Transom help

Would suck if there's a board in there. I don't see a reason to have a board reinforcing in an aluminum boat, but it's done.

In the old glass boat we had, the transom rotted so my dad cut out the cap where the board was, pulled all the rotten stuff out, replaced with angle aluminum to reinforce it, and then patched over the cap where he cut with more glass and resin. Looked ugly but when the rest of the wood in the hull rotted and it was full of soft spots, the transom was still rock solid.

I'm not sure how a shop would approach fixing it in an aluminum boat. I know it's a couple grand in a glass boat, but that's because they have to take the cap completely out of the hull and replace the rotten stuff.

Whatever you do though, don't replace wood with more wood. Use aluminum or some kind of composite.

Found a website yesterday (on phone, can't link) called Iboats. Seems to be filled with useful info on repairing boats. There also seems to be some good natured kidding between glass boat owners and pop can boat owners. A search of the archives will probably reveal somebody has dealt with your issue already.

It's a 50 merc and the people who put the motor on there didn't do their due diligence in reinforcing the transom. They even got so cheap as to put a piece of wood under the part where the motor attaches to it, to raise it up I guess. I'll probably have to take it to a metal works shop and depending on the repair cost I may just scrap the boat and get a new one...the motor is in real good shape.

What I would do is get two pieces of plate steel and sandwich the transom with bolts and silicone the living hell out of the bolts.

This is true, but if you keep an eye on it and maybe coat it in rhino liner you should be good to go for a long time

Found a guy who'll come get the boat, take it to his house, take the motor off, remove transom, replace transom with new wood/layered fiberglass shite, weld it all back together, re-attach motor and bring it back to my house for $500.00. Done deal.