TOPIC: Volksboat jetra im working on while stuck at home

I bought a Volksboat Jetra in fall of 2019 and decided to work on it this month. The boat has been waiting all winter under the shed for me to start working on it. But it's been waiting even longer to go for a swim being last registered in 1979 in illinois.

This is a neat little micro boat. It differs however from my Fleetforms and I can tell why many of these aren't still around anymore. While most fiberglassics are built like tanks , this Volksboat is made to be light thus the fiberglass is quite thin. While the boat is light I imagine most of these are gone simply from breaking apart and it feels very flimsy so I have to be careful with it.

While it looks as though I did a lot , so far i've only cleaned and tried buffing up the gelcoat on top. It came back to a bit of a shine but the years have definitely taken their toll. Even so not bad for being stored outside for 40 years upside down in someones back yard. I believe storing it upside down is what actually kept it from an early death.

After trying to shine it up I'm noticing that quality control on these might have been not the greatest as the mold for the top half of the shell isn't quite symmetrical and is somewhat lumpy. The gelcoat is also not very good either in terms of when it was applied. Seems like it was made by just a couple dudes in a garage which is probably pretty close to how they were made.

I found a barracuda donor boat on marketplace that had a VERY bad hull (whole back of the boat was replaced and was rotting off as well) So I was able to buy just the parts off of it. Got a steering wheel and wind shield and bow handle and cleats and other hardware bits. I made sure to pick the barracuda clean so nothing rare went to the junk yard.

I made the windshield by cutting a 1 foot section out of the center of the barracudas windshield and putting them together with two aluminum strips. the steering wheel needed a whole day of scrubbing and cleaning to reveal it was white/clear with gold glitter inside of it.

I'm currently debating putting the side rails back on..... as the boat looks really nice without them. The side rails are for carrying the boat and the steering cables run through them. However if I can route the cables inside the hull , I think i'm going to opt for not putting them back on.

But thats it so far , just waiting on ebay parts to arrive so I can build the interior.

I am still looking for a fleetform boat, thanks frog

Hi congradulations on your project. I have did several of these There are actually more around thanyou think. they are a nice safer than you think user boatf, Del has did several,,try toget ontopost but cant get on the sight for some reason, and I think Steve Stevenson has had one longer than all of us enjoy

Frog shoot me a phone number and we can talk about the fleetform you are looking for