Derek's dream

[Jaysen]

Derek, if this is a "can i build it" boat, then think about something a bit less... ambitions. Say an OD18 or FS17. They have different uses, but will put you though ALL the paces of boat building. The OD (and OB) might be more to your gulf (near shore) fishing plans with overlap for the big boy toy that will come along later.

And don't discount something like (re)building out a hull like the Bertram (there's a few here). That may be a good way to get a bit more boat with a different set of effort and leave you some options for accommodating the smarter half.

[fallguy1000]

After taking the advice of the board, I'm going to drop the HP to twin 115hp outboards. Joe2700, I appreciate the suggestion of the single main with a kicker, but do not feel comfortable going 10+ miles out with that setup, as I need to make sure my wife doesn't over heat on the excursions (medical reasons).

Now that my head is actually out of the clouds, thank you guys, a 25' by 8'6" boat in the middle gounds would have me chumming more than fishing on anything worse than a perfect day, if I got it out there. With that, I might just have to build a bigger boat later if I feel I did good enough with this build.

Knew I could count on y'all

Getting out is never the problem. The problem with a planing hull is coming back at 8 miles an hour if, no, when, the weather gets rough. On the Great Lakes, getting out in the morning is usually nice, winds pick up later in the day. In my small boat, I always troll into head seas, or planned head seas, so I have following on return. NOAA has a great forecast tool for the GL, not sure if they have it for GoM. But, if you habe westerlies, you could plan returning to the west coasts of FL, etc., later in the day. Itis the head sea that pounds the hell outta most vee hulls.

[MisterD83]

NOAA is pretty good at predicting weather out to about 20 miles with a different forecast for near shore out to 10 miles for the GoM. Its come second nature checking those reports a few days and day of a fishing trip, even for a head/charter boat. For longer trips I can look at raw data from at sea.

I've been in those pounding seas, both directions.

[thb]

I like the suggestion someone had on rebuilding a Bertram 28 instead or trying to build a big boat yourself. There is a nice 28 Bertram here in Steinhatchee.

Regards
Tom

[Fuzz]

The one thing to know if you plan for following seas to return in is how well does the boat track in them. I once fished a boat for a whole commercial season that broached like mad. The afternoon winds always came from the south and we had to run north at the end of the day. I swear that pig laid plumb over on its side every third wave. Got rid of that death trap and bought a boat that ate following seas. Got caught in the gulf one time in following seas same height as boat length. That sweetheart tracked like she was on rails. 5 others around me did not do so well that day

[BarraMan]

I appreciate the suggestion of the single main with a kicker, but do not feel comfortable going 10+ miles out with that setup, as I need to make sure my wife doesn't over heat on the excursions (medical reasons).

Why?

I doubt one 110 hp motor is going to put that boat on the plane, so your stuck with displacement speed anyway. A high trust 9.9 hp will do that for you.

[joe2700]

I appreciate the suggestion of the single main with a kicker, but do not feel comfortable going 10+ miles out with that setup, as I need to make sure my wife doesn't over heat on the excursions (medical reasons).

Why?

I doubt one 110 hp motor is going to put that boat on the plane, so your stuck with displacement speed anyway. A high trust 9.9 hp will do that for you.

It was 110 Gal of fuel they were mentioning, a single motor would need to be much larger than that but is still a lot more fuel efficient than 2 smaller motors as far as I know.

[thb]

With the reliability of modern 4 strokes I would not hesitate to go 10 to 25 miles offshore. I did that quite often with an 18 ft welcraft I owned which had 75 hp 2 stroke mercury. If you went with a modern 200 to 250 hp 4 stroke you would have great reliability and good fuel economy. Better than 2 miles per gallon probably.

Regards
Tom

[BarraMan]

I appreciate the suggestion of the single main with a kicker, but do not feel comfortable going 10+ miles out with that setup, as I need to make sure my wife doesn't over heat on the excursions (medical reasons).

Why?

I doubt one 110 hp motor is going to put that boat on the plane, so your stuck with displacement speed anyway. A high trust 9.9 hp will do that for you.

It was 110 Gal of fuel they were mentioning, a single motor would need to be much larger than that but is still a lot more fuel efficient than 2 smaller motors as far as I know.

No, I was talking about hp - OK so I wrote 110 when I meant to write 115 hp. The extra 5 ponies are not going to make any difference. I don’t think one motor of a pair of 115s is going to put that boat on the plane.

How far off shore do you want to go? Let's chuck around some rough ballpark figures!

My boat has a 250 hp 4-stroke and is a little shorter than a DX25, about the same width and probably a fair bit lighter given the DX25 cabin structure. Say a DX25 with a single 250 hp 4-stroke burns 50 L/hr (13.2 US gal/hr) at 20 kts in fairly rough seas, then with 110 US gal of fuel (416L) its going to run for about 8 hrs = 160 nm. Factor in a 100% safety margin and you could easily go 40-50 nm out.

A 9.9 hp high trust kicker is gonna bring you home from 50 nm out in what (?) - 10 hrs at 5 kts and burn no more than 50 L (13.2 US gal). Say 33 US gal total for the round trip!

Works for me!

Anything wrong with my figures?

[joe2700]

No, I was talking about hp - OK so I wrote 110 when I meant to write 115 hp. The extra 5 ponies are not going to make any difference. I don’t think one motor of a pair of 115s is going to put that boat on the plane.

Likely true, they would need a single 200-250. That's still cheaper and more fuel efficient than two 115s as far as I know, so that's what I was comparing. If fuel is the concern I'm pretty sure they would get more range with one 250 and a small kicker than two 115s was the only reason I suggested it.