Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board

Re: Blackwatch 30

Posted By: SteveC
Date: Friday, 25 March 2005, at 1:44 p.m.

In Response To: Blackwatch 30 (DavidR)

I've been restoring a 1988 BW 30 and have learned the good, the bad and the ugly.

The year of build is important - Hood started building them in '88. The '86 and '87's were built by another company and are generally poor quality. The boats were not built for many years after Hood and the Aussie boats are from the last few years (I think).

The hulls are generally ok (yeah guys, I know how y'all feel about any cored hulls) except where screws were just put into the glass for fittings and they penetrated into the balsa core. Even Hood didn't follow the good teachings of Capt. Pat for putting screws into cored hulls or decks. The core around my through hulls is dry but the 1 or 2 areas with elevated moisture readings is where screws went in.

The cockpit deck and the deck around the forward cabin hatch are the core problem areas. Lots of screws shot in for fittings and the cockpit deck had lousy support and flexed alot. Water gets in through these screw holes and turned the core to mush. I stripped the top skin off my deck, dug out all of the balsa, replaced it with core-cell and used bi-axial cloth/epoxy and vacuum bagged the whole deck. I now have one strong & stiff deck that I'll cover with teak.

The ride of the boat is fantastic and dryer than a B31 because of higher freeboard forward and much more flare where the hull and deck meet forward. The hull is a Hunt design and if you look at the current Hunt boats they look alot like the BW30 as do many of the smaller Whisper Jets that Hood used to make.

By the way guys, the B31 is a fantastic boat and this site has been a blessing for me during my restoration. Hey, I can tell from my daily visits here that even the B31 had a few flaws!

Thanks to you all for your dedication for preserving and restoring older boats and sharing that knowledge here.
SteveC

Messages In This Thread

Blackwatch 30
DavidR -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:18 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Dave Diamond -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:36 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Dave Diamond -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:45 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
cwj -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:50 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Jim -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 10:08 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
DavidR -- Friday, 25 March 2005, at 8:12 a.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Scott D. -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:52 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
greg -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 8:56 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Andre B. -- Thursday, 24 March 2005, at 9:40 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
Ron Cahoon -- Monday, 4 April 2005, at 4:54 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
john gaebel -- Wednesday, 27 July 2005, at 8:11 p.m.

Steyr Marine Engines
Carl -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 9:32 a.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Capt. Mike Holmes -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 10:41 a.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Capt Patrick McCrary -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 1:14 p.m.

Miami Dealer for Steyr *LINK* *PIC*
Capt Patrick McCrary -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 1:23 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
brianb -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 1:42 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Carl -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 3:31 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
brianb -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 7:53 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Capt. Mike Holmes -- Sunday, 27 March 2005, at 9:45 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Carl -- Monday, 28 March 2005, at 7:46 a.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
brianb -- Monday, 28 March 2005, at 12:49 p.m.

Re: Steyr Marine Engines
Carl -- Monday, 28 March 2005, at 1:19 p.m.

Steyr RPMs?
Capt. Mike Holmes -- Monday, 28 March 2005, at 9:00 p.m.

Re: Steyr RPMs?
Carl -- Tuesday, 29 March 2005, at 11:06 a.m.

Re: Steyr RPMs?
brianb -- Tuesday, 29 March 2005, at 5:24 p.m.

Steyr Dealer!
Capt. Mike Holmes -- Wednesday, 30 March 2005, at 9:19 p.m.

Re: Blackwatch 30
SteveC -- Friday, 25 March 2005, at 1:44 p.m.