1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rebuilding the Salon Roof Hatch

Between 2007 when we acquired our Roamer 46 and 2012 when the refit resumed after a long hiatus while I cleared up the US Coast Guard paperwork SNAFU, I had lots of time to think about how best to rebuild the salon roof hatch. I also had the benefit of seeing how the salon roof hatch was designed on a 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42 we bought in 2011, which led me to conclude that the original design on the Roamer was reasonably sound. The hatch failed on the Roamer because 1) somebody cut notches in the longitudinal hatch frames, which caused the frames to crack and 2) they only used 3″ fiberglass tape to cover the cut in the FRP cabin top skin when the boat was repowered with 534ci Super Seamaster twin turbo engines in 1973.

When rebuilding the hatch in 2013, I made sure it would never fail again.

January 2013: leveling the salon roof.

Because the salon roof structure was compromised for so long with the hatch and frames out, the roof had settled. The FRP skin was extremely wavy in certain areas from the lack of support. Using 2x3s and a floor jack under each of the remaining frames, I got the roof back up into the original position.

Test fitting the frames five years after I took them out.

This shot shows where we cut out the rotten 1/4″ plywood underlayment for the salon roof, then roughed up the underside of the FRP skin with 36 grit on a grinder (around the left-most frame).

Leveling the salon top all the way forward.

Starboard side forward.
The roof is braced in position.

The rotten plywood was cut out and the under-side of the FRP was ground and ready for bonding in the new 1/4″ marine plywood. We were starting to fit the 1/4″ plywood here.

Test fitting the outboard stub frames with the new plywood.

Once all of the pieces were in place, we drilled and countersunk holes from the topside for #8 x 3/4″ screws that would mechanically fasten the two layers together.

Beefing up the longitudinal hatch frames.

The original roof frames, one of which is on the right above, are 1-3/8″ wide. I had 300 board feet of 8/4 (i.e. 2″ thick) African mahogany and decided that we would keep the new longitudinal frames as thick as possible. Once we had the boards jointed and planed square, they were 1-7/8″ thick…lotsa meat and NO NOTCHES! 😉

With all of the pieces cut and test fitted, the hatch went in bit-by-bit.

The process was to wet out the plywood and underside of the FRP skin with US Composites 635 epoxy. Then, using the same 635 epoxy, we used fumed silica filler to make a bonding agent and spread that in a nice layer across both surfaces. After fitting the plywood and screwing it to the FRP, we put clamps everywhere to help hold it all together.

OOH…What have we here?

While grinding back the ancient gelcoat in preparation for covering the salon hatch hole with fiberglass, we found evidence of a previous repair. There was also evidence that the original FRP layup wasn’t wetted out as well as it should have been. But more on that later…

With the 1/4″ plywood glued and screwed in place, next were the battens.

I didn’t want a seam in the plywood over the 1/4″ gap between the inner and outer box frames of the hatch. So when we installed the 1/4″ plywood around the perimeter of the hatch, it extended several inches inward of the hatch cut-out in the FRP skin that was made during the repower in 1973. Extending the plywood inward left an opening that measured very nearly 4’x8’…just about the same size as a standard sheet of plywood.
To avoid unsupported seams between the 1/4″ plywood around the perimeter and the final 1/4″ sheet in the center, I used strips of 3/4″ plywood as battens under the seams These were also glued and screwed in place.

The leading edge of the hatch hole was ready for the center sheet of 1/4″ ply.

The center 4’x8′ sheet of 1/4″ ply, cut and test fitted.

After marking the frame lines, I drilled and countsunk the holes for the screws that would hold it all together–#10×1-1/2″ for the frames and #8×3/4″ for the perimeter.

The perimeter frames were finally bolted in and glued and screwed to the plywood above.
I was all giddy! 😉

The hatch frames themselves are also glued and screwed, wetted out first with 635 epoxy and then pasted together with epoxy bonding agent before being screwed together with #12×3″ screws.

For the first time since 2007, the Roamer’s salon roof was whole (not a hole 😉 ).

When installing the center plywood panel, I wetted out the frames and plywood with US Composites 635 epoxy, then used wood flour (wood dust and cabosil) as the bonding agent around the perimeter and frames before screwing it all together.

