Here are some more pictures of the finished top (rough cuts for the windows), which has been much more expensive than I anticipated, but I feel like I'm getting my money's worth from the guys at Carolina Yachts in Beaufort NC. Will, the owner, has great ideas and their work is top quality.
The top is permanently mounted now and the boat is "home" for final rigging, which I am doing myself. Everything should be finished in time to hang the engine next week. Splash time is getting close!
The engine is an Etec 250 showroom demo, and a deal that I could not refuse, but I had to get it from a dealer several hours away. The wooden pallet on which it was mounted was not secured well enough (my bad) and started to slide during a sharp turn, nearly giving me a heart attack as I briefly envisioned picking up the pieces of my unused and ruined engine.
The boat is named "Handful", a play on my last name and a true statement about the boat.
I don't know how much the weight has changed, but hopefully not a significant amount. Judging from the wide variety of equipment/engine/fuel/bracket combinations seen and discussed in this forum, SeaCraft must be very tolerant of weight and its distribution. Most owners seem to be concerned about too much weight aft with current engines that are larger and heavier than when the boat was first constructed. I am more concerned about too much weight forward, and that's why I purposedly chose the single engine Hermco bracket rather than the twin bracket and its greater flotation. If the CG in my boat needs to be shifted, I have some flexibility in the placement of the batteries, oil tank, an auxilliary fuel tank, and a planned fresh water tank. Or I will be be making a very humble and humliating post as a lesson for others!