Shipping Guardian 19

[pcloward]

I was the winning bidder in an auction for a GUARDIAN 19.

Cf.: https://www.proxibid.com/lotinformation/81426280/boston-whaler-guardian-19-fishing-boat-and-trailer-no-title-national-park-service#Top

Give me advice on getting the boat shipped economically from Hagerstown [Maryland] to San Diego.

Paul

[jimh]

Get a quote from

https://www.boatmovers.com/

I don’t think any cross-USA movement is going to be really inexpensive.

[pcloward]

I appreciate the link

I don’t think any cross-USA movement is going to be really inexpensive.

Agreed. I am quickly learning this. The very best [i.e., lowest cost for shipping to California] might be $3,500. Thankfully the boat was a steal.

[The GUARDIAN 19 boat I won at auction] looks like a great boat. [It has] the red dot.

[Implied question] Q1: are the GUARDIAN model and red dot are the same?

[jimh]

Q1: are the GUARDIAN model and red dot are the same?

The red dot was a marker created by using tinted gel coat in the initial gel coat resin layer of the hull lamination in a female contact mold. The dot was placed on the hullsides near the stern and at a location near where the decal indicating the BOSTON WHALER logo would be applied.

The dot would be red if the other hull decorations like the logo decals and the harpoon stripe would be applied in red, typical for recreational boats. If those other hull decorations were going to be black, as often seen in commercial boats, the dot would likely be black.

A hull having a marking of a red dot (or black dot) indicates the hull was laid up in the mold with a laminate schedule that was thicker than would normally have been used for a standard hull, that is, a hull intended for retail sale to recreational customers via normal dealers. For many years the Boston Whaler company offered their customers the option of ordering a hull with a heavier laminate layup which was originally called a "work boat" hull option, even if the boat was to be sold through the normal dealer channels as a recreational boat. At some point, I believe they stopped offering the "work boat" option to retail customers buying through a dealer, as I have not seen that choice available in many years.

At some point, Boston Whaler created a Commercial and Government Boat department, which sold boats to commercial or government or military customer using a separate sales force and a separate manufacturing group (but located on site at the main factory), although likely sharing the basic hull molds with the Boston Whaler main factory. Accordingly in c.2001, Boston Whaler began to identify boats made as commercial hulls by registering the manufacturer identify code WCG (for Whaler Commercial and Government). The federal hull identification number (HIN) for boats made by the commercial division would then have their HIN begin with WCG.

My assumption is all hulls built by Boston Whaler by their Commercial and Government Boat department were laid up with the heavier laminate construction, and I presume those hulls would have been indicated by the inclusion of the dot in the hull skin as described above, with the color either red or black as appropriate for the other hull decorations.

You can see several photographs of a GUARDIAN 22 boat delivered to an individual customer as a special order in the CETACEA collection at pages 10 and 12, with links to those pages below:

https://continuouswave.com/whaler/cetac ... age10.html

https://continuouswave.com/whaler/cetac ... age12.html

[pcloward]

[The GUARDIAN 19] has arrived in San Diego from the east coast. It has an interesting T-Top.

Fig. 1. The empty frame of a T-Top on the GUARDIAN 19 boat that is the topic of this thread.

T-Top.jpeg (58.4 KiB) Viewed 810 times

[The T-Top frame] appears to have a channel [that may have been intended to act as a way] to slide in a canvas cover.

[Solicits others to upload photographs of the T-Top from this GUARDIAN 19 boat [(or other Boston Whaler boats that have a T-Top of similar design) as it was originally delivered from Boston Whaler with what is anticipated to be some sort of covering of the frame to produced shade.]

Paul

[jimh]

I am very sure that the T-Top seen in Figure 1 must have had, at one time, some sort of fabric covering that actually worked to cast shade onto the boat in the area of the helm. The design of the frame would not make any sense otherwise.

Whether or not you can ever obtain a photograph of this particular GUARDIAN 19 custom-ordered boat that shows there was a fabric cover installed on the frame really does not seem to be particularly crucial to your future use of the boat. Here I assume you would want to modify the boat from its present condition of having no cover of any kind attached to the T-Top and get something on there to cast shade. To that end, you could pursue two paths.

The first path will be to contact Boston Whaler Government and Commercial Division--or whatever remains of it as part of the Brunswick-run commercial boat building business--and inquire with them for any more information about the T-Top and its fabric covering. And if you are extraordinarily fortunate, they might tell you the vendor who made the fabric cover, and the vendor willbe still in business, and the vendor will have the patterns to make another fabric insert, and that fabric insert won't cost more than you paid for the whole boat.

The second path will be to locate a suitably skilled marine canvas artisan who might be able to be hired to create a design for a new fabric cover, and then be willing to produce such a cover, and, again, if you are lucky, it won't cost more for the fabric cover than you paid for the whole boat.

I would also carefully inspect the T-Top larger outer railings to see if there is any residue on the tubing that might indicate that there was a cord used to lash the fabric cover onto the railings as the method of attachment of the cover to the frame. The use of a small cord to lash a fabric cover onto the railing of an overhead support like a T-Top is a common method of attachment of the fabric to the railings.

Also, the use of a fabric cover instead of a hard top cover is often done to reduce weight aloft. On a small boat having a significant amount of weight held aloft can cause the righting moment of the boat to be affected in a negative manner.

[pcloward]

Appreciate this valuable information. Will start with an email to the Commercial Division & will see if I get any help.

Paul