1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 refit

[q240z]

I'm still waiting for the last pieces of stainless tubing for the exhaust risers, so I shifted gears topside and started installing the bow safety rail. This is a big deal because my insurance company won't let me splash the boat and go without a safety rail installed. I also want to drill all of the holes in the mahogany toe rail and seal the wood with epoxy before we do the final coats of MS1 clear coat. It was harder than I thought getting the bow pieces fitted, but with that done it should be much easier getting the mahogany safety rails on both sides installed this weekend.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Stainless Bow Safety Rail

Cheers
Q

[SEVEN]

If you private message me your number I'll text you photos of what I did to customize my side rails o my 46. It's fantastic.

[Walter P]

I never heard of an insurance company requirement for a railing. I wonder how the new sportfishers get away without a railing.

Walt

[q240z]

It could come down to the fact that I have side decks that are intended to be used even while under way, while most sportfishermen don't. You see something similar with bow riding, which is OK if you've got built-in seats but not if there isn't. I dunno. But even without somebody nudging me, I still need to install the parts before the final MS1 gets sprayed. I'm not drilling holes through final paint if I can avoid it.

[q240z]

I dry fitted the port side mahogany safety rail, and along the way found some very strange things. Most of the stanchion uprights are stainless pipe, but some are stainless tube, which has a different OD and wall thickness than pipe. Most of the pipes have threaded bottoms so they can thread into the chromed bronze stanchion bases, but two of them have no threads at all. The uprights that are tubing are threaded, but because they're not pipe, the threads aren't full depth. And, to top it all off, the aft section of mahogany has a humdinger of twist in it, so the first stanchion and the last one sit firmly on the toe rail, but the stanchions in the center hang at an angle and don't come close to lining up.

It's never easy...

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Mahogany Safety Rails

Cheers
Q

The first part looked good!


Uh oh...different length pipe


Looks good!


Uh oh...lotsa twist in the mahogany is throwing off the stanchion alignment!

[Dan Mapes]

Flip the rail attachment 180 and retry?

[q240z]

You'd think (I certainly did), but no. The fittings are all flat +- a fraction of a degree. The problem is twist in the mahogany stick.

[Walter P]

Q, I agree with you about the twist. In my opinion judging from the picture it seems that the radius (curve) of the hand rail is not the same as the gunwale. I think that may be the reason that our Hatteras' have laminated teak handrails, since it is much more stable.

Walt

[q240z]

Walt, it may not be apparent in the pictures, but the forward safety rail has no twist at all and the curve is a good match to the hull. In my next article, I'll show pix of the starboard safety rail, which also has no twist and matches the hull all the way from front to back. Then I'll lay out my theory on what happened. Don't want to give away the scoop!

[q240z]

So, here's the scoop: I got the starboard safety rail dry fitted and all of the stanchion center holes cut and chiseled out. Along the way, I found more evidence that this boat was badly damaged back in the 1970s: mismatched mahogany and stanchion pipes for the port safety rail. All things considered, at this point I'm thinking they may have dropped the port Ford 427 engine on the cabin top when they were repowering to the twin turbo 534ci Super Seamasters back in 1972. I may never know for sure, but this last bit of evidence sure makes me think that's the case.

Anyway, the starboard rail looks great and was much easier to fit. It's good to make progress.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Starboard Mahogany Safety Rail

Cheers,
Q

Mismatched stanchion pipes


Mismatched port safety rails


Perfectly matched starboard side rails


Dry fitted safety rail