Stainless steel annular ring nails spaced every inch along the length of every frame member ensure the plywood will stay put.

Chris Craft used bronze staples here, but annular ring nails are more readily available today. #8 screws around the perimeter into the 3/4″ plywood battens below hold the edges in place.

At the end of a long weekend, the view of the salon top looking forward.

The view from the inside.

The thickened epoxy bonding agent squeezed out just enough to indicate a thorough glue-up.

Where there was enough glue squeezing out, I put a nice fillet on it.

Since the original Chris Craft approach was only mechanically fastened with staples, the glued and screwed approach should yield a significantly stronger structure than anything that rolled off of Chris Craft production lines back in the day…or maybe even today.

With the frames and a layer of 1/4″ ply installed, the hatch was officially in. On the down-side, for the first time in five years the salon didn’t have a moonroof. 😉

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: strengthening the Salon Roof.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Hatch Hole Problem Formulation

All of the big Chris Craft cruisers I’ve seen with the headline out had built-in hatch framing in the salon roof. Chris Craft built them into the boats to make repowering that much easier. Our Roamer was repowered with Super SeaMaster twin turbo engines back in 1973, so the hatch had already been cut out once. By the time we had acquired the boat in 2007 the hatch had begun to collapse, which allowed rain from the salon roof to fall inside the boat, eventually filling the engine room. After dejunking the boat, I removed the hatch so I could get the old engines and other big stuff out and put new stuff in.

While the original Chris Craft hatches are well conceived and executed, the reinstallation of the Roamer’s hatch in 1973 was not; hence the collapse.

This is the basic framework for Chris Craft salon hatches.

The mahogany salon roof frames are 1 3/8″ thick and of varying height. They follow the crown of the salon roof and support the 1/4 plywood that underlays the FRP and gelcoat salon top.

The hatch itself is a “box within a box” design, with 1/4 solid mahogany spacers between the two box sections and 3/8″ bronze bolts and washers spaced every 12″ to hold it all together. The open hatch hole on the 1969 Roamer 46 measures 5’x10′.

To remove the hatch, you simply remove the headliner and drill a small hole at each corner of the box. Then strike a line on the top side between the four holes and cut with a saw set to a shallow depth so as not to cut through the bolts. Then, support the hatch from below, unbolt it and out it comes!

Here’s what the frames look like installed in as-found condition

The outline of the hatch in 2007 was a tell-tale that the seam had broken

Upon closer inspection, I found that the seam was only covered with one layer of 3″ fiberglass tape, not much resin and the rest was fairing compound that had long since cracked apart.

All of that was topped with various forms of goo: both rubber and silicone, neither of which kept the rain out for long.

Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I can…take out a salon roof hatch all by myself!

The hatch came out in January 2008. Little did I know it would remain out until 2013.

By 2009 I determined that the hatch skin was shot. Water intrusion through the broken seam around the hatch had rotted out the 1/4″ plywood between the frames and the FRP skin.

This longitudinal outside hatch frame wasn’t horrible, but the plywood was rotten.

Port side aft, the plywood was the worst.

The rot caused the plywood to spread apart, pushing the fiberglass skin up and cracking it at the drilled out hole in the corner.

The plywood rot was really bad on the port side in the middle of the hatch.

The Cause of the hatch collapse: relief notches.

Nobody’s come up with a good explanation for why they cut notches out of the frames when the boat was repowered in 1973. This is definitely not something Chris Craft did originally. This longitudinal frame is actually the best of them all because it only has two small hairline cracks leading away from the tip of the notch.

Three of the four longitudinal hatch frames.

The fourth one was broken entirely at the notch that somebody cut out back in 1973. I’ve already recycled it into cleats (1″x1″ mahogany strips). The bottom one in this picture was almost (but not quite) completely cracked into two pieces.

