New Carver 3697 Owner

[MrMojoRisin]

Hello,

Well, the wife and i just purchased a 1986 36' Carver Mariner as a project boat. It is our first "big" boat. The boat's previous owner purchased it this spring off the estate of the original owner who took delivery back in June of 1987. The purchase was a stop gap measure for the 2nd owner, as he was looking for short term housing so he spent the summer living abord in the marina. We had looked at the boat back in Sept. and decided that it was more of a project that we wanted to take on, but the wife fell in love with the layout. Everything else I took her to look at just didn't measure up... His asking price kept droping, so we ended up throwing out an offer and he accepted.

Our Mariner has the 350ci Crusader 270's and Walter v-drives. Starboard motor has 1103 hours, while the port motor is freshly remaned with only 19 hours. Original owner had the motor rebuilt the winter before passing and never got to use it. He also had the original Onan generator replaced somewhat recently with a 7kw Westerbeke that only has 14 hours.

The boat needs much in the way of cosmetics, and a fair amount of mechanical's too. But we're hopeful that we'll be able to put together a boat worthy of the occational cruise and will use it mostly as a weekend water condo up on Lake Erie. Stringers and transom appear to be solid. I have no doubt i could sell the motors, v-drives and generator and get back most if not all of my money, so we chose not to have a survey done. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite us.

The boat is now out of the water and being winterized & shrink wrapped this week, and we'll begin the process of working on the inside for the cosmetic facelift this offseason. That is the wife's domain so i'll just be along for the ride until spring when i can dig into some of the mechanical items.

Just wanted to introduce myself as i'm sure i'll be asking tons of questions and need lots of advice.

Looking forward to the new adventure.

[waybomb]

Welcome aboard!
Our 3697 was bought over 10 years ago after it had sat outside for 10 years. It had small trees growing out of it.
Wife made all new cushions, covers, drapes. Together we learned how to do canvas work and made all of it new.
I got the engines running and electronics installed.
While stored for those 10 years, the forward AC was missing and the steering reservoir was gone. Got it all pieced together.
Pulled all the monkey fuzz off the walls and glued new monkey fuzz on.
Took all the plastic mirrors out replaced with stainless steel #2 finish. Replaced all the interior lights.
Yanked the carpet out and installed new frizee white carpet.
New fridge. Two sound systems. New radio. New hailer. Furuno GPS. A Raymarine radar.
Installed granite countertop on every surface.
Installed a newer built in blender. Stainless anchor. All new boot stripe everywhere.
Luckily only a couple small blisters. Barrier coats and VC17.
Took about 2 years.
Well worth it.

Ps, you'll probably need a survey of you want to insure it. Fuel and oil spills can be expensive

[Viper]

Congrats. I'm sure she'll look great after you guys are done.

[km1125]

Welcome aboard!!! Congrats on the 'new' project boat!

Source of the post
....The boat is now out of the water and being winterized & shrink wrapped this week, ...

Something to consider in the spring: If you CAREFULLY or THOUGHTFULLY cut the shrink at the aft end, you might be able to remove it from the boat and roll it up and re-use it the following season (or seasons). I did this on a 3607 and re-used the shrink for TEN YEARS!! It held up great. The last few years I just bought a roll of the 4" shrink tape to fix any tears or holes that developed.

This makes winter storage MUCH more economical, as you can continue to store outside and still get ALL the benefits of a "shrinked" boat!

[MrMojoRisin]

Source of the post Welcome aboard!….

Took about 2 years.
Well worth it.

I just read your reply to my wife and she’s asking if you have any pictures with the new cushions, carpet and drapes you’d be willing to share? The first thing she had me do after the purchase was to pull all the drapes, cushion covers and carpet. She also wanted me to ask how you handled those fabric covered valences in the forward bedroom… I was going to pull them down for her to recover them, but didn’t have time this last trip.

I need to realize that this isn’t going to all happen overnight or even before this next season. Just need to break it down into manageable projects and keep plugging away at it.

[waybomb]

I'll post some Pics in a day or two. I have them on a drive somewhere.
As for the valances I unscrewed them all and took them out of the boat.

[waybomb]

I've found a bunch of old pics. Not sure how many I can post at one time. So it may take a few posts. I'll start with the beginning

[waybomb]

Now for some intermediate and completed

[waybomb]

And some more

[waybomb]

If you need anything else, let me know. Boat is now inside, so it may take a day or two to get a particular picture of something