Cracker Larry

WAY too cold for my Cracker @ss in Savannah, GA this week! Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, 80 miles due east of Hudson Beach, FL Sunrise in San Pedro, Belize

Nice fishin pics everyone! Here's a few from Port Royal, SC. And a few off Hudson Beach, FL..

The T-shirt finally made it Wiley, and it's very nice Thanks!

Just right click on the image and select Properties. It will show the picture location and end with .jpg, such as this http://www.thehulltruth.com/attachments/boats-sale/89588d1256594782-2005-21-hewes-redfisher-reduced-pics-pa150015-vi.jpg Then highlight that link and copy and paste it here, then wrap it with img tags. Nice looking boat!

131 gallons per hour

Another option not mentioned is a big single with a kicker of about 10 hp. Most twin engine boats won't plane with one engine out anyway. Some will if you change props. But a long shaft 10 hp low geared kicker will get you home almost as fast as a big engine that won't plane the boat, for a lot less money.

No problem, thank ya much!

I always use Costa Rica Dreams, they are headquarted on the Los Suenos dock. Never had a bad trip. In fact, it's always a FANTASTIC trip! March will be a good time for billfish, you can expect about 30 hookups a day www.CostaRicaDreams.com As far as the boat and crew, my pockets are shallow so I usually get the smallest, ugliest boat in the fleet, with Capt. Carlos and mate Moses. That's Moses on the pointy end. They are incredible fishermen!! Los Suenos is a beautiful place for a honeymoon, but you might want to stay away from the Beetle Bar in downtown Jaco

Wiley, I ordered a T-shirt on Dec 15 and haven't received it yet, although my paypal account was charged on the 16th. This was right after I got an email from you saying there were 8 left in XL. Could you check on it for me? Thanks!

Don't use MEK, it is a very powerful and dangerous solvent. It will melt plastic (including fiberglass),strip paint and take the skin off your fingers and damage your lungs. There are plenty of good safe teak cleaners. I usually use Star Brite or Amazon products. Restoring old teak is a 3 stage process, you clean it, bleach it and seal it. You can find a kit with all 3 at any marine supply store.

I assume they don't have props either? That would be an easy way to tell.

Zagorka, Original Lager Zagrebacka Pivovara, Tomislav Zagrebacka Pivovara D.D., Ozujsko Zajecarska Pivara, Pils Plus Zannekin, Brune ZAO Kombinat Napitkov, Tolstiak Grechishnoye ZeroDegrees Reading, Apple and Cinnamon Wheat Ale ZeroDegrees Reading, Black Lager ZeroDegrees Reading, Pale Ale ZeroDegrees Reading, Peach Wheatbeer ZeroDegrees Reading, Pilsner ZeroDegrees Reading, Wheat Ale Zipf, Zipfer Zötler Privat-Braurei, Hefe-weizen Zywiec, Beer Zywiec, Krakus Zywiec, Porter Zywiec, Specjal Jasny Pelny Zywiec, Tatra Pils

I'm back. This is how I remember my lights: Red over Red, the captain is dead. Not under command 3 Reds in a row's got nowhere to go. Constrained by draft White over Red, pilot ahead. Pilot vessel White over white, towing tonight. Short tow, pushing or pulling 3 whites in a row has a long tow. Over 100 meters, could be 3 miles!! Red over white is fishing this night. Any fishing other than trawling Green over white is trawling tonight. Pulling nets Red over green is a sailing machine 2 reds over white ran aground this night. Red, white, red, divers ahead 3 reds under white is in a plight. Restricted in ability to maneuver. Quick flashing yellow a hovercraft fellow. 3 blips of yellow a submariner fellow. If you see yellow smoke a sub is broke. Distressed, submerged sub. I'll add others as they come to mind, but this helps me instantly know what I'm looking at, and sometimes instantly is a good thing!

I'll tell yall a story about nav lights. About 20 years ago my wife and I were delivering a large sailing yacht from Marco Island to Antigua. It was about 0400 and we were somewhere off Cuba, my wife had the helm and I was asleep. She woke me up hollering to get my @ss on deck, something was wrong. She pointed out a large vessel crossing ahead of us from port to starboard, about a mile off. She had set course to clear it well astern, but it was flashing it's deck lights and blowing it's horn in bursts of 3. I looked at the ship in my sleepy state and immediately noticed 3 white masthead lights. I had learned all my nav lights by rhymes. 3 whites in a row, I've got a long tow! We had 4 sails set on the big cutter and was making about 12 kts. I looked left and saw a solid wall of black, blocking the sky! Then I saw the phosphorescence of a towing hawser a few hundred yards ahead! I told her to gybe, NOW. NOW! She spun the wheel and I started cutting sheets. When the boat finally turned, the tow missed us by less than 20 feet. It was an ocean going barge of several hundred feet with no lights on it. It would have crushed us like a bug. It's real important to know all the nav lights!! I didn't sleep again until we made port in Antigua and by the time we got there my wife knew every nav light possible. Here are a few rhymes to help remember.. Sorry, I'll continue later.

