Michael Fitz 21' CC (FITZ 21)

[Doug Perez]

Hello All, I've been a lurker of this forum for a while and I now have a project boat for myself. This will be my first restore, so I'm a total Newb. Luckily, I will have some help from friends who have a lot more knowledge than myself. I'm sure I will have a lot of questions for you all as well. The boat is a 21ft CC built by Michael Fitz in 1989, I decided I was going to restore it because I have not been on a better riding 21ft boat than this beast. It has the original engine, a Yamaha 225hp 1989. Previous owner(s) must have taken real good care of this engine because it's turn-key and runs great! My plans are to restore everything from the stringers up. (we'll see). I'd like to close the transom, add a bracket, and re power with 250hp 4-stroke. Will this change the way the boat rides? Here is the boat now, it's in decent shape, but because of it's age, I've already mentally prepared myself for what lies underneath floor. All and any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[FitzFisher]

Doug, give me a call at 813-39fo-573 OH and I can discuss a lot of this with you. I sat down with Mike Fitz about 5 years ago and asked his opinion on putting a bracket on these boats etc. His opinion and that of the original engineer was that this hull is too small for a bracket and that it throws off the performance of the hull. If you put a large 4-stroke a couple of feet farther back it will change the center of gravity and some adjustments will need to be made. If I was going to make some changes to mine, I would make the transom opening smaller, raise the sole by another inch perhaps and build in a splash well. I may still add the splash well to mine. I did put on the 6 inch setback jack plate and that allows the motor to be run a bit higher, so the transom could be raised an inch or two as well. That being said, there was a guy who bought Mike's Molds about 15 years ago, and made closed transom boats under the name Lightning Boats. You may be able to contact those guys and see what their thoughts are. I'll be happy to help if I can, and can give you hundreds of Pix taken along the way as I rebuilt mine.

They are fantastic hulls, and if you do it right , you'll have a great boat that will last generations.

[tech_support]

its a very nice looking hull.

Whats the beam? (measure from chine to chine at the transom)?

You may have enough volume so long as you use a bracket with an extra large tub/chamber