The Jeff Burton 46′ Jarrett Bay Project presented by Marlin Magazine:
I recently spent the whole day at Jarrett Bay to check up on the progress of the boat and found that the fellows already had the kitchen area and staterooms mocked up in the hull. It was pretty cool to see it all together in 3-D after only seeing it on paper. In the real world, you come across all the angles involved, and we just had to fine-tune things a little bit. But it was still pretty close to the paper – we got the fuel and water capacities just where we wanted them.
I’ve never been through the boatbuilding process before, but the boat seems to be coming along right on schedule. Maybe even a little ahead of schedule. The boys at Jarrett Bay are used to building great, big boats, and this one is coming together pretty quickly.
To be honest, I’m still amazed at how just about everything on these boats is handmade and hand-designed.
That’s what is really cool about this boatbuilding process for me – the fact that craftsmen have had their hands on every part and every piece. They take great pride in their work there – and they should.I enjoy building things myself, so watching something like this come together is a big thrill for me.
I was really surprised at how big the boat looked as well. When my wife and I started looking for a boat, we were tending toward a 42 express-style boat. That slowly turned into a flybridge, and we decided to go with the 46-footer. Right now there’s a 43 sitting next to my boat up at the yard, and I was really shocked at how much bigger the 46 is than the 43. It’s much deeper than the 43, and that’s what gives you the headroom that you need. It was just a really big surprise how much difference that extra three feet makes.
We are already working on the electronics now, and that stuff is pretty high price-wise! We’re leaning toward Furuno. One thing I had to do was pull them back a little bit on the ultra trick stuff because it doesn’t matter if the units can do a bunch of tricky stuff – if I can’t make it do it, then it doesn’t do me any good. I’ve never been a big audio/video guy, so they are trying to build a system for me based on the old “turn it on and it works” criteria.
They tell me the next step is building the salon and the cabins – I can’t wait to see that. I’m sure it’ll really start looking like a boat when that’s all finished.
