1969 MFG Edinboro - Tales, trails and taverns

Restoration of my fathers old runabout.

October 2021

This is what I saw when I first saw the boat again after at least ten years. This is a 1969 MFG(Molded Fiberglass) Edinboro. My father had bought this boat back in the late 90’s and we had a blast with it back then. What’s funny is that at the time he was dealing with tax issues, so in order to keep the boat from being one of his assets, he titled and registered it in my name. More on that later.

In October of 2021, after moving back to New England the previous year, I took a ride to the families Cape house. After visiting with some relatives I asked my uncle if the boat still happened to be out back. He said it was, so I took a walk out back. after a little bit of searching I found it, full of water, plants, and all kinds of other things. The center window was broken, and the engine that was on it was obviously junk.

When my father had bought a bigger boat he had no need for the little runabout. So he gave it to my uncle who just put it out back and never got around to doing anything with it. So for over two decades the boat just got pushed further back into the woods and forgotten more and more.

When I found that it was still there, and knew that my uncle had never got around to registering it I made a plan to restore it. That plan was foiled by my wife who refused to let me drag the old, rotting carcass back to our house in Rhode Island.

Fast forward to 2024, I’m now divorced, and after a couple years of renting apartments, I’ve finally bought myself a house. It’s an older house, and it needs some work, but it has a driveway that will definitely fit an old boat. And since I no longer have anyone to tell me I can’t, I pick up an old jet ski trailer off Facebook marketplace, grease the axles, install lights, and head to the Cape on a Friday after work, determined to get my boat.

June 2024

Once all the plants and water was out I could see the floor was still intact. I also tossed the old motor into the woods.

Since the title was long gone, having the old registration numbers on the side was key.

It barely fit on the Jet ski trailer, which I didn’t know was a jet ski trailer when I bought it. The guy told me he carried a 14 foot flat bottom on it, so I figured I’d be fine.

The reason the water drained out was due to this hole punched in the hull during the move from one trailer to the next. the old trailer was rotted halfway into the ground at that point.

I brought it the shop I worked at to pressure wash it on the way home.

It cleaned up decently, and I took this picture after stopping at a liquor store, I figured I had earned a celebration for when I got home. Little did I know that just after I took this picture I would get stopped for having an expired tag. (I used one from work, and it was expired) Luckily the cop was cool, took the plate, gave me a ticket, and told me not to get caught again. I was in the next town over from home, and I had already driven two hours to get there. He may have actually been impressed that I had made it that far on expired tags, or maybe he wanted the raggedy old boat on the tiny trailer out of his town as quickly as possible.

Everything had to be cleaned out, very little was salvageable after all that time, but I had to know how far I really had to go.

The back section had to be removed so that I could access the transom, and I didn’t want to cut into the outer shell, so I opted to repair it from the inside.

It took a lot of wedging to break the glue between the cap and the shell.

I removed the back section of the floor, partly to access the transom, and also to see if I needed to replace the stringers.

What I didn’t know, that you can read in the brochure from earlier in this post, is that this boat has fiberglass stringers. So no need to rip the floor up any further.

July 2024

Replacing the rotten transom

Dry fitting the first layer of plywood.

Glassing in the first layer. I used the drain holes to pull the fiberglass against the wood.

I had to drill a couple holes under the water line to pull the plywood in at the corners.

Once the fiberglass was set I patched the holes, along with any other holes in the outer layer. I also installed the new plug for the under deck area.

Once the transom wood was in, I started re attaching the sections of the floor I had removed.

September 2024

The rear cap re-attachment

When I tried putting the cap section back on it wasn’t lining up. Turned out that the new transom didn’t have the same bow that the original had. Modifications were needed.

I ended up cutting some material out along the inside seam to allow the back to straighten out. You can see where I glassed on the top seams and the seats I had picked up.

Here’s where I started to glass the cut section back together.

Here I’m fitting one of the interior panels after painting it. I was using a spray paint from Home Depot for the blue interior panel. Over it’s life different seats had been installed and the holes poorly patched, so I was plugging the holes with fiberglass.

I found mounts for the seats at a marine consignment shop, and I began trying to figure out how to set them up. You can see the rough shape the dash was in, having been changed so many times.

I was trying to decide on the color, the blue looked good, but I was wavering between black and white.

October 2024

Indoor storage work

I had managed to get a job at a Marina that summer and one of the perks was being allowed to keep my boat in their indoor storage facility. This greatly sped up the restoration project as I got the chance to work on it over the winter of 24/25

I had fixed the hole in the hull and repaired the bow hook (it had ripped out while trying to load the boat)

I had finally decided to go with the white and blue color scheme, I used this topside paint and this bottom paint. They’re both still holding up well.

November 2024

New Used Outboard

I found a 1992 Mercury 90hp 2 stroke on Facebook marketplace for 800, so I took a look and bought it without hearing it run. Kind of a shot in the dark, but the guy said he had just took it off his 19 ft boat to replace with a larger powerplant.

Even though it’s a little more powerful than what this boat was rated for, the weight ended up being perfect.

Once the engine was mounted, it was time to tackle the wiring harness, and mounting the controls.

February 2025

Electrical Mockup

Once the engine was mounted it was time to work on the lights, the horn and the steering system.

I utilized the hole where the original anchor light went and installed this LED foldable light.

This is the original location at the stern.

The navigation lights, also LED, came out great. I tried to reuse the original, but the metal was so badly pitted that it wouldn’t have worked.

Then began the process of trying to figure out how to mount the seats. I had three buckets and a bench seat to work with.

I was taking a lot of pictures and sending them to my friends to ask for their advice.

March 2025

Making a new dashboard

Here you can see the final location of the horn and how cut up the instrument panel was. There was no way I was going to fill all those holes and have it come out looking decent.