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Believe it or not I actually have a boat ! (more than a few TORC folks have asked me this ha ha !). Anyway, I bought this 1986 21 foot Scarab the winter of 2011 with the trailer but no power. It was from Corunna Ontario (on St. Clair river north of Windsor) and formerly had a 2.4 Bridgeport on it. The price was right and close to home (I lived in Sarnia at the time). I had sold my 16' wood/epoxy tunnel after getting tired of getting shit-kicked by the rough St. Clair river.

Wellcraft made quite a few of these "Scarab I's" in the 80s, but most were small block stern drives. This is a factory outboard, rare from what I can tell. I have no illusions about it being a rocket ship - these were 60 mph boats when new. It's a pretty basic pad bottom deep-V (13" flat pad), with no transom notch. These are pretty heavy - 2000 pounds rigged and are solid glass with an integrated cockpit liner. It has a very usable cuddy, which is what I wanted. A lot of the other 21ish SOBs don't have cuddies. I call this rig the "Swiss Army Boat" - it can do many things, but none of them that well: reasonably fast, handle reasonably rough water, room for 2 to sleep (or other v-berth activities), wakeboard from OK (has a good tow pylon setup, huge ski locker, swim platforms), all on a reasonable budget. The hull and interior were in good original condition, and the tandem axle trailer was usable (aka a bit of a project too). I had a 300 V8 that I got basically for free that I was dying to put together (have never had a V8 before), so this fit the bill. The plan is to get this rig all tuned up with one of my V8s (I now have 2 of them) and use it for cruising and towing water toys. I think mid 70s is a reasonable target with a mild V8, lots of setback, and modern props. I'd be ecstatic if it got to 80 mph. Once it's all dialed in, I'll get a second much faster 1-2 seat rig. Either another tunnel boat or perhaps a Tuff 16 (which I think is one of the best looking boats ever made). I have V4 and V6 OMC power ready to go here too for these other projects.

I have lots of pics that I'll gradually post showing the overhaul.

Very cool. I've never seen an O/B version of that boat.

The first steps were electrical work, de-Mercing it, and new steering. Although that dash pic looks OK, 80% of the switches and gauges were original and NFG. In fact, the electrical as a whole was a fucking mess. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being an active electrical fire and 10 being an RBT rigging job (will that go to his head lol ?), I'd say it was a 3.

The original Hynautic steering helm and ram seemed fine, but the hoses were super stiff, one had been cut (with a resulting hose-mender in place), and as far as I could tell was missing the supplementary hydraulic reservoir (if I understand this system correctly - I'm familiar with Teleflex not Hynautic).

I wanted a much cleaner look so I decided to install one of the new Bombardier concealed side-mount control boxes. After pulling the Merc box off, found a whole bunch of old rigging holes to deal with. On the dash, I could not find any off-the-shelf breaker panels that would cover the gaping original holes. Rather than glass up and re-gel the dash (not cost-justified for this project), I made simple 1/8" aluminum trim plates for the dash and for the cockpit side where the control mounts, and had them powder-coated black. I want to emphasize, this is a budget project because (a) I'm cheap, and (b) I want to save cash for boat #2.

Dash prep: most of old gauges out, epoxied in filler pieces where 2 old dash switch panels were, Hynautic helm out.

Starting to prep for the new Bombardier concealed side-mount box. I had not rigged one of these before. The directions are terrible - throw them away. There had obviously been a previous concealed side-mount before the Merc surface-mount in the original picture. Of course my new cut-out would not overlap the old one, so I cut/routered a rabbeted filler piece and epoxied it in, and filled all the old holes with epoxy too (WEST 610 tubes work great).


After much measuring, testing, and some minor grinding inside the cockpit side, I drilled the mounting hole and mounted the support plate. Sorry, I've lost the pics of actually installing the side-mount box.



Here's the dash approaching done. New Blue Sea Systems waterproof breaker panels, Teleflex SeaSTAR PRO helm (made 2 trim pieces/backing plates to shrink the old dash hole from the big Hynautic to the much smaller Teleflex), and OEM Bombardier key switch/kill switch. Yes, I used Bombardier "Tech series" boring gauges. Why ? Well, they actually match the colour scheme of the boat, they're cheap (plus I got them for dealer cost), and they actually work very well. I had the same type of gauges in my previous boat for 15 years problem free.

Sweet project! I love projects.

Are you doing the project in Sarnia or London?

awesome.....now you can be on the water this season to watch OPA in Port huron and St Clair....

Cool now I have a boat to sit in and watch Jason race!

Matt..... that would be a great Class 7 boat!! you could come race!! 60mph bracket 21 foot boats with 300hp or less!!! Paul he would need a second chair!!!

Ha ha thanks guys, it feels really good to be digging deep into a boat project after years of house/condo renos. I actually moved from Sarnia to Caledonia (a bedroom community of Hamilton) in September. Dunville is now in my backyard. I would like to haul the boat back to Sarnia to watch the OPA races however. I will not be participating as a racer - as I post more on this project you'll see why. And Paul - my London place is now a rental property.

Lots more pics to follow. You guys will love the shop setup I have at my new house - it's sort of the opposite to Greg or Blake's garage-mahals

Matt