iMacattack

I used Mariners School. Classes were well prepped, staff was knowledgeable and helpful. Study material was good and I had no problems. I passed with an average of 98% on the tests. There was very little I "learned" aside from some regulations on vessels I had never operated. Most of the class was reinforcement of what I learned over the past almost 30 years living on or near H2O. What scared me were some of the people in the class who were clueless. Completely clueless. Some of these folks needed to go to a basic starters class. Like welcome to boating 101.. Cheers Capt. Jan

Couple notes on small motors and ethanol. First corn belongs on the cob not our petroleum! Second anything remotely resembling ethanol belongs over ice and served by the shot. Lastly ethanol is one wicked cleaner/solvent. (old racing fuel cells would melt when ethanol was introduced) With that out of the way. If you have confirmed you have ethanol in your fuel and it's old and untreated... dispose of it properly. I had a problem with ethanol on a 2008 Yamaha 4 stroke F40 carbed outboard. In less than 30 hours of use on a BRAN NEW motor on a BRAND NEW skiff. All three carbs were replaced at least once. Ethanol basically crystallized on the idle jets. Much like a grain of sand in an oyster the ethanol pearl would grow to the point that the motor would refuse to start. Nothing like trying to start a 4 stroke 6am in the summer in Flamingo while being drained of your blood by all the skeeters! Yamaha did help out and covered the replacements under warranty. I have since spoken to a few reps at Yamaha and out in the field. There are a few other solutions that include a specialized ultrasonic parts cleaner to soaks in MEK overnight. (as mentioned above) The issue is that you might solve the problem for the short term but it will rear it's ugly head again unless you treat the source of the problem, ethanol. Every manufacture I have talked to while conducting a recent Four Stroke Shootout on my site all chanted the same tune. Treat your ethanol and use a 10 micron fuel filter, no exceptions! There are several options out there. Some are a bit OVER stating what they can do IMHO, but since we started treating the fuel, NEVER leave the tank less than full and run a religious regiment of checking and replacing our 10 micron filter, the problem has not returned. Coincidence? Not likely. I can tell you that many mechanics are just as stumped as we are with regards to ethanol. The manufactures are working hard to get everyone up to speed, but in the end we have to take the due diligence to research on our own and learn from our shared experiences. Cheers Capt. Jan

Mornings by the pool, afternoons by the Margarita Glass, evenings by the grill. See my day is full! Hard to get on the internet with all that packed in one day!

FS is nothing like what it use to be. I'm member #15 of the current software and member #5 of their previous software, before the server fire. I was also a member of their BBS system WAY back in the "day" circa 1999ish. There was a trend back then to e protective of your site and what was posted. I personally feel this is no longer needed. I can't tell you how many times I look in my Google Analytics and see links to my site from other forums. I have no problem allowing folks to link to other forums as long as it's relevant to the topic at hand. I do kill the spam kitties who post their World of War Crap stuff or pron... I recently ran into the same problem as you on FS. I had a post referencing something on my site and poof, it went went away. The mod came back with their lame excuses. I pointed out how much longer I had been on the site and that I was part of the group the drafted the original rules. Guess they don't respect us old timers like the nubiees too. FS has really gone down hill IMHO. The core group that made the site what is was has left due to all the stupid stuff that's going on over there. Just how many Contender vs Yellow Fin posts can one mind endure! FS is on the verge of complete irrelevance if they don't improve things over there. Which is a shame, I use to make it my virtual home. But the neighborhood has changed and I moved out. Wiley has a rocking site here and it's proof positive that the personality behind the site can make or break it's relevance. Keep up the great work! Cheers Capt. Jan

E10 Fuel? Sounds like a blockage. I'd get a vacuum test of the like as mentioned above.

Grand Slam, sweet boat! Mark Castlow, formally of Maverick, Hewes, Pathfinder now under his new company, Dragonfly Boats LLC has the hull mold I believe. He's bringing back the 17' Grand Slam. I spoke to him a while back and he was filling me in on the history of Fibercraft's sourcing for the hull shape. I'm just a sucker for the classics. I'm trying to schedule a photo-shoot on Bill Hempel's Challenger for my site. His boat was rebuilt by Capt. Karl from my article above. We have a member rebuilding a 15 ShiPoke that was built by Fred Archibald's son. He popped on our site and helped to fill in a bit of the history. Cheers

I like the way you think... LOL

What would it take? A bigger boat... =) Not too intimidating out of a 16' Skiff... though I could work as a "fast attack" boat for ya... Cheers Capt. Jan

