Introduction

Third Wave Yacht Refit Introduction

This blog is being written about a "classic" fishing yacht and the two guys (Dave and Kyle) who are refitting it for use in the Bahamas as a fishing/diving/partying platform.  The boat in question is a 1973 Chris Craft commander 42' sports cruiser model.  The Sports Cruiser model is not to be mistaken with the Tournament Fisherman (AKA Sportfisherman, sporty, etc.) even though people often do so.  The boat on the left is Third Wave in the condition that we found her.  At the time she was named "Mary Mar" (which clearly had to be changed) and before that "Double Eagle" (which is only slightly better in our opinion than Mary Mar).  The boat on the right is just a picture of a Tournament Fisherman of similar era so you can see that the boats are similar but clearly different.  What Chris Craft called "Sports Cruiser" back in the day would be more commonly referred to as a "convertible" class yacht today.

As you can see from the above picture,  Mary Mar was in operable condition when we bought her in February of 2016.  But operable is in the eyes of the beholder.  The boat had been a working boat for a local charter captain up on the Virginia coast and it was, to say the least, Spartan.  Well, to be honest, stripped down is perhaps more to the point.  The "galley" for example, consisted of a small sink.  No appliances, no fridge.  Air conditioning?  Yeah, not really.  We'll get to that later.  But most of the systems were in bad shape and we knew when we came across her that we were going to do a significant refit.  An incomplete list of things we would fix appears below:

Exterior

(lower deck):

• Rotten cockpit deck with no hatch and no water channels needed complete replacement.
• Add large fish box under a proper deck hatch.
• Gel coat and nonskid cockpit sole.
• Add 12" heavy, custom inset cleats.
• Add a dive platform (needed for SCUBA diving and snorkeling).
• Add a bait tank (how can you have a fishing yacht without the capability for live bait?).
• Add a cockpit cooler and bait prep station.
• Add a transom door with custom hold open magnetic latch.
• Rebuild the saloon back wall (yes that is the right way to spell it).
• Add a built in tackle station.
• Add a bow pulpit, windlass and forward rope locker.
• Do body work to the outer hull including removing wood or glassing over it.
• Re-spray the gel coat.
• All new high end rod holders.
• Add courtesy and party lighting.
• Add marine subwoofer.

(fly bridge):

• Rebuild the helm and replace old gauges, etc. with "glass helm" instruments.
• Add floscan fuel flow meters (include tachs and hour meters).
• Add 21.5" waterproof outdoor readable touchscreen IPS custom built monitor.
• Add high end fish finder.
• Add engine monitoring displays with engine oil pressure, water temperature and raw water flow rate per engine.
• Complete rewire of flybridge electrical.
• Add RADAR arch.
• Add "vehicle" style PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) IP camera where RADAR would normally go.
• Add fixed position 4k cockpit camera with analytics (part of the security system).
• Refurb the flybridge sole, new gel coat, new non skid.
• Wakeboard speakers and marine amp.
• Add autopilot.
• Add navigation computer with connection to autopilot.
• Rejigger the flybridge hand rail system, all new tees, elbows and volcano style stainless stanchion bases.
• Glass the flybridge cowl to the flybridge sole and get rid of all the holes in it.  Gel coat everything.
• Add LED backlighting behind the side vents.

Interior:

• Add electric engine bay double doors.
• Add new plasteak style flooring.
• Move the electrical panel to a better location and completely rewire the boat.
• Add a second 30 amp service for the two new air conditioners.
• Add a 3 kW inverter/charger/automatic transfer switch and new house battery system.
• Add new overhead lighting including switches and outlets.
• Add two new 16ki BTU marine reverse cycle AC units and pumps.

Bilges:

• Install nearly new looking Kohler 5E (upgraded to 7.3) which had 2 hours on a rebuild.
• New water system (new poly tanks, new pex, new reverse osmosis drinking water system, etc.).
• Install marine water heater with integration into port engine cooling system.
• Refurb pooh processor unit.
• Add engine bay lights.
• Add fuel tank sender.
• New stainless rudder bar.
• Replace all stop cocks and through hull fittings with top of the line Groco and Perko units.
• New seawater strainers for everything.
• Remove the old/broken/incorrectly installed air conditioner.
• Repair fiberglass muffler tube.

If you have ever taken on a large boat project like this you will understand the magnitude of the work being discussed here.  If we paid a boat yard to do all of what we have done/are doing then it would be a $300k bill.  This is not an exaggeration; we actually are monitoring the refit of another boat of similar size and in the same area where Third Wave is up on blocks.  The owner of that boat already has $160k into it without coming close to the feature set listed above for that refit.  Boat repair is not rocket science but it is hot, sweaty, fiberglass itchy, gelcoat and poly/epoxy fume laden work.  And real marine parts do NOT come cheap.  Just one example: we received the boat with a steel rudder bar that was ready to break in half.  Not good.  So we found a proper new one online made from 316 stainless round bar for $500.  Since it was new surplus for another kind of boat we then had to spend $175 more to have it machined to fit our application.  That's $675 for a stainless steel rod that connects the rudders together...

So with all this, why did Kyle and I go down this route?  Well first off, we could have gone for a smaller boat.  But this boat was to be left in the Bahamas at a private dock.  Outboard boats tend to disappear over there if left unattended but inboards are pretty much left alone.  In addition, we wanted a multi purpose platform that we could use for fishing, diving, partying and laying in the sun anchored off a sandy beach.  We wanted to be able to bring wives and families along on some trips as well as our fishing and diving buddies on others and for that you need good sized sleeping accommodations, air conditioning (which implies the need for a generator), a shower (with hot water of course) and an indoor head.  You need cooking facilities and a refrigerator.  And a what kind of proper fishing boat doesn't have outriggers and a live bait tank? We also wanted a boat that could be used to cruise to Cuba from Grand Bahama in comfort and safety and you just can't do many of these things with an open fisherman type boat. 

Once you make this determination that a large cabin cruiser is needed and then you go look at what this class of boat costs new (the new 2017 model year reintroduction by Chris Craft of the 42' Commander costs about a million bucks), it was not difficult to decide to buy something that was old but which had good bones that we could rebuild on to our own specs.  All told, we planned to put a bit more into Third Wave's refit than the government would charge for sales tax on the new 42 Commander.  OK, it will be more than "a bit" more than the tax but it's looking like we should be able to keep it under $170k.  That price (and a ton of sweat equity) will get us a lot of new equipment and high end features that will enable years of very fun boating in some of the nicest, clearest waters on the planet.

This project introduction continues at this link with a description of the found condition of our project boat.