410 Commander..How's the Bottom?

Still looking for our next boat to work the ICW and the Bahamas, with a little offshore thrown in. Came across a 410 Commander, but cannot find out how the bottom is shaped. Does she have some sort of keel? Hard chine or does she roll like a barrel? We're on the hook 90% of the time, so looking for something that doesn't roll in a ripple. Thoughts on the 410? Thanks in advance!

A google image search for "chris craft 410 commander hull" turns up a couple of mediocre hull photos. Looks like a pretty typical Chris Craft hull for the era. Hard chines, planing hull, fairly shallow deadrise aft, reasonable amount of keel carried back from the forefoot and cut away aft before the props.

If it performs like the typical reputation for the Commander and like a lot of other similar style Chris Craft hulls, it should plane nicely with a pretty clean wake and is likely to make surprisingly good speed relative to the installed power.

We almost bought one. Great layout but small fuel tanks and really small engine room.

Comodave said:

We almost bought one. Great layout but small fuel tanks and really small engine room.

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Good catch on those. I'm a little surprised by it only carrying 350 gallons of fuel, even in the later years (a lot of older Chris Crafts didn't carry a lot, but some got bigger tanks in the 80s). Then again, one with diesels likely still has reasonable enough range for coastal work.

Engine room size looks similar to mine (which isn't overly large, but it's not too bad to work in). But the pictures make it look like there would be a bit more crawling around to get to the important stuff than what I have to do.

Just thought of another thing: A lot of the older fiberglass Chris Crafts have hollow box stringers, not cored. So there's a good chance the only structural wood is in the bulkheads, deck coring and a couple pieces glassed to the top of the stringers for the engine mounts to bolt to.

I'm on the hard with a late 60's 41 Commander two boats down from me. It is a standard hard chine V bottom, with low deadrise at the transom (less than our 40' Tollycraft). It has about a 1' skeg keel, similar to our Tollycraft. Based on my experience with our Tollycraft rolling should not be an issue, the hard chines and beam damp the roll quickly.

I do have a reasonable amount of experience with the Commander's predessesor, the Constellation, in the ocean off of San Francisco. The Connie has a bit less deadrise I believe, but she handled very well in the sea. Chris Crafts were well built, hence so many of them are still afloat.

One thing to watch for, Chris Craft used a 32V electrical system for years. That's now obsolete.

Slowmo said:

One thing to watch for, Chris Craft used a 32V electrical system for years. That's now obsolete.

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Fortunately, that was mostly on the bigger Constellations and such. I'd be very surprised to find anything other than 12v on a Commander in the 41 foot range.

A comment on the fuel tank size. Depending on how you plan to use it, smaller tanks can be a good thing in that you will keep the fuel fresh. With diesel that will help forstall biologic growth. It is especially important if you end up with any biodiesel, which begins to deteriorate (oxidize) within months (it is an ester).

It depends how far you have to go between fuel availability. In the PNW that's no more than about 150 miles. If you have to run 3-400 miles between fueling then small tanks may be problematic.

Interesting tidbit about the 47 Commander the hull was laid up in 3 pieces, 2 sides and the bottom. Then they joined afterwards. The 41 was one piece.

Slowmo said:

It depends how far you have to go between fuel availability. In the PNW that's no more than about 150 miles. If you have to run 3-400 miles between fueling then small tanks may be problematic.

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That's a good point. With my 420 gallon capacity, I figure 300 gallons usable for range planning (so I'd figure 250 usable out of 350 on the Commander). The Commander would likely burn a little more fuel than I do because it's a few thousand pounds heavier, but likely similar hull efficiency. With the gas sucking 454s, I've got a comfortable range of about 160 miles on plane or about 400 at 6.5 - 7 kts. Definitely enough to go a lot of places. And from the math I've done, a pair of decently efficient diesels would cut the fuel burn by about 40% on plane and 50 - 60% at low speed (with corresponding range increase).

Slowmo said:

I'm on the hard with a late 60's 41 Commander two boats down from me. It is a standard hard chine V bottom, with low deadrise at the transom (less than our 40' Tollycraft). It has about a 1' skeg keel, similar to our Tollycraft. Based on my experience with our Tollycraft rolling should not be an issue, the hard chines and beam damp the roll quickly.

I do have a reasonable amount of experience with the Commander's predessesor, the Constellation, in the ocean off of San Francisco. The Connie has a bit less deadrise I believe, but she handled very well in the sea. Chris Crafts were well built, hence so many of them are still afloat.

One thing to watch for, Chris Craft used a 32V electrical system for years. That's now obsolete.

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That's great information! With a 3'-3" draft, I was concerned that she may be top heavy and prone to roll. Not really concerned on how she planes, as our travels would be at trawler speeds to conserve fuel. We've been looking at Taiwanese trawlers, but the 410 has caught our eye.

Our last boat was a Lagoon 410 catamaran, which we lived aboard full time for six years. Now plans are for living aboard and cruising the ICW and Bahamas for half a year and dirt dweller the other half. We tend to stay out of marinas, which is why the question on stability.

The 41 Commander will be stable. I would not be concerned with stability. However it isn’t an offshore cruiser by any means.

Comodave said:

The 41 Commander will be stable. I would not be concerned with stability. However it isn’t an offshore cruiser by any means.

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The offshore work we normally do,include hopping out at Charleston and coming back in at Fernandina Beach and of course crossing the stream. We are mindful of weather, but not waiting around for perfectly flat seas. Is the 410 capable of handling 3-5 footers? I know there's a lot of variables, but in general?

Yes.

