Let's build a boat...

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Who are you and what did you do with PJ?! Post reported!!

Honestly, I had no interest in sail power until I was on a catamaran. A few hours on one and I was hooked for life.

Mine is a 14' wood construction Carolina flat bottom working skiff with leeboard and electric backup. Basically, a pickup truck for harvesting oysters, shallow water stuff, etc. Great little work boat.

Only drafts 4" of water with two on board, batteries, gear, etc. Rudder and leeboard push draft to a trim 18 inches. Zippy little guy in 3-4 knot winds. Capsizes under sail in 8+ knots, so electric was a necessity because **** oars. But, that minimal draft and inherrient stability that comes with a flat bottom makes it amazing for largemouth.

However, being a flat bottom skiff, I usually get the ever loving crap hammered out of me by wakes off of even jon boats. Give and take I suppose.

 

[ExploreNW]

I prefer outboard engines. I run twin evinrude 250 2 strokes. They move my 26 foot grady white like a bat outta hell and old Grady's like old sea Ray's are built like tanks. My buddy has a similar sized marlin and it weighs half as much since its essentially a balsa wood boat with fiberglass coating instead of a true self bailing solid glass double hull. Having twin engines gives alot of peace of mind when your offshore too.

I thought about repowering my boat several years ago but to get the same power from modern 4 stroke engines the weight difference is insane. Nothing beats old emissions free 2 strokes for pure horsepower to weight. The biggest problem I have was the oil systems died long ago so I have to premix 110 gallons of fuel which is NOT fun.

Can't believe I scrolled right past this earlier... I thought about converting to outboards but decided against it. The new ones are nice but are made out of gold-plated unobtanium. $60k for motors on a $6k boat? The units I can afford will need parts soon and those parts are often either discontinued or very hard to find. Another reason I want to build an auto/truck engine core or two - if it needs an alternator or starter, for example, a rebuilt part for $50 from any auto parts shop will do just fine.

Emissions free 2 smokes are awesome though. I have a 20HP Merc for a little 12' aluminum lake boat. It actually specifies 10W-30 in the premix. Fogs out the lake worse than diesel guys at a truck meet but holy hell that thing rips.

Honestly, I had no interest in sail power until I was on a catamaran. A few hours on one and I was hooked for life.

Mine is a 14' wood construction Carolina flat bottom working skiff with leeboard and electric backup. Basically, a pickup truck for harvesting oysters, shallow water stuff, etc. Great little work boat.

Only drafts 4" of water with two on board, batteries, gear, etc. Rudder and leeboard push draft to a trim 18 inches. Zippy little guy in 3-4 knot winds. Capsizes under sail in 8+ knots, so electric was a necessity because **** oars. But, that minimal draft and inherrient stability that comes with a flat bottom makes it amazing for largemouth.

However, being a flat bottom skiff, I usually get the ever loving crap hammered out of me by wakes off of even jon boats. Give and take I suppose.

Hey! I learned to sail on one of those! If I didn't live in inland WA I'd definitely have one... LOVE oysters.

But I also love the sound of raw horsepower spilling out of twin engines and "Captain's Call" open headers. I do my best to not be that guy blasting everyone else out of their boats but nothing beats opening it up on smooth water.

 

[sgtsandman]

 

[Dirtman]

I invested heavily in boats-n-hoes in 2008 and almost lost everything.

 

[ericbphoto]

It’s usually more like this.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

GM LS would be my vote

It would bolt up to what you have, make as much power as you want it to with decent economy. Plus small, lightweight and excellent parts support.

 

[ExploreNW]

Come to think of it I haven't seen anything LS in the junkyards yet. They are either all picked over by the time I get there or they are in the $4,000-6,000 range. That's near the top end of what I want to spend on power and we haven't bought a drive big enough to take that much yet.

I have been considering twin Vortec 4.3 V6s. 400 bucks, 200 each. Two hot dips, deck jobs, and .30 overbores looks like around $900. Add master rebuild kits & cams for each motor we're up to $1900, additional wiring and cheap ECMs have us just under 3k combined and ready to mount. Keep the accessories from the JY & clean them up a bit. That's not including "marine" wet-jacket manifolds which are dime-a-dozen used on Craigs out here. Plus I can use the cheap drives.

Horsepower sells boats & bragging rights at the pub. Torque pushes water. More dirty thoughts about a V10 or at least the 5.4... 457 lb-ft of stock twisties is tickling the nuts of diesel power or stroker & cam kits in GM/LS but with the RPM range you want in a cruiser. You can "allegedly" get 30-40 more horses out of a tune, but this is in the auto world. Messing with phasing to get it to run a boat might net a bit more torque lower down. And if I only have to buy one drive, I can hook that 10 cylinder monster to this mean SOB...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Do contrarotating props work better in a boat than on airplanes?

Seems like they are all ooo and ahh until the gearbox craps out...

 

[Dirtman]

Russia seems to think they work good. Their biggest bomber uses them.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

cough hemi cough... ?

Forgot to mention, hemi mds can be turned off. The manual trans engines don't have it at all

 

[sgtsandman]

Your hemi makes you cough? You might wanna get that checked...

 

[ExploreNW]

Do contrarotating props work better in a boat than on airplanes?

Quite a bit better. Single props kinda just sling water everywhere. Some goes back, some down, up, left, right... If you've tried reverse or idle-forward with a sterndrive you know what I mean. It's all over the place. Forget what you know about steering a car because you'll feel like you're about to take out half the dock. Contra-rotating props pull tangentially displaced fluids back into the secondary prop to create a more concentrated "beam" of force. You lose out on the top end but the control you gain on the bottom end is worth it in a boat this size. Think of it like cornering in a Tahoe with junked out shocks vs. in a brand-new Explorer. Twin-engine setups with one prop add axial control but can be just as rough in reverse as they haven't solved the tangential flow problem. In the air it's anywhere between 6% and 16% gains in efficiency according to the net.
__

Hemi MDS can be turned off, but the C****LER plant it came out of cannot

As for the Russian nuclear bombers with contra-rotators: they're jet turbine powered to the tune of 115,000 shaft-horses per unit. Contra-rotators are extremely good in situations with big power and heavy load and help to decrease losses. The commercial version of @Dirtman and his Tu-95 actually holds the world speed record for prop aircraft!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Ahh yes, boats....

I picked myself up a little 17’ Bayliner that didn’t make it into the water last year as planned. Been kicking around the idea of at some point replacing the 1989 Ford 2.3 in it with a newer 2.3 and possibly going EFI but I haven’t gone beyond idle thoughts on the matter so far. I want to do a head gasket on it and give it some love for the moment and test it out

 

[ExploreNW]

... and give it some love ...

How about 5 PSI worth of love? Turbos and marine engines go together like fine wine and cheese. Mild boost won't get too hot for the engine bay and is apparently easy to tune if you have a Quarter Horse or something similar. If you have big gears on the drive you'll be able to run a pitch or two larger with both injection and boost.

If you want it this season, I have an EFI DP 2.3 head, dual plug DIS, upper & lower intake, throttle body & sensors, fuel rail, and a few misc. EFI sensors left over that I'd be more than happy to cut you a cheap deal on. I don't have the harness or computer however.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Ahh yes, boats....

I picked myself up a little 17’ Bayliner that didn’t make it into the water last year as planned. Been kicking around the idea of at some point replacing the 1989 Ford 2.3 in it with a newer 2.3 and possibly going EFI but I haven’t gone beyond idle thoughts on the matter so far. I want to do a head gasket on it and give it some love for the moment and test it out

Heard you died. ?