Updating larger cruisers

geriksen

New Member
Jul 24, 2007
378
Austin TX
Boat Info
98 500 Sundancer
Engines
6V92 DDEC Detroits
As some of you know, I am not thrilled about the new boats or their prices. For the last three years I have been buying slightly older large Sea Rays and updating them. The older boats (in my opinion) look much sleeker and prettier on the outside than the new generation.
Where they are lacking is on the inside. The interior on some of them are horrible. Good news is that this is easily fixed. My boats when finished have been re-selling for top dollar without even advertising them. The boat I have now is a 'keeper" so I am not trying to sell it here at all. I thought I would start this thread and show you how some of these turned out, and so you can see the progress on the current boat.

Maybe someone will get inspired and buy themselved a pre-owned Sea Ray and do the same. You really end up with a very nice boat at a good price if you do it right!

Skip the sunk/salvage boats. Those are too far gone. I have done two of those already. A 42 Chris Craft and a Formula 400SS. They both turned out great (both are almost complete) but imagine spending three years and 200K....! Not a good deal. Get a boat that runs well, and is solid and complete. Then update it.

I will start with some pictures of the current boat in progress. This is a 1997 Sea Ray 580SSS. It was already a beautiful boat and ran perfectly but the interior was very blah and outside some of the salt air had taken it's toll.

The equivelant boat from Sea Ray now lists for 2.5M and I don't like it as much as this one.
Just wait until it is finished. It will out shine and maybe out run the new one at less than a 1/4 the price. It is also in the flat stage of it's depreciation curve so it will hold it's value well. The Sea Ray name helps that too.

Here is the boat being lifted to ship in St. Pete FL, and how it arrived in TX.
Good bones here. Nice lines, the right engines, and a new 30K teak cockpit floor.

DSC06419.jpg


DSC06451.jpg
 
geriksen,

It’s difficult to read your post.

Your pictures are so big that the post is so wide I have to scroll back and forth to read 1 line.

Can you please edit your photos down to a size that does not make reading your post so hard?
 
Awesome looking boat....do you any interior pics yet. I would like to see what the original looks like.
 
geriksen,

It’s difficult to read your post.

Your pictures are so big that the post is so wide I have to scroll back and forth to read 1 line.

Can you please edit your photos down to a size that does not make reading your post so hard?

Doug.... it's a 580SSS with the S's from scroll :grin:
 
To give you an idea of what is going to happen here. These are before, during, and after pics of the inside of my last boat a 1996 500SD.

1263727_18.jpg

DSC04237.jpg

DSC04889.jpg

DSC04676.jpg

DSC04943.jpg

DSC05127.jpg


You can see the dramatic difference. All "pickled oak", gold plated hand rails, gold plastic trim, sculpted carpet, fairy princess mirror on the wall, and white applliances are gone.
The TV come away from the wall on an arm and suspends in the middle of the lving room.
We acutually did more work after these pics were take. The white door frames and handles were and sanded and polished down to the original aluminum finish.
 
geriksen,

It’s difficult to read your post.

Your pictures are so big that the post is so wide I have to scroll back and forth to read 1 line.

Can you please edit your photos down to a size that does not make reading your post so hard?

can you do that within photobucket? dang, it took me 45 minutes to put together that second post.

The only way I have found to make small pics is to e-mail them to myself and choose to make them smaller at that time. That would take forever with this. I will try.
 
can you do that within photobucket?

Thank you for trying.

The pictures look great.

I do not know about photobucket.

Do you have “Paint” that is included with Windows?

You may be able to open the picture with that, up to “image” down to “skew” and reduce the size then re-save.

If it does not bother anyone else, don’t worry about it.

I am interested in reading what you posed so I copied the text and pasted it into Word then read it then came back and looked at the pictures.

Again, nice job.
 
Great thread, thanks for taking the time to put this together. Beautiful 580, and the work you did on the 50 is staggering!
 
Great pictures.

Photobucket allows you to size pictures for the web very easily. I do it when downloading mine. In the area where you place your URL for downloading right under the words "Images from my PC" you will see the size that of the picture that Photobucket will create along with the word "options" in blue. Click on "options" and select the "message board" size. All pictures downloaded from that point will be the right size. On pictures already downloaded you will see the word "edit" above each picture. Clicking on that word will also allow you to resize any picture you have downloaded.
 
I can attest that Grant does an amazing job on his boats. The pics are great but don't do it justice. After he's done with them no "new" searay compares. Buying a solid 1990-2000 Sea Ray, freshening the interior and adding new A/V equipment can be done for a fraction of the price of a new boat. And the end result is even better and will not look dated again in 10yrs. People literally offer to buy them on the spot.

Gold handrails, white formica, mauve and teal carpet and accents. Ick. What was up with Searay in the 90s? Was that REALLY in style back then? It does make you wonder if the guys who were designing the interiors of big Sea Rays in the mid 90s have now moved to the exterior styling dept.

You can tell he has a top notch boat yard. You should see what his shop did to the Chris Craft 42 they have. The woodwork is astounding.

I'm waiting for him to buy the big Bertram 50 he really wants and redo that into something that'll rival the customs. Someday, I might have to have him refit a nice 38 Ocean SS for me for 1/5th the price of a new one.

-Dave
'07 Sea Hunt 220
'04 Sea Ray 280DA
 
Is that just a thin oak veneer that is glued on top of the existing laminate or is that a total gut with new cabinets?
 
Is that just a thin oak veneer that is glued on top of the existing laminate or is that a total gut with new cabinets?

It's cherrywood veneer glued over the exisiting laminate.
The floors in that boat are regular brazilian cherrywood, hardwood floors.

Fortunately, thanks to my business I have access to a guy who is a true artist with wood. When he is done it is as good or better than factory.
 
That is truly amazing and makes a huge difference in appearance!
 
That is truly amazing and makes a huge difference in appearance!

Your 300DA would be a good candidate for something like this. Some of those had pink or baby blue interiors. The grey ones look ok. Some wood, some pleather, some new hardware. and Voila!
 
I know.......
I didn't change the shiny couch. It was in too good condition to re-do.

It was so much worse to start with. I called it Miami Vice (the early years) meets Tammy Faye Baker, meets "rent to own" furniture. :)

After these pics were taken, the gold knobs were all replaced with brushed nickel and the door frames and handles were "de-whited"

The 580 didn't start off quite as bad as this 500 was. I will post pics of it tomorrow.
 
I've seen veneers applied in a cabinet shop with a vaccum bag process. How do you get the veneer to adhere to the old laminate?

Beautiful work.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,949
Messages
1,422,829
Members
60,931
Latest member
Ebrown69
Back
Top