Author: FishingNosara

As you know the FishingNosara build team can’t leave well enough alone, so we are ready to upgrade the top on our 23-foot panga Adventurer.

We built this boat five years ago and after 500+ trips in the Costa Rican blue water, the bimini top is nearly worn out. This is the same top that West Marine sells for like 400 bucks, and it’s fair to say we’ve gotten more use value than we ever imagined.

With our bigger boats we have grown to rely on Custom Marine in Jacksonville to build custom tops and bow rails. The work they have delivered on our other boats are second-to-none.

For example:

Harvester

Wanderer

For the Adventurer top we have a few unique challenges to overcome, mostly relating to the boat’s small size. The gunwale are narrow, so we are compensating with thicker baseplates (3/8″ instead of 1/4″).

Harper, Troy, and the boys at Custom Marine have tracked down a special order of extra-thick walled aluminum tubing.

In addition to the thicker materials, the top as a whole with be raked inwards. This triangulation will help distribute the forces evenly and hopefully prevent the sides from sagging.

The top on the Adventurer is taking shape and the rapid progress is exciting.

In this photo, right is the fore of the boat, left is aft. You can see the craftsmanship where the two middle pipe segments create a uniform curve from aft to fore.

The next steps are to add 2 antenna plates, 7 rod holders, and a custom canvas top. A collapsing/telescoping front hoop will be added to create 36″ of additional forward sunshade.

After a week of astounding progress, the bulk of the new top is complete.

The forward sunshade is getting a redesign, as Troy and Harper want to make it telescope into the top for storage rather than fold down. It should be a pretty stunning project once completed.

Here you can see that the telescoping front sunshade is starting to take shape. The two round tubes on either side of the top are the receptacles for the shade.

Here, the telescoping front sun shade is now complete and all that’s left is the custom canvas top.

The new top is complete and we are readying it for shipping to Costa Rica. Now that it’s finished, check out these fine welds:

Here is detail on the telescoping retractable front sunshade:

Brian has it all wrapped up and ready for freight.

The Adventurer’s new top was installed in late November.

The off season maintenance projects are all barreling down the backstretch and heading for the finish line. Speaking of finish, check out this awesome epoxy coat on iconic fighting chairs from the Wanderer and Discoverer:

So clear you can see your face in them! That’s also the goal for the skylights in Casa Tranquilo and Casa Surfeando:

Casa Caribe’s bathroom remodeling is complete. New tile and a new sink pedestal are the highlights.

Of course the best part of the offseason is when we get to add new fish-fighting weapons to the fleet. Remember that we started to build the new livewell for the Explorer using a bucket for a mold:

Now the form has taken shape been bulked out with seven-layer of Woven Roven fiberglass:

We fabricated the lid and lip by hand, slowly removing material until we got a snug fit.

Satisfied with the fit of the lid and the tank’s placement in the aft-starboard of the livewell, we proceeded to ad layers of chopped-strand fiberglass for a nice finish.

It is currently in place secured with epoxy, and once it cured it was ready for gelcoat and final assembly.

The new livewell looks great, especially now that the rest of the Explorer is freshly gelcoated and ready for action.

Look out fishies…The barroom-brawler Explorer fights dirty!

The other boats are in the process of final gelcoat and polish. It’s great to see the bulk of the fleet shined up and ready for battle.