Look what followed me home!

I'd been scanning the local Craig's list looking for a drift boat and soon pulled a boat home from Lewiston, ID. The previous owner claimed it to be a Steele 16' in decent shape, possibly late 70's. The interior looks recently varnished, ugh, and oiled, with new green paint on the floor. It looks like it's float ready, but reading through the archives here, I wonder what condition the chines are in.

From the outside, the bottom looks glassed and painted, possibly 3/4" thick, but unfortunately, he wrapped the glass over the chine and about 2-3" up the side. It generally looks fine, but the glass is pulling away in slight cracks in a few places, exposing hints of wood. And there's a bulge running the full length of the bottom.

My questions to the tribe: do I fire up the belt sander and heat gun to reveal what's underneath, or take it for it first float to determine if water seeps through, or run it all season, hope for the best, and plan on possibly doing repairs this winter?

It looks like a lot of fun and am glad for all the sage advice from WBP.

ps. the interior shows hints of the original green paint, kind of an emerald green. Is this true to a Steele?

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Permalink Reply by Brenton White on April 6, 2014 at 5:48pm

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Permalink Reply by Jayson Hayes on April 7, 2014 at 5:43am

if my memory serves right, Steele didn't do the extra frame under the fly deck. Maybe some of the others can chime in on this but this boat looks very much like my old Wilard Lucas which was the Hindman design. I would at least take it out on the water to make sure it is sound and doesn't leak and look for the problem areas. As old as this boat is you're probably not going to do a lot of damage that already isn't there so just go out and have a good time and take care of her and plan on a Big project this coming fall unless you already have another boat to use this summer. Nice find, it does have some really nice VG Fir that is going to be very beautiful when refinished! ~Jayson

Permalink Reply by Tom Anderson on April 7, 2014 at 5:50am

Hey nice purchase!  I got bout my first wooden drift boat in about the same condition.  I decided to tackle the bottom before floating.  Could have gone either way though.  Fortunately, my bottom and chine logs were in great shape and I removed chine caps, sanded a bunch, epoxy-filled old screw holes from chine caps, Coat-It on the bottom, new chine caps and away I went for the fishing season last summer.

I almost decided to just float it as-is for the summer, but my concern was that it probably had some leaks based on what it looked like, and knew that I'd run it a bunch over summer and fall and probably soak up quite a bit of water.  Then . . . the wet winter would be here (Columbia Gorge) and it might take forever to dry really thoroughly again.  The boat hadn't been floated in a few years so I knew it was bone dry when I bought it.

Either way, you can't go wrong.  Probably just depends on how much time you have available between now and fishing season.  Here, summer steelhead season doesn't get going on the river until late July, so I had a couple of nice warm/dry months to get at it.

Enjoy your excellent boat.

Permalink Reply by David Jensen on April 8, 2014 at 9:05pm

I have 2 Keith Steele boats.  The USCG plate looks like Keith's.  The knee rest doesn't.  The definatively way to find out is to contact his son, Steve, in Lebanon, OR and give him the USCG number, and he can tell you if Keith made it, when, and for whom.  Steve is listed in the phone book.

Permalink Reply by Rod Anderson on April 10, 2014 at 3:06pm

Looks like a project! Im currently rebuilding a '79 Keith Steele boat, nearly a complete teardown. To help identify if its a steele boat when the ID plate on stem is missing, you might find a set of numbers stamped on top of the small plywood spacer between inner and outer gunwale near transom on right side. On my boat they were covered with paint / varnish / oil / dirt etc. They showed up while sanding. The numbers matched serial number on ID plate. Also last 3 or possibly 4 digits will  help date when your boat was built. Last digits on mine are 879 telling me it was built in august of '79. Where ya at? Im also in Idaho

Permalink Reply by Brenton White on April 12, 2014 at 6:54pm

Still unsure if it's a Steele. No HIN plate anywhere, haven't looked in the other secret location for stamped numbers. The boat measures just under 15', but the trailer got several fresh coats of paint and I'm hoping to give it a float test this week. My preference is to hold off on an overhaul and hopefully get a summer of fun with it. But the first launch will set the priority.

Rod, I'm up in Sandpoint. Any chance you're close by?

Permalink Reply by Riverman on April 12, 2014 at 11:29pm

Fantastic.... I'd give anything if I could find a used boat like that to restore.

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