FWIW, if Chris Craft says the draft is 3'3", it's probably more. I've never quite believed the 3'0" they claim for my Catalina 381, so I measured it the other day.

In fresh water from what I'd consider the "full load" waterline (full tanks + supplies + a few people on the bridge deck), I measured 3'3" to the back end of the keel, 3'8" to the props. Even in salt water with low fuel it and nobody on board, it doesn't sit 8" higher, so I have no idea where they got the 3 foot number. Maybe they were measuring to the keel for light-ship conditions and forgot to account for the props hanging a little lower?

President listed the draft of my 41’ as 2’ 10”. No way, I measured it at 3’ 8”. They only missed it by 10”. I don’t know how manufacturers do that. Even emoty and unloaded it wouldn’t be that shallow.

Here's the 410 that caught our eye.

https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1981/chris-craft-410-commander-3596991/?refSource=enhanced listing

The wife loves the layout, but I'm hesitant on the Volvo's.....

Nice looking boat, too bad about the Volvos... Almost any other brand of engines would be better. Parts can be a bear to get and sometimes long lead time.

Parts availability may be a concern, but I think most of those older Volvos are considered decently reliable. And compared to a gas powered example, it should be fairly efficient. Running around 7 kts, I'd expect at least 2 nmpg, so fuel range should be reasonable. Up on plane, figure maybe 0.7 - 0.8 nmpg with a planing cruise probably just above the speed where it gets onto a clean plane, so probably in the 16 kt ballpark. The 14 quoted in the ad sounds a bit low to me.

Sidclark said:

Here's the 410 that caught our eye.

https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1981/chris-craft-410-commander-3596991/?refSource=enhanced listing

The wife loves the layout, but I'm hesitant on the Volvo's.....

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Nice looking boat.

A couple of thoughts:

We had a 1986 Chris that was repowered to diesel. Make sure they changed the the engine mounts AND the plates to which the old gas engine motor mounts were attached. When ours was repowered, they changed the motor mounts but not the mounting plates and the plates eventually sagged under the additional weight of the diesel engines. Made aligning the shafts problematic. Something for a surveyor to examine very carefully.

We have Volvos in our current boat. TAMD 72s. We were somewhat hesitant but carefully looked through the maintenance records and decided to go for it. As with any brand of engine, it's all about the regular maintenance. Cummins is considered a top-tier engine but if it hasn't been regularly serviced and maintained, I still wouldn't trust it. Yes, some of the Volvo parts can be hard to get. Many of the parts, like heat exchangers, can be serviced and repaired, if needed. Raw water cooling parts would be the biggest issue. Most of the other parts, like starters and gaskets, are available through Volvo truck dealers. There are many, many semi trucks, off road equipment, etc, running Volvo diesel engines and I can't recall the last time I saw one broken down. Get the maintenance records and go over them with a mechanical surveyor familiar with Volvo engines. If they're solid, they're nothing to be afraid of. (a few people may flame me for saying that. let 'er rip)

John

For the motor mounts, I'm pretty sure the 300hp TAMD70s were a factory option on that boat. Diesels in Chris Crafts in the mid 80s were typically Volvos in that size range for the boats that came as gas or diesel.

We've decided not to roll the dice with any Volvo powered boats. It's really too bad because there are some nice trawlers out there with Volvo's. I can't imagine being somewhere in the Exuma's and needing an engine part that no longer exists and has to be manufactured.

So, now concentrating on boats with Lehman's, Cummins, Cat and Perkins. In that order. All natural aspirated would be icing on the cake...

If you like the Commanders other than the Volvos, there's always the option of buying one with 454s (cheaper) and then re-powering it at some point. But even before re-powering, the only major downside to the 454s is fuel consumption. Beyond that, they're pretty durable if cared for and parts are everywhere and not expensive.

rslifkin said:

If you like the Commanders other than the Volvos, there's always the option of buying one with 454s (cheaper) and then re-powering it at some point. But even before re-powering, the only major downside to the 454s is fuel consumption. Beyond that, they're pretty durable if cared for and parts are everywhere and not expensive.

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Our typical season is 2500-3000 miles, so feeding a couple of 454's might eat into the fuel budget a wee bit!

Sidclark said:

Our typical season is 2500-3000 miles, so feeding a couple of 454's might eat into the fuel budget a wee bit!

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Figuring you'd be in the 1.2 - 1.4 nmpg range around a knot below hull speed compared to 2.5+ with a lot of diesels, yeah, they're thirsty. The difference is a bit smaller running fast.

But at the same time, depending on purchase price difference and maintenance cost differences over time, it can still take a while to make up the difference in fuel cost. I've done the math on dumping my 454s for diesels and as much as I'd love to do it, saving money would never be the reason. It would easily take me 3000+ hours of running to make up the repower costs in fuel, and that's assuming that my maintenance costs over that time don't go up at all with the diesels.

We recently sold our '87 Chris 410, which by then was called the Constellation and not the Commander, yet was essentially the same boat. When the original 454s began to go south, we looked at repowering with diesels. Our mechanic reminded us of all the other stuff that would be involved, from transmissions (the old Velvet Drives wouldn't handle the torque of an equivalent hp diesel), to motor mounts (as mentioned previously in this thread), to fuel lines and wiring harness, different props, not to mention that we'd have to change over to a diesel generator as well. We ended up repowering with fresh reman long blocks overbored 0.060", rebuilt Velvet Drives, reman Rochester Quadrajet carbs, and conversation to Delco electronic ignition.

After this repowering work, we had a reliable drive train with a two year/unlimited hour warranty on the long blocks, slightly better fuel economy, and better low end torque which helped in locking and docking.