Carver Owners Forum

Has anyone ever done the switch? In all the boats I've ever sailed upon the Bimini has added a lot of noise with flappin' and rattlin'.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

While I haven't done it on my own boat, I work at a marina that replaced a bimini top with a hardtop on a Carver 396. It was quite a costly project for the owner of the boat. He bought the hardtop, and I installed it. If I'm not mistaken, he said the hardtop alone cost him $17,000 and we charged another$1500 to install, and then there was the new enclosure...

Thanks Kenny - wow, that certainly is big $$s for what I figured was a fairly simply upgrade. The installation labor tracked with what I was envisioning, but the fabrication cost seems pretty high - even for a custom piece, though I guess the size along probably is a big driver.

I believe the guy who had it done had it made at Atlantic Towers...there were all kids of "options, and he got them all...it was an aluminum frame with a fiberglass top skin (very thin...too thin to mount anything to), but had aluminum plates built in where they wanted things mounted. You cannot crawl up there! He had the fiberglass under-skin and 2 automotive style flip up sunroofs installed...an extra $4000 for all those. It is sturdy and has nicely painted aluminum support posts at the front, although the hardtop itself looks to be generic on shape fits all, as it doesn't really match anything made by Carver on the boat...including it's color.

I priced out Atlantic Towers for my 42 Silverton. It was $13000 CAD delivered to my marina and $3k CAD to install it, using Atlantic Towers intsallation kit. They do a beautiful job on their hardtops. But, you still need to purchase the side Esinglass windows. In the end, I put the 20K towards my new boat.

They have 2 tops, the only difference being that that the upgraded one has a "drop ceiling" style ceiling which yiou can add pot lights to or electronics boxes. The fit and finish was factory.

Sounds like nice quality work and a great upgrade, but probably not one I'd be likely to pursue because of the cost.

Thanks to all who replied - now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I know this is an old post, but I been looking into this hardtop issue for sometime for the carver 356 aft cabin. I know it needs to be lightweight, yet strong. I have no intention on being on top of it, but I also wanted it to look good. So after thinking through, looking at online for options and talking to several places. Realized cost is too much, can't justify, not even to my self So finally designed something and thinking of available materials, as well as anything that I can easily structure. I am thinking about using the frame that's already there that holds the canvas top. I have not figured out solution for the frame, but the 4 sections seen in the images would be made out of POLYCARBONATE TWINWALL - WHITE. This is super light and very strong. The frame (I mean the edges, seen as white in the images) will be either fiberglass or some other light, strong material that I can also bend length wise to boats shape so it does not look like it does not belong there. It would need to follow the lines. So any ideas on material (for the sides/frame) would be appreciated it. I think I can use foam,epoxy, fiberglass and paint to give it look and match to rest. But I am trying to avoid fiberglass part building as I never did it. Maybe I can send plans to some manufacturer who can quote me a price for the 5 pieces. I am sure it will be ridiculous price.

Cpoint - look around for a fiberglass shop in your area. Show them the plans, give them a budget. You may get surprised. Submit to a plastics shop also. Amazing results with some plastic hybrids. Atlantic Towers does great work, but they are expensive. Even their stainless radar arches are crazy expensive, but they can get it, so they should. er

Cooler wrote:Source of the post Cpoint - look around for a fiberglass shop in your area. Show them the plans, give them a budget. You may get surprised. Submit to a plastics shop also. Amazing results with some plastic hybrids. Atlantic Towers does great work, but they are expensive. Even their stainless radar arches are crazy expensive, but they can get it, so they should. er

Yeah Cooler, if money is no object there are places that does excellent job, but money is unfortunately object
I will try your suggestion, with some local shops, maybe if they have no business they may be desperate enough...

Once in a while, perspective comes into play. Instead of asking how much for "shop" to do this, and then having them think $800 for materials, $200 an hour for labor, facility fee of $1000, tool fee of $500, plus the customer is a boater so "marine adjustment". Position it like "here is a plan, I have $1500 max to spend. I can wait till ----, so do it as a schedule filling project. Can you do it, and what would you build it out of? Oh, and by the way, if it works out right, I can advise 20 other owners of the same boat". The shop thinking turns into, well $800 for materials, $40 an hour winter rate cause I pay the fabricator $18 an hour anyway. He stays busy for 20 hours, I could make better margins on the other 5 and I can re-use the molds. Worth a shot. Good luck. Worst they can do is say no. They can't take your birthday away. er