bertram31.com

Working on a FBC-
Heres the plan- Rehab the exterior (pull the engines, stringers, seacocks, electronics, repaint hull/topsides, repair floor supports) this winter run the boat for a season then on to the interior.

Are there any decisions that should be made now that will save time/effort when doing the interior?
Helm station is staying and the head will be in the vee berth.

Thanks again in advance,

If your head is in the V-Berths, you have a Sports Fisherman. If your engines/transmissions and running gear are functional, do the exterior cosmetics first or you won't be in the water by Spring. If you're a gasser, that changes. Want to use it in the Spring, remove the fiberglass gas tank and replace with aluminum (sorry), or you're liable to get stuck mid-season with an ethanol glued engine. Unless you have nothing else to do between now and April/May, I doubt you'll be able to do it all in one winter. Would love you to prove me wrong. All the best and welcome aboard. Walter

Tangier

Walter is right. I just repowered and to do it right and if you only have weekends and winters like we have up here, and have to keep it in a Marina, you will be at it for at least two summers. Then throw in the relative issue. I mean, weddings, birthday parties ect. you could go three summers.

Good luck.

Thanks for the welcome-

The old tank has been removed and a new alum. tank going in place.

Tangier...

Many years ago when I started my one man business I asked a friend (who had started his a couple of years previously) what advice and guidance he wanted to give me...

I am presently rebuilding my B33 FBC...

His advice pretty much applies to both projects..

Estimate your expenses.. then estimate how much time it will take until you are at a point that you feel satisfied with your progress...

Then multiply both figures by two.. consider the new numbers as a conservative starting point!

I do the same thing - except double the expenses and triple the time - I do that because I'm pretty anal about things - when I take anything apart I clean it, paint it, lubricate, clean and paint where it was, then reinstall.

As I said it was a "plan", and plans change... I just want to make sure ALL the decisions are made at the right time. Specifically while the boat is open.

Keep the wiring in mind, some of the wiring may include areas that you are not planning to get involved with right now.

I had to replace my tank and since it was out and I had the deck up, I just ran new wiring for all the grounds to the rudders, struts, etc...

Wiring to the bridge, could probably use a good going through.

Not to beat a dead horse with wiring, but 30-40 years can have had many hands splicing and butchering. Now is the time to clean it up.

Tangier

Just remember there is no cheap way out. When you have it apart do it right. Oh, by the way, once you start, one project just leads into another.

That's the slippery slope. You pull something apart and you find something else and you think to yourself "Well, I might as well do this too while I've got this apart." And so on and so on...

Sometime its hard to know where to stop.

Not the most efficient way, but I spent the first winter getting the boat to where it ran and was basically safe, and then have picked a project for each winter that I can get done in a few months of weekends when I have the time. Last winter was new tank, deck supports, bulkhead aft of the motors. This winter I'm probably going to pull the decks back up and redo the steering and outer deck supports. She gets put up around Thanksgiving, and usually is back in by mid-April. Little bit at a time, and you don't miss the boating season.

That was my original point. If you can use the boat during the season, you'll not only learn about the boat, you'll also learn about what you'd like to do to it to meet your personal needs/likes/dislikes. It's not always possible, but makes for nicer summers and more customized restorations. It obviously takes longer.

its tempting to get into these projects and decide to tear the whole thing down to bare fiberglass. But i've found that my last two boat, where i undertook big projects (relative stuff here, i never tore one down to bare glass), i sometimes did things that i wound up re-doing cause i didn't like it. On my 31 North coast, one of the first things i did was to relocate the 3 4D marine batteries to a compartment under the cabin floor...thinking i would use the previous space in the engine room for a marine genset. Well...it turned out that putting that much weight in the front of a boat like this is a dumb idea...and i decided that putting a genset in this boat was an unnecessary complexity. I wound up moving the batteries back.

Sometimes its better to put the thing in the water, go fishing (or whatever you do) and see how things are...then go from there.

JeremyD wrote: When I take anything apart I clean it, paint it, lubricate, clean and paint where it was, then reinstall.

This is what I've done on automobiles for years and I always wondered why it took so long to get anything accomplished - now I know.

Good suggestion to review wiring to the bridge-

tangier. when i put in a new stainless tank and replaced the floor with a bertram one i ran a 3" pvc pipe down the outside of the starboard stringer that i fastened to the stringer and put all the necessary wires in it i also put 2 pieces of string in the pvc tube and left a foot of string on each end so that if a needed any additional wires run it was easy to attach to the string and pull through good luck

with out a doubt make the composite windshield the first task. everythink you do to the exterior depends on the windshield as both a focal point and a structual starting point.a 31bertram takes on a whole differant "feel" afterward the boat is now one piece bridge to hull all one.

here is step one;

Bob

When you say the boat takes on a whole new feel, does it stiffen the boat up and eliminate some of the twist?

I love the glassed in windows, my wife is against it. Right now she is winning.

When you say the boat takes on a whole new feel, does it stiffen the boat up and eliminate some of the twist?

Big time... Couple that together with glassed in pilasters and ridgid epoxied in cabin bulkhead and it's a whole different boat. Solid as a brick sh!t house.

coundn`t say it better!!!!

The conduit is a great idea-
The windows are a mess and am sorting through that now- going to try to replace the window and alum frames. Want to keep the steering station-
Thanks,