Gar

Well, I'm fairly seasoned, been running sport fishing boats for over 40 years. It's simple. What we do is never let squid juice and blood dry on the boat. We clean the boat continuously during the days fishing with a brush and water, part of the mates job is to keep the boat clean. Then at the end of every day the boat is scrubbed from flybridge to waterline with a mixture of clorox and dish detergent. About 2 cups of Clorox (not the no-name bleaches) and a good squirt of liquid Dawn in a half bucket of water. Scrub it good with a brush, let it sit about 20 minutes then rinse it off good. My boats used to fish 300 days a year, got washed with Clorox and Dawn 300 days a year, never had rotten cushions or stitching from the bleach. Once squid ink dries in the sun for a few days, I got no idea how to get it off. Sandblaster maybe

Yes they did Scott, thank you very much. I haven't had time to really check them out yet but I will next week. What I've seen looks real good. Larry

Excellent information Scott, thanks.

Excellent reply Scott, thank you for taking the time. I'm looking forward to the samples and I'll follow up further. 35 degrees and windy in Savannah, GA this morning!

Very nice Steveoh! The Tolman skiff is a great design, one of the best. I like how you built the pilothouse. Sweet

Another question if I may. I see the stringer sections are 8' long, how are they spliced together without creating hard spots, or increasing the stringer height at the splice points? My interest in this system is two-fold. I may have some applications for it in my own builds, but as a surveyor it is important that I fully understand it's properties, capabilities, limitations and proper use. When I run across it in the field, and I'm sure I will sometime soon, I need to be able to make an accurate and informed decision to be fair to my clients, whether they be sellers, buyers, insurance companies or lending institutions. A mistake on my part could cost someone, including me, a lot of money. Thanks!

Thanks Scott, I'd like to see some samples for sure. That's a very nice website! If I can save weight, time and money, without a decrease in boat quality then it's a valuable product worth consideration. I won't sacrifice quality to save anything. As a one-off custom builder, quality is my only selling point, I can't compete with production boats in price, and don't try to. Osprey, I understand full well what you are saying. We are on opposite ends of the building spectrum, but we can sure learn from and support each other. Larry

Scott, thanks for your very good reply. As I said from the start, I think it is a good product for certain applications. Would you send me some technical information so I can study it further? Cracker Built Custom Boats 1448 Clyo Shawnee Rd. Clyo, GA 31303 You didn't hear me talk down Proline. They do build very good production boats. Better than most. I sure don't, that's why I build custom, one at a time, to a niche market. It's extremely difficult to build a good production boat at a price that the market will accept, while keeping quality high, costs contained and still make a profit. I applaud any company that can survive in todays market and turn out a good product. Certainly new technologies go a long way towards making this achievable. Companies that survive will have to be lean, flexible and innovative, and use materials such as those stringers that will lower labor and material costs while maintaining quality. Again, I was not questioning the Compsys product, just the method of repair in that PF. Thanks all for a good discussion, I wish you much success. Heck, I just hope you and I survive (in business) the next few years until this mess turns around! Larry

Thank you for your comments Scott. As I clearly said, I think the product has some good applications. I also think the Pathfinder project was maybe not one of them. Me too. I only use epoxy for boats. Polyester is best left to liesure suits. It's not even waterproof. Yes but that Pathfinder is not one of them. That cockpit deck is not designed to be suspended. Those race and stunt boats were designed from the start with that in mind. No, the G loading remains the same, W weight X V velocity does not change, it is just distributed differently so the operator doesn't feel the shock. The boat must be designed from the ground up for this to work and the forces have to be distributed and absorbed elsewhere, often resulting in failure of the hull to deck joint, or the chine to hull section. I've seen a few hundred of those cracked. I've also done some work with Navy boats, special ops and minesweepers. They even suspend the engines in some of them The RIB is also not built or designed like the PF in question. Again they were designed from the ground up for a suspended cockpit. It might be just an optical illusion with the photo, but it does not appear that the outer stringers reach deck level on the Pathfinder. If they do, sorry, my mistake. The deck will still need additional support and the tunnel stiffener still should not be curved. That's not a large boat, but I agree. The engines usually mount to the stringers on a boat that size and the cockpit is raised. But the stringers still make a straight run across the top. Not curved. The PF is not built that way so your point is irrelevant I'm only commenting on the PF in the photo, not military boats, not stunt boats, not special ops, not RIBS, not inboards. Just that PF application. OK, right. If you believe that, there are many manufacturers who can satisfy you. I'm done, build it however you want. And hope you don't get me when your insurance company sends out a surveyor.

I'm not trying to put down anyone, their company, or their product. When I first read this thread, I didn't realize it was trying to be an infomercial. I think that pre-fab stringer system is probably a decent product that does well in certain applications, but I do question the methodolgy of the repair shown. Stringers are not a 1 size fits all, each have to be built exactly to the application. Flexing it to conform to the hull bottom and creating a corresponding curve on top, and then it being too short to provide deck support, well, it's probably not what the engineer who designed the product intended. That application would have been better made with epoxy encapsulated, laminated BS1088 meranti plywood, IMO. It would be much stronger and cost less. I think when Proline uses it in their boats, they run it straight and it bridges the entire area between hull and deck. A stringer is no more than a bridge, an upside down bridge, but a bridge just the same. That company doesn't have many hull failures I'm not here to argue with anyone, just pointing out best accepted practices for the repair. It's not just my opinion, it's also the opinion of the real engineers in the industry. Too bad that more manufacturers don't employ one, or at least read their books