So, what I started with was rotten plywood, broken frames and a cracked and deformed fiberglass cabin top skin. To fix the hatch and surrounding salon top structure would require stripping out all of the rotten old plywood and bonding in new. Then we’d have to cut new frames to replace the broken ones. Finally, we’d have to reassemble the whole structure that Chris Craft originally created upside-down in a mold from the gelcoat up, but I’d have to do it from the inside of the boat looking up and from the outside looking down!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rebuilding the Salon Roof Hatch.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Tent Model IX

I’ve learned a lot about shrink wrap tentmaking since our Roamer 46 refit began in 2007, including what works well and what fails almost immediately. From my previous experiences with tents, I knew the features I wanted in Tent Model IX:

• Plenty of space to work on everything from the deck rub rail up.
• Plenty of head room, but not too much. We don’t want to make a sail.
• Stairs…because ladders truly suck.
• Storm resistance
• Lots of ventilation options but with the ability to hold in heat, too.
• The ability to bring big material, like 4×8 sheets of plywood, onboard.
• Finally, Tent Model IX needed to be built as a transformer…think Megatron, but in white.

The idea for the transforming tent came from earlier attempts to have a tent for all seasons: a tight work tent during nasty weather, but with the ability to roll up the sides when it’s hot outside. Tent Model IX’s transformation will be from a storm resistant work tent from autumn 2012 through winter 2013 to a paint shed in the spring of 2013, when we’ll paint the Roamer from the boot top to the helm station roof.

This is Tent Model V from 2009 (AKA The Beast)

We saved the frame uprights and bow pieces and reused them on Model IX in September 2012. When we transform Model IX from a work tent to a paint tent, we’ll install the scaffolding from Model V, too.

Introducing…Tent Model IX!

* Heavy duty 1.5″ PVC pipe frames
* Frame uprights hold the shrink wrap away from the deck rub rail
* To make it more practical to heat, the shrink wrap tucks in tight to the hull below all of the port hole and engine ventilation openings.
* And, it’s transformable. All I have to do is loosen the hose clamps holding the PVC pipe to the 2×4 uprights, and I can adjust the height as needed.

I know, I know…the nose is baggy.

I tucked that in and shrunk it later, but the wrap really doesn’t want to be in this shape. Shrinking it, especially on the underside, would always have unintended consequences somewhere else. Eventually, it got to the point of “good enough.”

The tent tucks in tight to the deck at mid-ships.

There was very little deck work to be done from the helm station aft, so it didn’t need to be as wide there. All of the aft enclosure work is scheduled to be done during the paint phase in spring~early summer 2013.

Making the vestibule/storage area/stairs.

The deck surface back here is just the right height for the painter to reach the entire transom when we paint Awlgrip later this year.

The vestibule/storage area/stairs enclosed.

It’s also closed off with plastic from under the boat, too, so no critters or water will be able to easily find its way in.

Inside, we have the stairs going up.

They’re extremely sturdy.

The dust relocator…er..collector is in the vestibule.

The piping for it runs up to the deck level and down the length of the boat to the bow.

Note the corrugated drain pipe “dust collector ducting,” a cheap solution since flexible 4″ duct hose runs $40 for 10 feet. While it’s not the smoothest flowing duct, it’s fine for our purposes and has been working flawlessly.

The view from the aft deck showing the dust collector duct running down the length of the cabin.

There’s one outlet for the aft deck/table saw area, another at mid-ships and one more at the bow. Each outlet has a blast door, so you can select which one gets the suction.

There’s plenty of width and headroom over the cabin top.

The bow deck is where I was cutting 3/4″ douglas fir marine ply for floorboards. Once cut, we would load them inside the boat through the salon hatch hole that was still open from the 2008 repower to Ford Lehman 120s.

Cutting and painting aft stateroom and V-berth floorboards on the bow.

Tent Model IX has plenty of working room. It’s by far the best tent yet, and the dust collector hose on the right is very good at controlling dust in the working space.

Removable storm supports go from the aluminum side decks to the 1.5″ PVC pipe frames.

We haven’t needed them in 2013 (yet!), but after Tent Model XIII collapsed under a snow load from Snowmageddon it seemed wise to be prepared.

While we didn’t get hit by Son of Snowmageddon this year,  Late October 2012 was when Superstorm Sandy came to town. One thing I’d noticed about large shrink wrap tents over the years was that strong winter winds try very hard to turn them into kites. Any time the wind hit 30kts it grabbed that big lifting surface on the under side of Tent Model IX around the forward part of the hull and tried to make it fly!

