it


deck layout



light blue is kiwigrip, whaler blue is Total Boat topside paint



white is pretty aggressive kiwigrip for top rail

I power it with a 40 hp Tohatsu 2 stroke, working on it now

I'll let u know how the shakedown cruise goes

[Blue_Runner]

Looks great man, love the whalers. 40hp is purrrrrrrrrfect to boot!

[phatdaddy]

13 Whaler
Wellcraft V20

What can I say. I love the classics

First boat I owned on my own was a 13 whaler, had a lot of fun in it, but it is definitely a boat for young knees and backs. We have enjoyed scalloping out of this one for 25 years, but thats about all i do with it. The Tohatsu is 15 years old and has 220 hours on it.

I m going to try and set it up for gigging flounder this fall, i used to really enjoy that

[Giorgio]

Nice job and good luck on the end project with pictures to follow.

[phatdaddy]

Thanks guys, It looks a lot better now than when i started, so i m happy with it. I took it out to a local fresh water lake today and ran it for 35 minutes and 8 miles. First time the tohatsu has been ran since last September. It fired right up. Still gonna go through the carbs, it has a rough idle.

Had a light load, just me and 4 gallons of gas. Topend was 35mph. It seemed like 50 that close to water.

Just gotta smile when ur in a small boat going fast. It s like i was 10 years old again and riding around the keys with Bud and Sandy looking for Flipper.

[Destroyer]

Phat, that is a lovely boat. You've done her proud. Well done... and I'm jealous.


I love the 13' Whalers. Gotta admit that owning one is on my bucket list. Then it's goodbye to the 12' alum Sears and the 12' glass Sears rowboats that I presently own. My stable will be complete. I have a nice river just down the street from me and it's too small for anything really big, (Max depth is about 8') but it's ideal for a 12-13 foot boat. I can still dream.