tjudd0

After a year of searching, several surveys on potential express cruisers we were thinking about buying, thousands of miles drIving all over the East Coast and a nightmare trip to Canada, we bought our 2003 Express Cruiser last spring. When we bought the boat it had been neglected for quite awhile. We spent last Summer getting it mechanically sound. We did not know if the valves in the Yanmar 440's had been updated. We started with having the heads pulled and we lucked out, the valves were updated. The exhaust riser on the center engine need to be replaced because it was starting to leak water into the turbo. The Arneson surface drives had been neglected. As we got further into the Arneson's we were not so lucky. All the boots were dry rotted and had been for a long time. They had been dry rotted for so long that barnacles started to grow on the thrust balls and wiped out the seals and let water into the gear oil. On the port drive we had to replace all the bearing from the engine out. On the starboard drive we only had to replace a couple of the bearings. I also had to touch something on almost every other system but I will not bore you with those details. As great as Arneson's are, parts for them are not readily available. We spent the summer waiting on parts from Arneson and in September we put her in the water for the first time. Other than a few leaks from the raw water pump hoses she ran great. We hit a top speed of 57mph but I hope I can squeeze a few more MPH out of it when I learn how to trim her out properly.

During the summer while she was dry docked in Annapolis we got several estimates to have the all the vinyl replaced down below and the cabinets updated with new laminate. We also wanted to have the vinyl replaced up top along with the canvas. The sides of the boat were very rough. The aft corners "I guess" had taken several hard hits into the dock, the gelcoat was cracked and scuffed down to the fiberglass in few places. We have an amazing Interior Designer, Mary Dubois of Dubois Interiors who designed the sexiest interior design for this boat. After seeing Mary's design, the boat had to be refitted. All the estimates we received from companies in the area for the work we wanted to have done exceeded $90,000 so we decided to expand our search for a contractor out of the Maryland, Virginia and Delaware area. We started by calling Fountain/Iconic Marine in North Carolina and their estimate was inline with the others we had already received...which was way to expensive. We were about to give up on having it refitted for a few years unless we won the lottery beforehand. That was until we spoke to Kenny from Lets Talk Boats in Florida. We met Kenny a few years ago as he was the Broker that we bought our previous boat from. He is so knowledgable with all aspects of boats. We always stayed in touch so I called him one day and I explained the trouble we had trying to find someone to do the work for us at a reasonable cost. I knew Kenny did some updates on boats but I had no idea he took on projects this big, but he said he did. We explained to him over the phone what we wanted and emailed pictures of what we had in mind. He sent us a very competitive estimate and we said "YES". We had the boat shipped by Atlantic Boat Transport out of Washington N.C., they did a great job and had the best price. So off from cold Annapolis to Kenny in warm and sunny Sanford Florida she went.

After meeting with our Interior Designer, Mary Dubois of Dubios Interiors several more times we picked out the final design. Mary went with treefrog real wood for the laminate on the cabinets and a white quilted vinyl for the walls with navy blue leather accent trim on the walls. We introduced Mary to Kenny and they worked together to refit the boat. It's been 2 months so off to sunny Florida we went to see Kenny and the progress he's made on the boat. We left the cold nasty weather of Northern Virginia behind for a few days. We were blown away by the great work Kenny has done and to see how the things Mary picked out are fitting together. He has the walls and ceilings done with all the cabinets removed. Kenny did a great job on the ceilings. If you know Fountain Express Cruisers they hang the vinyl on the ceiling instead of glueing it and over the years it starts to sag and looks awful. Kenny foamed the back of the vinyl and glued it to the ceiling, it looks amazing! My wife is so impressed with the progress so far. Kenny and I were both worried that the work would not be up to her standards. She is a type A, OCD perfectionist and she was thrilled. If she is thrilled, you know it's a job well done. I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them of the work done so far along with some before pictures. This boat is going to be so sexy!

Stay tuned...

rak rua

Sounds like a boat that needed some TLC and you've gone over the top!
Following closely on those pics.

RR

keegan

Good to hear. I love the 48s but it seems like all out there are a mess. I don't understand why. Seems like people just beat the shyt out of them.