So, in preparation for Sandy, I tied a stone onto the end of three long lengths of shrink wrap line (the stuff that normally holds the shrink wrap to the hull) and launched them over the top of the tent. The lines crossed near the top, along the 2×4 backbone of the tent, and I fastened them tightly to the boatstands on either side so they put the whole structure under tension.

Tent Model IX survived Sandy’s sustained 45mph winds and 75mph gusts, with one local sailor noting an 85mph blast during the peak of the storm in Deale. When I arrived to survey the damage the day after the storm, I was surprised to see…no damage at all. For surviving Sandy unscathed and being outstanding in all other ways (except for the baggy nose 😉 ), Tent Model IX rates 5/5 stars.

With a stable tent that doesn’t require hours and hours to fix every week, as in previous models, by October 2012 we were going all-out gangbusters.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: The Bow Seat.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engines! (right proper ones, this time)

With the paperwork SNAFU finally resolved and the Roamer documented in my name, the missus gave me permission to blast full steam ahead on the refit. One thing that had been troubling me since we moved the boat in 2009 from Colton’s Point to Deale, Maryland was my experience on the Chesapeake at 9~10kts. Unlike the 1967 Constellation 52 I owned at the time, which was a rock at hull speed (relatively speaking), this Roamer 46 was really uncomfortable. Granted, the Chesapeake can be a nasty body of water, and it certainly was that day. The Roamer was also extremely light, which would contribute to it bobbing around like a cork. But the sense I got, especially after talking with other Roamer 46 owners, was that these boats get their stability from speed. And speed was something I wasn’t going  to get out of 120hp Lehmans.

In fact, one Roamer 46 owner up in the Great Lakes contacted me to say that he had Lehman 120s in his! He indicated that, when fully loaded, WOT was 8kts and 1800rpm cruise was closer to 6kts! It was pretty clear that the world cruising sailboater’s suggestion in 2008 to repower with Lehmans was miles off. In retrospect, I should have known better than to trust a ragboater’s suggestion when repowering a classic motoryacht with a fast, planing hull. It all worked out in the end, though. 😉

Fortunately, the economics of repowering were increasingly in my favor. There was at least one silver lining to the economy crashing in 2008: the market for marine engines had crashed just like pretty much everything else. I had been watching all of the usual classified ad outlets for years: Boats & Harbors, boatdiesel.com, boat trader, engine trader etc, and got used to seeing the same engines advertised over long periods of time. After considering CAT, Nanni, John Deere, Detroit Diesel and Cummins, I slowly narrowed down the field to Nanni 320hp or Cummins B or C Series. When a set of Nanni 320s showed up on boatdiesel, I immediately contacted the broker. After a few emails back and forth, he discouraged me from the Nannis and said that what I really needed in the Roamer was a set of Cummins 450 Diamonds…and he just happened to have a used pair with only 400 hours on them.

Throughout 2011, while I was still working on resolving the paperwork SNAFU, the broker continued to correspond with me. Because of the cost of the engines, I also continued surfing the classifieds. In early 2012 I sold my 1967 Chris Craft Connie 52, so I had the resources to buy the Cummins engines. When I got the USCG documentation on the Roamer in May 2012, I presented the broker with my best offer for the pair of low-hour Cummins 6CTAs. I also explained the alternatives that were available, which justified my offer. I was certain the seller would decline or counter-offer but — SURPRISE!!! — Ken, the planet’s best marine engine broker, closed the deal!

The Cummins 450 Diamonds, as purchased

The engines were just outside of Manhattan. I flew up, we test ran them, I bought them and flew back to the Mid-Atlantic.

Within a month, the Cummins 6CTAs were in the boatyard in Deale, Maryland

I shrinkwrapped them so I could prepare for the engine swap. I also bought the refrigerator, washer, dryer and jet bath, since it’s best to move all the heavy and big stuff in one go.

August 2012: Cummins 450 Diamonds in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46

I wasn’t able to take pix on crane day while the Lehmans were coming out and heavy stuff was going in. But this “after” pic captures the view in the salon at the end of the day.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Engine Room with Cummins 450 Diamonds

The engines are sitting on wood blocks in the engine room. We’ll have to cut off the original 427 gas engine mounts (the rectangular boxes welded to the engine stringers) to make room for the big Cummins engines. Chesapeake Marine Engineering* will be doing the engine fitting and installation. The exhaust, shafts and all plumbing will all have to be replaced.