Thanks Wiley for letting me share this with your great folks! Come one come all! microskiff.com East Coast Bash. Location: Long Point ParkLong Point Park 700 Long Point Road, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951 Date: July 18th 2009 Time: Till they throw us out! Cost: Event is FREE, Just pay your way into the park This is a family friendly event. Bring the boat, bring the kids and have a great day meeting fellow forum members! How can I help: If everyone could bring at least one covered dish to share this would go a long way to helping out. A few members have talked abut camping Friday and Saturday night. SPONSORS: I'll add to the list as I confirm. ESPN, swag! Ankona Boats, burgers and dogs for the grill! Maverick Boats Castaway Customs & SeaDek Bob's Machine Shop

Wish I could help you with the image upload... I photobucket and it gives me the code to put into forums... Here is a rare picture of the '65 FiberCraft. Looks a little different now.

denny-o, if you can get some pix post em! Would love to see the skiff. It's possible that it could be the post 1965 FiberCraft that Stu Apte modified. Would need to see a few pix though. I have a few more pix... I had a completely custom platform built. It's a one off made to my specs. Might not be for everyone... but it's what I wanted... From our first tests. First platform... needed to make a final edit, see below. First platform... needed to make a final edit, see below. iPhone pix of the platform. Sorry for the poor resolution.

Cool Project! Can't wait to see more!

I can honestly say it has saved several trips. Heck this past fathers day it was an invaluable tool to keep my son and I safe and dry from a nasty storm cell... Don't think twice... DO IT!

Thanks! I took screen shots of the EPSN Outdoors home page and the blog page and saved them for him.

UGH! As a native Floridian I can tolerate hot or humid, but both at once...

Thanks! He's growing up so fast! Soon he'll be taking me fishing!

At o-crap:30 AM I woke my son for our first father son Flamingo trip. We have gone with friends but this was the first time it would be just us. Boat was prepared the night before so the morning routine was brief. With one notable exception. I have kicked the caffeine habit. So we loaded the truck and headed down to "mingo". Luckily the Big "D" slept for most of the ride down to Don's Bait and Tackle. We loaded up on some shrimp and chatted a bit with Ashley. He helped to direct us to a brilliant day of fishing. THANK YOU! The summertime ramp routine was in full effect. One wants to limit one's ramp time exposure lest one looses all their blood to the swarms of winged vampires. "D" and I seated ourselves on the boat and the old 2 smoker Johnson 115 roared to life and the Egret was off. Made our way to the first spot. Ride was a bit sporty but the D-Man liked hopping from wave to wave. The Garmin with Weather by XM told me we had limited time to make our game plan happen. A cell of ugly weather would be upon us in less than an hour. Baits in the water and no sooner the first fish was being fought. Trout... then Red... then Snook! How about that in less than 20 minutes Big "D" had his first ever slam. Pictures taken, high fives (well honestly low five but to a five year old it was a high five) Baits back in the water and pow, trout! Then the snook army showed up with one feisty volunteer after another testing Big "D's" fish catching mojo! But weather and prudent minds necessitated a move. Once again the old 115 Ocean Pro Johnson roared to life and we boogied out before mother nature could unleash her fury. Spot two was a typical non desrcript shoreline much like miles and miles of other ones. Bait was prevalent and predators were on the hunt. Big "D" landed a big red to top off his day with a double slam! And a few of the fish were cast to and hooked up all by himself. One proud Papa I am! The heat of the day started to weigh in and it was time to make our way back. As a congratulatory gift I let Big D run the boat back to the marina, under the ever watchful eye of one beaming papa. My little man is starting to grow up and I could not be prouder. We had one last stop to make the day perfect. Shakes from "Robert is here". According to a sign in the old black Model T, it seams that Harold ( i believe that is Robert's father) past away this morning. Take each moment you have with your children and cherish it. Our time here is limited. "“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -- Mark Twain ------------------ This morning I got an email from ESPN Outdoors.com. They picked up my post and wanted to put an article on their site. As you can imagine I was super stoked! http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/index Click on Digress Or link to the story click here.

Now that's going all out! Nice pix, when is dinner? I hope you don't mind, I posted a link to this on microskiff.com... Lots of Yakers there who I'm sure would love to see this. Cheers Capt. Jan

You got it! Once the skiff is complete I'll make a few passes at InletCam.Com I spoke to Capt. Karl yesterday and he filled me in on a few more details about the skiff... 1965 was the only year that Fiber Craft built this specific model. They tried to market this particular model as a runabout with an 18hp Evinrude and a ski pole. It didn't work. I also didn't realize how close we came to loosing this piece of our skiff history. Karl had a chop saw in his hand at one point right before Mel bought the mold. This skiff almost ended it's life as bulk pick up for a second time. The first was when Karl found the skiff in the 1970's. Want to know where the inspiration for the Hells Bay Whipray came from? Fiber Craft, Willies and Challenger. The Whipray according t Karl was built as an amalgamation of some of the best parts of these skiffs transformed into what many consider to be the finest example of a modern shallow water skiff. Fiber Craft out of Miami closed their door in the 1970's.

