Copied the Bahia Mar picture...now i can skecth out a few hardtop ideas..Thanks Harry..BH
1966 31 Bahia Mar #316-512....8 years later..Resolute is now a reality..Builder to Boater..285 hours on the clocks..enjoying every minute..how many days till spring?
lol
ya they are real hard to install, man i went into a marine engine dealer, they had like 12 - 1 3/8 zincs on the clearance shelf for like 5 buck each. and they were the good zincs not the cheap ones from west marine.
My old 31' Sportfisherman w/ 330 chryslers was $19K in 1967. About 1973 or so the price of everything went way up because of the oil crisis., and I no longer was paying 18 cents for fuel oil to heat my office.
When Rawleigh returns from vacation he should be able to supply some info on all of this (especially price and other original data)as his family bought their 31 new.
Bob H.
The sketching from a profile is how I got the proportions right on Dreamsicle, especially the hardtop. However, I photographed her on a trailer astern and profile. I scanned the photo and enlarged to a size useable and printed several dozen and had at it.
Makes a big dif.
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
On October 19, 1967 my 31 Sportfish with 290HP Chrysler 413's, hull # 314-654 sold for $17,648.12 according to the original Bill of Sale. It has the rear bulkhead option and did not have bottom paint.
I have only seen 1 B31 with small blocks (350s), and they were a repower. Every other B31 had BBs (Mopar or GM) or diesels. I didn't know that SBs ever came from the factory. I'd like to see some performance/GPH numbers from a repower with the 6.0 or 6.1 Merc/Crusaders.
i regularly fished a small block boat--this was back in 1969 and was from the factory---i was too young to appreciate the performance or lack of at the time--boat was named Sunshine and fished out of Jones Inlet---i do remember fishing the bayshore mako tournament on the boat in 1971 and was considered quick compared to some of the old wood boats still being operated. I also remember a big block 31 passing us by like we were standing still during the bimini start. the run to the fishing grounds were a lot shorter probably 10 miles to the acid waters for bluefish and 16 mile to the ba bouy for bluefin--only a handful of people were running the canyons.
I knew a guy who had a 31 with Chrysler/AMC 35?'s who said that it wasn't too underpowered and was very efficient. Whether he was being truthful or telling a fish tale I do not know.
We used to fish offshore with a friend who at the time owned a 67 FBC with the 440 Chryslersor as some call them Mopars. Ours is a 75 and we had the 454 big blocks that were rated at 350 HP. My father did our friend a favor and in the late 70's he converted the distributors for him so he did not need points anymore.
When we used to run offshore, and come home and fuel up, we used to be within 3 gallons of each other so the perfomance between the 440's and the Mercruisers were almost identical. He was spinning a 17x19 wheel and we had 18 x19.
He had a lower station and did not have the stand up head, we had the stand up head.
Craig Mac
Back in the 60's and up to the mid 70's these things were one of the fastest boats around. Once they started cranking out those big outboards, the 31 just became an average speed boat. I remember cutting the bay on the run out and some guy in an outboard climbing up our stern. My father would just move the throttles up so we went from turning 200rpms to about 3000 and we would just run away from them. S
So there was a time when they were considered fast.