*July 2013 update: I fired Chesapeake Marine Engineering for failure to get the job done in a timely fashion (one year late!) and because the guy’s welds were completely unacceptable. Fortunately, the welds he did were not in critical areas. I was able to get another welder to redo CME’s shabby work.

While it was nice to finally have right proper engines in the Roamer’s engine room, I did feel a bit foolish for having bought and rebuilt the Lehmans. It seemed like a waste of money…until I compared the price I paid for the Cummins engines in the summer of 2012 to what they were advertised for back in 2008. The yacht market might have been cooling off in ’08, but sellers didn’t “get it” until 2010~11 and prices remained artificially high during that time. I actually spent less on the Lehman/Cummins double repower (my labor is free, of course) than if I had bought the Cummins in 2008!

2013 follow-up: The marine repair shop I bought the Cummins 450 Diamonds from was just outside of Manhattan on the south shore of Long Island. When Superstorm Sandy came to Rockaway Beach in November 2012, the shop was inundated and everything inside was destroyed.

I think the Goddess of the Seas loves old Chris Crafts and protects their devotees. 😉  Unfortunate decisions of mine, uncooperative previous owners, global economic woes and a climatological event of historical proportions all contributed to these Cummins 450s sitting safe and sound in the Roamer’s engine room in 2013.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Tent Model IX.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engines! (the wrong ones…)

Our Roamer came originally outfitted with Ford 427 gas engines–the same basic engines that powered the famous GT-40s that won Le Mans. While the mighty 427 is a great motor, with 300hp each side, even the relatively lightweight aluminum Roamer hull is a lot to push around. The original owner had the boat repowered in 1973 to Super SeaMaster marine power: 534 cubic inch Ford Super Duty engines with twin turbos and an intercooler. The Super SeaMasters developed 400hp at a relatively low 3200rpm and 657 ft/lbs of torque. Very wild stuff for the early 1970s!

The Super SeaMasters were trashed from water ingestion when we obtained her in late 2007 and, having always been a diesel boat guy, I decided to repower the Roamer to diesel. While many of these 46s came with Detroit Diesel 8V-71 power, and I like Detroits, they’re not very economical, clean or quiet. I was interested in trying something else, especially since we do most of our cruising at hull speed. My thinking at the time was, why put three tons of Detroit in to get 600 max combined hp, most of which I don’t use? After talking this over with some yacht club friends, a world-cruising sailor recommended 120 or 135hp Ford Lehman engines. According to online calculators, combined 240hp is more than enough to push the hull along at 9kts @ 6gph. That sounded pretty good, especially since Lehmans with gears could be had for relatively cheap compared to newer, higher powered engines.

So, Lehmans it was!

The 1973 Super SeaMasters were truly beautiful things. But dangerous, too.

The carburetor sits at the back of the engine, just above the marine gear on a water-cooled plenum. The turbos, which were only oil-cooled(no water cooling jackets!), drew air-fuel mix from the carb and pressurized it, pushing it through hoses and chrome tubing up to the water-to-air intercooler on top of the intake manifold, where the carb would normally go. If any hose clamp let loose on the pressure side of the system… Hold onto your britches, Ethyl, we’re goin’ to the moooon!

The original invoice for the Super SeaMasters

An online inflation calculator tells me that $6,480 in 1973 equals roughly $33,500 today…and that was the price for EACH engine.

The Super SeaMasters engines had lived a hard life

Most of the damage to them was caused by being unloved–especially the part about being drowned repeatedly–while in Purgatory Row at the southern Maryland boatyard for two decades. I tried to sell them on ebay and craigslist, but got no nibbles; not surprising, since they were long-since obsolete. So I loaded them up and took them to the scrapyard. Since I’m a big fan of neat, old mechanical things, that was a sad, sad day.

The view from the rear of a Super SeaMaster looking forward

The blue thing in the lower part of the picture is the watercooled carb plenum, which sat at the back of the engine over the marine gear. The blue thing with the two holes in it at the top is the intercooler.

The raw water-cooled intercooler

All of the SeaMaster castings were things of beauty.

