Flatstalker 18 3-21-24 Ian Andersen

[Captaineasy]

After 2 years of work we finally splashed our Flatstalker 18! Thanks so much to Jeff and Reid at Boatbuildercentral for all your help. You guys are a first class operation! A couple of guys who really go the extra mile for their customers! My son Ian and I started this project just over 2 years ago. As most things in life go, things got in the way and it took a little longer then we planned to finish it. During the time of this build life changed in some very profound ways. It would have been easy to give up, but we pushed through the tough times and persevered!
I can say that I'm very happy with both the way the boat came out and the overall design. The first day we took her out was a very windy choppy day in Florida Bay and we had to cross a large bay to get from the ramp to where we were headed. I was surprised at how well this little boat ate up that chop! I really wasn't expecting it to ride so well in that condition. The second day we took her up to the Aerojet canal to do some bass fishing. This boat is a very stable platform to fish off of and so easy to launch.
We've still got to add a couple of finishing touches. Still need to build a deck for the poling platform, tweak the engine height on the jackplate and add some self leveling trim tabs as we've got some slight proposing going on when running wide open in a flat calm sea. Other then that, she's good to go! I think I'll open up another thread in another section to post pictures of the build.
Thanks Guys
Bruce

[cape man]

Very nice! Perfect boat for there.

[Jeff]

Nice work!! Congrats!! Jeff

[Buz]

Sitting on a dead duck!

Now I wanna do my wales like THAT!

Beautiful color, too. What did you use?

[Captaineasy]

Thank you

The paint was quantum in ice blue. We rolled it with foam rollers and really didn't do much tipping. I've got a little experience with awl grip, and was surprised at the differences between the two. With awlgrip, I always have to tip the paint after rolling it, with the quantum, it seemed to flow out better without tipping, but I did find that you really had to thin it a lot because you would get a lot of sags if you put it on too heavy. I wouldn't say I'm unhappy, but in the future, I think I'll stick with awlgrip. I'm just a little bit more comfortable with it.

For the gunnels I had some leftover 5/4 inch mahogany decking left over from a job my dad had done a while back on a very high-end house, where they used mahogany for the exterior sundecks of the house. He saved all of the scraps and a little bit of the surplus lumber, and we've used it for all kinds of stuff over the years. I ripped it down with the tablesaw to get the right thickness and we varnished it and used it for the gunnels and rub rails. I know that it's not that practical of a rub rail, but I love the way it looks so we're just gonna be really careful and will have to re-varnish it every now and then.

And oh, yeah, I love sitting on that beanbag!