Before poling platforms and GPS were around, the 1960's Fiber Craft was one of the original Florida back country skiffs. These simple runabout boats were all you needed to catch shallow water species. With notable anglers like Stu Apte and his "Mom's Worry IV", Jim Martenhoff and Vic Dunaway landing big snook, acrobatic tarpon or silver bullet bonefish out of Fiber Craft runabouts, these little skiffs had proven their fishability over time. Mostly lost to obscurity the Fiber Craft lived on through a few passionate people who could not let the classic go. One notable angler and South Florida guide who not only used, but revived the little runabout, was Captain Karl Gloeckner. His Fiber Craft was first rescued from obscurity back in the early 70's with a hull destine for the municipal dump. Through the decades he refined the skiff into a potent bonefish platform for his clients. Then in 2004 after receiving blessings from the son of the original designer, Capt. Karl started the second revival of the Fiber Craft as the "Native Skiff". Capt. Karl built a few skiffs but was unable to continue. Once again the skiff potentially could have faded into obscurity. Would there be a new lease on life for the Native? 2004 was my first introduction to the Fiber Craft. With classic lines and sexy curves I fell in love. Good friend Capt. David McKenzie was the owner of one of only two registered Fiber Craft 14's in Florida. Capt. David received Capt. Karl's Fiber Craft after it was used to create the Native Skiff mold. Capt. David used the skiff for a while then let her go and moved up to a more modern 1970 Sidewinder/Dolphin 16. It seems classics are in his blood. I unfortunately never got a chance to look at the Native first hand, or get the opportunity to buy one. A few months ago Capt. David and I were at the Florida Sportsman's Expo in Ft. Lauderdale. We were taking pictures for our respective websites. Capt. David has two great sites Fish North Bay and South Florida Angler. I invite everyone to check them out. While at the show talking to many vendors and taking pictures, we met up with Mel Walker from Ankona Boats. After trading pleasantries I left to take a few more pictures. Capt. David stayed a while with Mel and they started talking skiffs. Two weeks later I get an email. It was simple and succinct. "Native Skiff Mold Sold". Seems that Mel and Capt. David started talking about small classic skiffs and it just so happened that Capt. David knew where the Native mold was and that Capt. Karl could be interested in seeing the little skiff revived again. Mel and I had previously scheduled to do a review of the Copperhead so timing was perfect. Before I got up to Ankona to do the review, Mel had pulled a quick test hull from the mold and had it available for me to look at. The hull was pulled to check the viability of using the original mold for production and for making mock up molds for all the parts needed to bring the Native back from obscurity. After we finished the review of the Copperhead Mel invited me to his shop to look over the Native. I fell in love... again! I also broke one of the most ardent rules I tell everyone when it comes to buying a boat... TAKE A TEST RIDE BEFORE YOU BUY! Having never actually ridden on the Native or the original Fiber Craft, I bought my own Native Skiff. Well to be more accurate, I bought what would become Ankona's revival of the Native. But first a couple minor details had to be addressed. Like making a new mold, figuring out the cockpit tub, top deck configuration, hatches, rigging tubes, weight distribution... the list goes on and on. However in a little over 6 weeks Mel and Roy worked nonstop to bring the Native back to life and I have the distinct honor of owning hull #1. More on the build will be released in the coming weeks. In the coming months the new Ankona Boats Native 15 will be used for events, reviews and projects, but most importantly spending time with my family on the water. In the mean time I do need to thank a lot of great folks for helping me realize the dream of owning my own revival of a classic. Oh, and yes... it looks tippy... A special thank you to: My wife and son. Now we can go fishing Declan! Mel and Roy from Ankona Boats for busting their humps to ready my skiff. Continental Trailers, they built and delivered to us a prototype trailer that is light years beyond anything I have ever seen from Continental for the skiff market. More on that soon. Mark and Bob from Shallow Water Customs for helping me rig my skiff. They also worked some serious overtime in readying the skiff for our 25hp Shootout. More on that soon. Bobs Machine Shop for their NEW Mini Jac. More on that soon. Chuck from SeaDek and Tyler from Castaway Customs for a seriously cool, retro SeaDek package. More on that soon. Representatives from Honda, Mercury, Tohatsu and Yamaha for helping us with our 25hp Shootout. Sam Root from Salty Shores for his awesome photography. Bennett Marine for the M80 Tabs and many more that I know I'm forgetting... Shameless Plug... Check out microskiff.com

1997? What hull number? I run a 1997 16' Carbon with the original 1997 115 Ocean Runner. IMHO one of the best built, designed, executed all around flats skiffs to this day... Very nice! Good luck on the sale! Cheers Capt. Jan P.S. I hope you don't mind but I put a link to your for sale on my site...Cheers

Speedy and full recovery prayers sent for Tred and his family! Cheers Capt. Jan

Now that's funny!

Cool find! Hope you don't mind but I linked to this on my site. Cheers