By contrast, the extensive water damage from rainwater that filled the bilge to well above the oil dipstick tube was a sad sight.

Removing the spark plugs revealed that each cylinder was packed full of rusty sludge. These things were never designed for submarine service.

Honey, do the turbos sound kinda funny to you?

Again…even the best turbo hardware on the planet (circa 1973) wasn’t rated for submerged service.

On October 18, 2008, I rented a high lift and moved heavy things again

Out came the galvanized steel original tanks (diesel and zinc don’t mix).

In went the heavy stuff

The new Fischer Panda 12 Mini DP genset fit very nicely in half of the space used by the original 6.5kw Kohler gas one

 

Next the rebuilt Lehmans went in

And another…

The view from the Reach Lift cab.

And finally, after sunset we got the new fuel tank in through the salon hatch hole

And with that, we (mistakenly) put a check in the box entitled Install Engines…but more on that later. One teaser hint: never, ever trust a sailor when the topic is repowering a planing powerboat! 😉

Next up: 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: The Exterior Hull.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Deck Enclosure Demolition — Enter the Chainsaw

Two weeks into Step 1 of our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 refit, and it’s time to demolish the aft deck enclosure — a cobbled together mish-mash of home-grade plywood that had long-since rotted, scratched up plexiglas windows and aluminum extrusions that worked but weren’t made for the job. It was a truly ugly thing…and it had to go.

Here’s what we started with. You can see the rot.

From the other side, the rotten plywood broke away with one kung fu kick

Some of the mahogany framing was still very solid, though.

The view from the inside wasn’t much better

In contrast to the rotten plywood, the mahogany framing was still in surprisingly solid shape

Time to break out the tools and get this thing gone.

Ugly and rotting aft deck enclosure, meet Mr. Chainsaw…

With the rotten wood out of the way, sources of leaks into the aft stateroom became abundantly apparent

This really exemplifies why screws should not penetrate a teak deck–eventually, the sealant lets go and water wicks in, rot starts and then…

Same thing on the other side

In no time, the rotten aft deck enclosure was in the large and growing junk pile beside the boat

A quick shot with a hose revealed that, for all of its faults, the aft enclosure had done a good job protecting most of the teak

It’s beautiful and appears to have never been sanded. The original seam compound is very tight.

Ah, now that’s better!

A bit more dejunking and the helm station will be ready to use again.

Remember, this is what we started with!

 

 

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: more interior demolition!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Step 1– Dejunk, Disassemble and Demolition

The economy in 2007, when we first found the Roamer, was still on fire, and even used boats were quite expensive. After doing the math on “engines and a paint job,” it looked like it would be cost effective to restore the Roamer. We had also found that every boat we looked at had features, layouts etc that we would have to change to make it the way we like. I’m also inclined to take on big projects as sort of a hobby; for me, this sort of thing is fun. So, with that in mind we started dejunking and disassembling the boat.

But the more we disassembled, the more problems we discovered and the more demolition we did of the interior. I think of disassemble as a process that will be done in reverse later to put it back in the same basic shape as before. Demolition, by contrast, is just getting stuff out of the way, destructively if necessary, to make a blank palette for a new design. The more disassembling we did, the more rot and other issues we found that, in turn, required more demolition. Somewhere along the way we realized that gutting the boat and starting anew would yield the best result in terms of what we wanted.

So by January 2008, the refit plan had grown to “engines, a paint job and a whole interior.”

Dejunking is the first step in any large project–be it an old house, car or boat

Everything that isn’t bolted down goes.

Careful where you grab, though…abandoned boats make great wasp and hornet sanctuaries!

Some things are best kept until you know if you’ll need them again

In this case, the original mahogany chest of drawers from the aft cabin might clean up nicely if we can get that nasty paint off of it some day (some day being the operative term).

The helm area cleaned up fairly well, but it had been painted with enamel 20+ years ago, and the paint was well past the point of failing

But all of the helm switches and gauges are functional, and the chrome isn’t too badly pitted. This should clean up pretty well.

