Yard suggestions for a complete rebuild

Front Street Shipyard, Belfast Maine - Contact Justin Wiegleb

Jarrett Bay seems to always do good work at reasonable prices. I think one of our members had his 65' Donzi painted there and was very happy. Yacht Management in Dania Beach might be another good choice. What kind of engine does it have? What type of boat is a Fortier?

If you take the tower off, you could truck it just about anywhere easily. But then you get into the expense of trucking it and removing and replacing the tower.....prices up there might not be so bad. I'm not familiar with too many yards in the NE.

Have you cosidered the still very soft used boat market?

I second Jarrett Bay. We'll be laying up the Hat for some major work there. We did most of the refit up your way. Costly,way behind schedule, and ignored a lot of things. The boat sat most of the winter when they could have been doing all the smaller stuff, but instead they let it sit waiting for the larger jobs. We finally took the boat unfinished, and had most of the work finished over at Brewers in Glen Cove. Good people there and I'd recommend them if you need to stay local, but Jarrett Bay and a couple of other yards in that area would be my first choice. I'd be hesitant for anyplace in Florida for a couple of reasons I won't mention here, but mainly because they have some major refit work on much bigger boats at this time of year. You're likely to be put at the bottom of their list.

I also highly recommend that someone be able to go to the yard periodically to keep the fires lit wherever you take it. Too often out of town boats get put in the back of the yard and a 2 month refit can end up lasting years.

P.S. if you end up thinking in the L.I. Sound area send me a PM. I have a fair list of who NOT to go to.

They have tenders in Rybovich that are larger than that!!!!!

My Captains love Rybovich and have had major work done there. We've been there but no major work yet. Still the atmosphere and professionalism is impressive.

My cousin uses Jarrett Bay and has been very pleased, recently having his sportsfisherman completely refit. He also has a hurricane agreement with them. I don't know if the sale to Bluewater has impacted things at all.

You were around when I bought my Bertram 54 in Orange Beach, AL. I was thinking .. let me get the work done here where my cash will go further. The rest of course is history. What an absolute nightmare from the failed $65k engine overhaul to the guy who tried to fix my tower, took $6k and walked with the tower irreparably damaged, to the guy who built the new shortie tower with the completely wrong angle (because the boat was out of the water) so it was somehow my fault! He charged me $2500 to fix what he screwed up and then when I didn't want to pay him that $2500, he immediately moved to seize the boat! Surrounded by crooks is putting it nicely.

I have experienced NONE of that here in Maine.

I'm glad to hear there are some honest, hardworking folks in FL.

I think people in Maine in general are more honest and straight shooters, than AL. I haven't had any issues at any of the yards in FL with shoddy work, or if they did something wrong they re-did it correctly for free when it was brought to their attention. But there are some down here that aren't as honest.