FS14 nearing completion

[racerrob]

I thought about the motor fins, but I'd hate to drill thru our brand new motor to experiment. I have no prior experience with them. Anybody tells me they work for this I'd listen. Otherwise we'll try the bow weight and the tiller extension deal. Thanks for the suggestion. Also, any ideas on how to register a home built boat in North Carolina?


BTW: My son (who is 27 yrs old with bit of a mental handicap), absolutely loves running the boat. He took it out alone last night for the first time and did very well driving at all speeds. He can't wait to go fishing on Lake Norman with it. We painted it "Petty" or "Tar Heel" blue which he picked out and finally came up with a name: "Blue Heron" cause we get them around our house on the lake. Other than eating fiberglass dust for a few weeks and having a separate hamper for "boat building clothes" this was a great experience and I would do it again. (Larger!!)

[Russ5924]

If you do a search you will find some have used the Smart Tabs and as far as I can tell they seem to work great. I would rather go that route than start adding weight. I did uses those fins on one boat I had and they did work very well to stop the boat from porpoising and keep the bow down before it got up on plane. Just seems a shame to drill holes in a new motor

[jacquesmm]

You don't have to add weight, you have to move the weights.
This is strange.
The solution is simple but we discuss trim tabs instead of going for the very simple solution of sitting forward when alone. That is the way it should be done in every boat, not only our designs.
It's like saying: I can't sleep; he doctor tells me it's all the coffee I drink at night but I prefer to have the coffee and take sleeping pills.

[Evan_Gatehouse]

It's the weight.

For a single person, shift into gear while idling, move to the middle seat and then throttle up from there. To stop such as coming to a dock, slow down first so you come off plane, move aft, and shift into neutral. Found the exact same thing on a GV11 with a 15 HP motor. That's a lot of power for a small light boat

[racerrob]

Ok, we'll go the tiller extension route this weekend and see how we do.
Thanks.

Link for my gallery.

[http://forums.bateau2.comindex.php?cat=17197]

PS: I could not figure out how to post an active link to my gallery.

[ks8]

remove the brackets...

http://forums.bateau2.comindex.php?cat=17197

[TomW]

Rob, here is the page from the NC Fish & Game on registration and titleing a boat. As I understand it any new boat 14' and over has to be both titled and registered as of Jan. 1, 2007.

The main thing is to gather up your reciepts to have for the title office to prove you built the darn thing. It really doesn't sound to ominous. Just another way for the State to jerk us around. It has been a while since I read these, you may have to get a form and send it to Raleigh.

The local game warden does the registration, as far as I could tell from what I could read from this.

http://www.ncwildlife.org/fs_index_01_license.htm

Good luck with it.

Tom

[mecreature]

Very nice looking boat Rob.. Looks like tons of fun.

[jacquesmm]

Very nice looking boat. You did a better job with your boot line than I did on the FS12.
Now that I see where you sit, I understand the porpoising. I'm surprised you even got the boat on plane!

[ks8]

Clean design, clean build! Looks great! Congrats!