re: Boat rebuild thread - 33T Contender (pic heavy)

Great looking boat and good work so far!! So want to have the money and time to one day do what your doing on one of these older boats.

What u 5hinking about the livewell? What size and location two or a single?

You thought about adding 2-4 tuna tubes while u got it all apart?

Keeping the 2 original transom wells (40gal each I think) as is. Will be adding recirculating pumps though. No tuna tubes. We never really marlin fish or had any real use for them honestly.

It’s been a pretty fun process though so far and definitely rewarding.

I should probably note that I personally don’t have a ton of money into this one when you look at the total cost. Buddy is the one who has the real investment in it. I’m just “investing” by covering some of the stuff we are adding plus all the electronics and wiring. And a lot of the labor

I’ll be on pretty much every trip it takes though, and it will definitely see a lot of use over the next few years.

what is the fuel capacity? and what s in that front hatch with the ladder?

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Thanks! Yeah my plan is to keep it updated as we make progress. Some of the things we have going into it next few weekends will be:
- 12” and 10” Garmin MFDs
- Garmin radar and autopilot
- sea star power assist steering
- NiteTrack night vision camera
- 8 to 10 JL speakers & ~3500W of amps
- Yamaha CommandLink+ screen for engines
- digital throttles and rigging for trip 300 yammys
- new livewell and bilge pumps
- ALL new wiring, switches, breakers, panels, etc (I have some cool stuff planned for the new panels)
- all new lights, latches and pretty much any other hardware, tons of rod holders, etc

It’s taken way longer than initially planned, but it’s worth it to have it all done right.

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I am asking this question with absolutely zero knowledge of boat building or upgrading, just appreciate them for the fun and what they can do.

Do you expect this to cost less than what it would cost to buy a new boat with all of the same set up? Is this more of a 'love of the project' type of thing?
Edit: (note to self-read the rest of the thread dumbass)

I love watching a rebuild so I will be bookmarking this for sure!

Going to be less than half the cost of new. New would be $400k+

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This is an awesome thread. Love me a Contender, even though that hull will be pretty wet.

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This is the one that is now the 35, not the 31. Pretty good all around hull

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This is the one that is now the 35, not the 31. Pretty good all around hull

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Correct. This is actually a 35ft Hull.

The 31 is still a great boat, fished on one for a few years. 31 is Definitely wet though. This one shouldn’t be as bad, but at a certain point you’re getting wet regardless of what boat you’re in. I’ve gotten wet in a 42 Freeman.

This is not my boat but CP3s

They do awesome work. They’ve done several boats for my buddy and his dad over the years, and did an amazing job on this one.

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We are about to have the SmartShop CNC rolling so let me know if I can help yall out at all.

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Ooooh I may take you up on that. But we have been using CNC water jet/saw to cut most of our stuff for now. Buddy with boat owns a granite shop, which is where boat is now, and we’ve been using all their equipment for what we’ve needed so far. The water jet does an awesome job cutting starboard, stainless, aluminum etc.

I may want to come check out y’all’s boat one day if that’s cool. After this boat, I’m rigging up my buddies 40ft razor head that should be finished soon. I actually think it was the one in the background of one of the pictures you posted of that 35.