Removing the upper helm of a Prairie 36

We purchased our Prairie 36 last week, and need to travel four hours down to Bradenton Fl tomorrow to remove the upper helm and fly bridge. We are having the boat trucked back to our home to make some modifications, updates, preform some maintenance, etc. We plan to have the boat at my shop for two, to three months, and the have it trucked back to the St Johns River which will be her new home port. Has any on ever removed the upper helm and fly bridge from a Prairie; and can make any suggestions, or give me any tips? I have removed them before but never on a Prairie. This is Hull #001 and is still in the area where she was built back in 1979. I don't know if it has ever been off before or if later changes were made. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

I haven't removed the fly bridge from a Prairie but did remove the one on my boat to ship it across the country. I can offer some general suggestions based on my experience with that.

First of all, I had the technician who was going to reassemble the boat when it got to Portland, OR, fly to Detroit to supervise the disassembly. My thinking was that he was going to have to reconnect every wire so he would take great pains to make sure every wire was marked on both sides of where he was going to cut it. He did do that, and I've had zero electrical issues since the reassembly.

The technician also prevented the selling boat yard from just sticking the forks from the forklift beneath the fiberglass and lifting it that way. He made them use long lifting straps that snaked through openings in the fly bridge to lift it. That prevented any damage to the fiberglass and they were able to adjust the length of each strap so the lift would be level.


On my boat the fly bridge was not able to be shipped on the same truck/trailer as the boat due to the size so they built a cradle for it and shipped it on its own trailer pulled by its own truck.


Choose your trucker carefully. Your haul is not long one, but you want a trucker who has experience with hauling boats.

Any other questions--feel free to PM me.

GFC

Thanks for the info...I will be removing mine and re-installing it myself...The last one I did, I did not cut any wires. I tagged and removed them all from the gauges and switches, marked and disconnected the shift and throttle cables, and disconnected the plugged the Hyd. steering lines. I plan to hall my Fly bridge back on my trailer and then they will bring the boat. I will have to re-paint, make all repairs and have the boat transported back to the water thirty miles away, prior to re-installing the upper helm and fly bridge. I have heard that some boat, you can simple unplug the wiring harness but I have not found that boat yet. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Good time to do some rewiring!