fiberform did they even exist?

[ian laing]

I have recently bought and am restoring my first boat. It is a 1974 fiberform 22.5'' sitka with fly bridge. I have googled till my eyes hurt trying to find information on this boat. all I have found is it was canadian made and bayliner bought them out in the 80's does anyone know anything else about these boats. as far as I can tell these boats have very strong hulls and wher very nice boats in there time. any info will be greatly appreciated...

[charmc]

I remember them, seemed like reasonably good for production boats.

Some Fiberform folks get together here: http://my.boatus.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=51306

[Guest20100203]

Yep, old Fiberform, I even had one back in the late 70's. They were heavy chopper gun boats, typical of the era, though slighty better in quality then some of the other, bigger production number, manufactures. Bayliner will not admit to the purchase of Fiberfrom (not an uncommon trait with them).

They had the typical issues which collectively haunted darn near all the manufactures back then. Stringers, soles, transoms, bulkheads and tabbed wooden components, should all be suspect at this age, so inspect carefully and don't skimp on the resin like they did.

Is there something specific you'd like to know?

[Ike]

Try Fiberglassics http://fiberglassics.com/ I found some info there about Fiberform.

I found some for sale on iboats.com

There are a lot of other sites selling old Fiberform boats as well.

[ian laing]

I know of this fiberglassics site and found that no one responds to posts and the site is very vague. thank you for your input.

[Ike]

Boat companies come and go like some people change their socks. Most are small businesses and sell only regionally. The best thing to do is contact other owners, maybe start an owners association. Put together a web site with info, pics, scanned manuals etc. All this takes time and dedication but a there are lot of old boats that have owners associations.

Here is a long thread on another forum on Fiberform. Not a lot of history but a lot of people with the same problem you have. http://www.everythingboats.com/asksu...s.pl?read=8325
Here's another on BoatUS forums http://my.boatus.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=51306

There sure are a lot of them on sale on the internet so there must be someone out there who knows something about them.

[Ike]

Fiberform was a Pacific NW company and I knew there had to be someone around who knew something about it. I finally ran into one yesterday. He worked there briefly. Fiberform was sold, lock, stock and barrel to Bayliner. He said that the guy to talk to is Bill Bongers, the president of Skippers Bills in Spokane Washington http://www.skipperbillsinc.com/.

[Hitchhiker]

I found some significant info on Fiberform.
http://www.barstudios.com/barnone/fiberform.htm

[IronRoamer]

I own a 1978 Fiberform Baja 2650, apparently it is the "Chinook" model. The boat is 28' LOA, has a flybridge, and a single Volvo 255hp with the AQ280 S/P. According to the USCG plate it will hold 18 passengers. Has a 75 gallon plastic tank, and upper and lower helms. Also, it has a shower/head in the salon.

It is not chopper gun construction, other than some of the interior glass. I have patched a faired out a few unnecessary thru-hulls, seeing the crossection of the hull, and the pattern in the bilge, it is sandwiched woven roving, the smaller, or older models may have been chopper gun.

I gutted the interior, which was in nice shape for the age, too much heavy plywood used though. I removed about 500 lbs worth of 3/4" plywood! Once gutted, I was able to inspect the subfloor, 3/4" plywood laminated with about 3/16" of glass. I took small core samples of the inner/outer stringers, the boat is extremely solid, and I thought my old 1982 Sea Ray SRV220 was solid. The only delamination I found was on the cockpit deck.




As far as I can tell, the name had vanished by 1980 (that is the most recent model I've seen labeled as such)







My cursory research shows that they built flybridge models from 22'-32' in all styles, sportfish, sedan, one common trait is the dual helm, possibly due to the fact that they were designed in the PNW, read wet/cold. I have more pictures of my specimen, if any fellow FF owners need some continuity.

[Jon Morrow]

I have tried a lot of research too and am pretty much empty-handed.
I have a 1970, 20', with twin chevy 4 cyl. engines.
If you come up with any leads please forward it.
Thank you.

[Typhoon]

Originally Posted by IronRoamer

I own a 1978 Fiberform Baja 2650, apparently it is the "Chinook" model.


.

I've worked on Bayliners here (east coast of Australia) that are IDENTICAL to that boat(even down to the rail work), so I would agree that Bayliner ended up with the moulds. Given how strikingly close they are/were, I would even guess that perhaps Bayliner was still building them in the same factory, using the same tooling, patterns etc. Even the windows and hull fittings are the same as the Bayliners.
That's all I have to add.

Regards, Andrew.

[mark775]

So, they weren't built in Canada (the one had a USCG plate)?