Better Than New "BTN"

Sink or swim, laugh or cry.

With any old boat there are bound to be problems, even the best new boats have their share. Paramount is 41 years old and almost completely original. As we started to bare her bones we found a few not-so-nice surprises along the way. Had Miss P been a wooden Chris Craft from the same era we might have been sunk.

The biggest surprise we found was the shafts and the engine were never truly aligned. When Dr Doug uncoupled the shaft from the transmission he could feel that the alignment had been forced, as the shaft sprung downwards when released. It took three men to pull the shaft through the struts, as it had been bent, from the force needed to get it up to the coupler at the engine end.

The engine beds were 1/2" too high and the motor mounts were adjusted to their lowest placement - there was no room to correctly align the faces of the coupler - and true straight shafts are required for optimum performance and to eliminate deck and prop vibrations.

Doug has removed all 6 struts from the bottom and will re-bed these when the engines are back in the boat, he also lowered the engine beds in preparation and will align the running gear once the shaft is on the engine and he can see where the struts need to be to keep it all true.

Once all the bottom paint was sanded off we could see gaps around the shaft tube - where it exits the hull. The factory only used rove cloth for the inside of the hull. With the shafts pushing up on the top of the tubes, the hull and tube separated, allowing some water penetration.

At the end of the day, when Miss P is cruising on her first long run, the work completed will be in many cases, "better than new". Forty one years ago is a very long time in terms of sealants, epoxy and other materials available today. We are not changing the appearance of Paramount, it is about all integral, structural and systems operating as they were originally designed, without fail.