Sidewinder/Panther complete restoration plus a bit.

[NZ Sidewinder]

My name is Phillip and Im from New Zealand in the deep south Pacific down below and East of Australia.
We are a small country of 5 million people but have a similar length of coastline as the USA so we are a boating Nation.
My background is in Engineering and design but these days I am a manufacturer of a Product.
At heart Im an innovator so rather go out and buy a ready made fast boat I like to build or adapt things and have had a few good boats over the yrs , mainly Axial flow jets (Hamiltons/ Kodiak) (Small block Chevs)
The Panther/Sidewinder is an iconic boat here and most if not all are rotten so it made sense to me to restore one.
I have two Sons that are keen boaties and they wanted a chick magnet to ski with so the 22YO sent me a link to this one for sale and here we are.
My current boat is what is known here as a Fryan 440 deep Vee which is a 4.4m Aluminium fishing boat that weighs about 280lbs plus motor (40hp Merc XR Lightning).
Its a good little fishing boat and will pull me up from a deep water start on a single ski but is no Chick magnet, especially with a name like "Bart".





This is the third thread related to this rebuild but I feel this thread is probably the right place.
There is a background story so Ill start back a bit, around the early 1970's.
In New Zealand early in the 70's a sleek new ski boat appeared around the ski lanes of Lake Taupo.
It was different than anything Id seen before and was called a Panther, manufactured by Plylite.
As a 12yr old I decided that whoever designed this thing was light years ahead of the rest.

Later I learned that the Panther was a close copy of the sidewinder and didn't originate from New Zealand at all.
This particular boat is a Plylite Panther and in NZ they carried the cast and chromed leaping cat emblem just below the gunnel.
The panther also had a racy instrument mount in the center of the Dash.
They were a mass produced ski boat that came new with Evenrudes from 115hp to 140hp and were probably good for around 45-50mph.
When you start to pull one to pieces it becomes apparent that they weren't manufactured with racing in mind, in fact they were very average IMO.
It appeared that this particular boat was assembled by a team of two fibreglass guys, one doing the port side and the other Starboard.
The starboard side was not too bad and the Port side absolute ****.
The Port side was very easy to dismantle, it basically fell to pieces because none of the glued components had bonded properly.

The boat was purchased from a family that had had it for 30yrs and was described as original which it was.
The motor was described as not going due to ignition problems but was tired also.
This was all correct and the motor was scraped.
The trailer was described as very poor but in fact it is very good and not requiring much work at all.
Ive built lots of trailers in my time and the seller got this part really wrong.

I paid 3k for the lot and towed it home.
It was obvious before I brought it that the transom was rotten but thats a good thing because it would be a shame to rip out a good one and the transom was coming out no matter what.
The job and photos start with a clean out of 30yrs of artifacts, the boat was a time capsule full of all sorts of old stuff.
Old bottles of tanning oil, old life jackets and very old goggles and snorkel sets.
bundles of small ropes, and old divers knief and various tools.
The owner told me that as the boat aged it got slower and this could have been due to increased weight.

So the photos start with the clean out

Then the Motor comes off

Then the transom starts to come out

Then the floor and Stringers


Then the Boat needed to be set up in a jig to ensure the hull went back together in a near to original shape but in my opinion the original lines were so far out of whack that it would be a matter of just getting it close and then putting enough glass on the inside that the hull could be blueprinted from the outside later


Then the transom and all the structure needed to be mocked up.
The ply pad in the keel here is the top of the pad and not a tunnel as it may appear to be.
This part is 8 inches wide but the total pad and tunnel width will be 13 inches.
The underside of that beam is the top of the tunnel as shown in the sketch


The silver Fat Max level shows the new floor level which is 3 1/4 inches higher than the original floor allowing for much deeper stringers and broader structure to resist torque loads on hull.

The transom is 3 layers of 18mm marine ply thats about 2.5 inches and the floor of the transom well is 1/2 inch ply which will be well attached to the Transom and also to the Transom Knee which is attached or part of the 6 inch keel stringer so the motor will never fall off not even the way I drive.

This is where Im up to so far