I removed the headliner around the cabin top hatch, since it would have to come out to do the engine swap

I also suspected the hatch would need to be repaired, since the seam in the fiberglass on top showed evidence of breakage. If only I knew…

Disconnecting the Super SeaMaster 534ci twin turbo engines and gears in preparation for their removal

The exhaust risers are copper, which is wonderful material for that application EXCEPT if it’s in an aluminum boat. Copper ions interact with hot exhaust and leave the inside of the risers, settling downstream on the aluminum exhaust tubes. Since it’s a wet environment, the copper and aluminum make a small battery that consumes the aluminum. The result is extensive pitting. But more on that later…

And just like that, the engines are ready to come out

Actually, it took about a week to get to this point.

The next step was to remove the hatch…not an easy job for one man

But I started thinking like an Egyptian and before long there was light at the end…er…the edge of the hatch.

Et voila! A moonroof!

Just in time, too, because a crane was coming the next morning to remove the big, heavy stuff–the engines, genset, air conditioner and refrigerator.

Salon floors out…check
Engines and generator disconnected…check
Salon hatch out…check
Refrigerator…all stop

This had to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and that’s saying something

Note the empty yet unopened packs of frozen sweet corn on the cob with just a bit of brown liquid left in them? See the maggot zombies? mmmmmm

Maggot zombies and egg casings were everywhere in the fridge!

The brown goo at the bottom of the fridge was the same color and consistency of the liquid in the unopened sweet corn packages

I’m guessing that what we’re looking at here is some fully processed sweet corn. I mean, there wasn’t even any cob left. All I can think of is: 1) gak; and 2) thank the lord above that it was the middle of winter and the fridge door seals had worked.

Then the big boy showed up

And a one-a…

And a two-a…

and a three-a…

and a genset…

and an electric stove…

and a NASTY fridge…

and a massive R-12 marine AC unit, just because there was still time on the clock

Done!

Super SeaMaster 534ci twin turbo and intercooled marine engines and gears

Installed in this vessel in 1973 when the Roamer was only three years old, they weighed 1850lbs each with gears. 400 hp at the gear tailshaft @ 3200rpm. But destroyed by neglect and completely obsolete, so rebuilding was impractical. RIP

That was it for Phase 1 and 2 of Step 1: Dejunk and Disassemble. Next comes more Disassembly and Demolition…

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46: The Refit Begins

In late 2007, we acquired our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46. Sa Va had been sitting unloved at Colton’s Point Marina in southern Maryland since the mid-1980s. Fortunately, she hadn’t been molested in all of those years, and virtually all of the original bits and pieces that make old Chris Crafts special were still there.

“Just needs engines and a paint job” is what the seller said.

Indeed…

Pretty lines, but oh…so raggedy.

Not much better from the stern

That plywood aft enclosure and the crane on top don’t help.

The helm was modified but still had lots of original bits

The foredeck was maybe the nicest part of the whole boat

But the paint was in bad shape and the varnish had long since fallen off the mahogany toe rail. still…all the original bits were there.

The tattered curtains gave Sa Va a ghost ship vibe

The original owner cut the factory hatch out of the cabin so he could do a repower in 1972, but it wasn’t re-installed in a very good way. Still, the lines are classic Chris Craft, and we like that.

The salon and galley were cluttered and dirty, but things didn’t look too bad

Maybe all this boat needed was engines and a paint job!

All of the original cabinetry bits, light fixtures, etc were there

The interior cabinetry really looks pretty good

Nice ambiance with the ghost curtains, eh?

The woodwork, though, appeared to be in surprisingly good condition.

The aft cabin had the classic 1960s Ozzy and Harriet beds (what were they thinking???)

But the floors were in good shape and all of the bits and pieces were there.

Aft stateroom cabinetry was in good condition

But it had been painted with acrylic house paint that was peeling off. Where it wasn’t peeling, it was hosting an unhealthy population of mold. Yup…just needs engines and a paint job.

The aft stateroom had an en suite head and shower, but it would take a lot of scrubbing to clean that up

Maybe it’s best to just rip it out and start over…

The 534ci Super SeaMaster twin turbo gas engines were shot

They’d been getting wet from rain falling through the failed cabin top hatch since the 1980s. They’d have to come out.

In spite of all the problems, we saw potential in the old girl. So in November 2007, we got her and started what has become a long-term refit.

Step 1: Dejunk, Disassemble and Demolition.