Snark Mayflower Restoration Questions

Purple Kawasaki

New Member
I started restoring a Snark Mayflower today. I've found a good amount of info on Snark restoration online but not this particular boat. It's the biggest one Snark made I believe. I'll link a video below. Anyways boat is fairly clean with the exception of rub rail. It was caulked in place around perimeter and taped in places. I slowly took it off with heat gun on low and a razor. I plan to patch a few dings, paint inner and outer and then re-attach rub rail. Questions below. Thanks.

1) As far as painting, I plan to use a latex acrylic house paint. I'm wondering if I should also use latex primer on the ABS shell or not? My understanding is that polyethylene by nature will resist chemical bonding including primer/paint. Best results are usually via a thorough cleaning (to remove all grease, oil, etc.) and then roughing up / sanding the surface to be painted. Acrylic paint being better as it flexes even when dry. *I will probably use a latex acrylic porch and deck enamel.

2) I plan on patching the hull in a few places with a urethane glue. There's a couple youtube videos using this method (here & here). However, Gorilla Glue explicitly states on label that it is not recommended with polyethylene or polypropylene. I'll probably just go ahead with it as it worked for them but I just found that surprising. Any input appreciated.

3) The ABS plastic shell is slightly loose from the polystyrene inner on the bottom of the hull. I'm trying to decide if I should just drill small holes and inject urethane glue to re-attach or try and use a closed cell spray-can urethane foam. If anyone has suggestions here, that would be nice. Preferably a spray-foam that wouldn't absorb water. *I'm in a northern climate.

4) I plan to seal around boat where rub-rail was with urethane glue or an epoxy, paint boat inner / outer and then reattach rub rail after I clean all the caulk off it (It's a black rubber sandwich rail, 1.25" wide). I'm thinking I'll probably slowly reattach by clamping and using adhesive caulk (maybe 3M adhesive sealant).

Here is a video of the same boat in Germany.

Restoring to original yellow, hoping to have this much fun with it.
Thanks.
 

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