Texas Flats Boat

[wwsmith]

Hoping to be able to jack the motor up to run where the prop does not extend below the bottom of the hull. There are good examples of the microdraft skiffs doing this on youtube, but it requires the low water pickup. I realize it sounds unnecessary, but we frequently run long distances through 6" of water. The motor will start to get hot without it. My LM18 can run in 4"-6" and last trip I hit the bottom 3 times (sand bars), so it must have gotten pretty thin in places.

[TomW1]

Remember with the tunnel you will be raising your motor up into the water hump and not be running with it down. Once you get up on the hump you should have the prop protected. I think you said your load would be about 2500-2600 lbs fully loaded for tournaments. Using my prop calcs that would give you a 13 inch prop so you only have to lift it up 6.5 inches into the water hump out of the tunnel to have it above the boat bottom. Should be no problem.

Tom

[wwsmith]

The goal at the outset was to build a lighter boat than we could buy. In the spirit of that, the Mercury 115 is the winner. As luck would have it, it’s also the most available and least expensive of the options we were considering. Think I’ll order that on Monday. If the low water pickup is a must, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Thanks for the advice, friends.

[pee wee]

If you still are wondering about how a modification would affect your warranty, go right to the source- call the manufacturer.

[wwsmith]

Flipped her back over solo. Was a chore and gave me a few more gray hairs. Anyway, done now and loaded ready to go get trailer made at the end of this week.

The table/strongback is no longer needed. I have been modifying it as the boat changed shape, and what you see in the photo is what's left of it. Its free to anyone in the Central Texas area who wants to come pick it up. If it's still here in a week or two, it'll be scrapped to make room for other projects.

[Jeff]

Nice work!!!! Jeff

[VT_Jeff]

Flipped her back over solo. Was a chore and gave me a few more gray hairs.

There's a "Hold My beer" moment if I ever saw one! Nice work!

[Fuzz]

Take a clue from the pup, he looked totally stressed over the whole deal
Good job getting it done. Sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done.

[wwsmith]

Short update - haven't gotten much done lately but did gather up a few parts. I made this boat wider than the plans called for. Almost ended up being a problem because it was too wide for the trailer axles. Luckily we were able to cut out the fenders to make it work. She's pretty wide going down the road. Takes up the whole lane, for sure.

Had originally planned to build the console myself with a cooler rack and cooler in front of it. After pricing the cooler rack and cooler, I found out it was the same price to buy a console. That seemed like a no-brainer, so had one made specific to our dimensions (only adjustment was making it taller than their standard model). It also comes with a built-in live well and fold down storage in front. Had the same group make the leaning post. The price tag on that one hurt, but I had a very similar seat on a previous boat and it was perfect. Couldn't get excited about trying something different.

Motor arrives in 6-8 weeks, so aiming to have the hull finished by then. We'll see how it goes.

[Jeff]

I like the trailer and console!!! Jeff