I recently acquired my first boat off a neighbor for a few hundred bucks, a 1970 Sea Nymph 15ft V-hull. I decided I would give this my first shot at ever doing any boat/vehicle restoration and I was starting from complete scratch with zero existing boat knowledge. I was going to rely on the power of google for this one.

I’m not going to included 10 pages of notes for step by step instructions but I hope this collection of photos inspires some folks to just try something new and make something of your own. Whether it’s an old boat/car, house renovation, or whatever, you may surprise yourself of what you can accomplish when you force yourself to be creative.

I started with a power drill and steel brush to get 50 years of crap scraped from outside/inside the boat and the trailer. Then I took some galvanizing spray coating to the trailer. I sealed any possible cracks around rivets, gave it some primer, painted/sanded…over..and over again.

The deck was built from 3/4″ plywood sealed with 3 coats of marine varnish then wrapped in outdoor carpet, which was glued and stapled on.

I decided to see how fast I could make this go only with electric power, so I put together 3 marine batteries to power three 86lb thrust motors, which gets you up to about 15mph.

I have a Mercury 9.9hp outboard I’m working on restoring now, just in case I take it to a much larger lake.

Overall this project took about 7-8 weeks with about 90 hours of work, and a dozen trips to the hardware store. There were plenty of times I wanted to throw in the towel but now that I’m finished and have taken it out MANY times I don’t regret a moment of it.

Now find your cheap boat and get started!