GF16 In The PSL

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Repton
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by Repton »

Gary,
Couple of questions...

You built exactly by the plans, correct?

You indicate that your boat floats in 4" and am curious to know if you could provide some info as to your weight distribution when its floating at 4". Like, say, 2 half full 3 gal. gas cans in the bow, motor and battery (what size and weight?) in the stern, anything else (weight and location) of significance? Obviously, no people included, right?

Is it really exactly 4" or just somewhere in the neighborhood of 4"? Doesn't really matter to me what it is, but am more curious as to the precision of that number.

Do you know the finished weight of your boat? Just the hull, the wood, glass and paint?

This will information will be very helpful to me going forward.

thanks,
Bobby

TomW1
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by TomW1 »

Noles the GF16 with a 25 2 stroke Merc by CL ran 32 knots with our combined 500 lbs a small cooler and tackle. He had put two 12oz layers of fiberglass on it to stiffen it up. He also had a Doel Fin on the motor to account for porpoising.

Tom
Restored Mirror Dinghy, Bought OD18 built by CL, Westlawn School of Yacht Design courses. LT US Navy 1970-1978

TomW1
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by TomW1 »

Bobby don't worry about the high bow it is a small boat and the front transom can be cut down some and then a block placed under the mounting for the trolling motor. I believe a 48 or 56 inch standard trolling motor will work well. I would not even be adverse to just cutting down a short section of the transom for the trolling motor. That would keep the keep the general look with the trolling motor replacing the part you cut out.

Tom
Restored Mirror Dinghy, Bought OD18 built by CL, Westlawn School of Yacht Design courses. LT US Navy 1970-1978

Noles309
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by Noles309 »

Repton wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 7:56 am Gary,
Couple of questions...

You built exactly by the plans, correct?

You indicate that your boat floats in 4" and am curious to know if you could provide some info as to your weight distribution when its floating at 4". Like, say, 2 half full 3 gal. gas cans in the bow, motor and battery (what size and weight?) in the stern, anything else (weight and location) of significance? Obviously, no people included, right?

Is it really exactly 4" or just somewhere in the neighborhood of 4"? Doesn't really matter to me what it is, but am more curious as to the precision of that number.

Do you know the finished weight of your boat? Just the hull, the wood, glass and paint?

This will information will be very helpful to me going forward.

thanks,
Bobby
Hey Bobby, Yes I built to the plans with the exception of raising the transom.
I don't know the finished weight. The draft was measured by me out of the boat and no passengers. Draft was around 4" I don't remember the exact measurement.
The 20 Nissan with electric start weighs like 90 lbs. I have a real small motorcycle battery under the back deck, it weighs about 10 lbs. Two full 3 gal fuel tanks and anchor under the front deck. Yeti 35 strapped to front deck. FG push pole and stick anchor and misc other small stuff was the load out when I measured.
Gary
GF-16 Completed

Repton
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by Repton »

Gary,
thanks for that information.

Are you in Savanah forever or will you be back in Tally anytime soon?

thanks

Noles309
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by Noles309 »

Pretty much forever...we visit occasionally my dad and brother are there.
Gary
GF-16 Completed

MBMurphy3
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by MBMurphy3 »

cedarock wrote: Mon Mar 24, 2014 8:17 pm I pop in from time to time to see how my fellow boat building friends are doing and tend to follow boat building threads about boats that I am familiar with a little more often. When I saw this thread about the rocker, I sent Gary a PM about my experience with my gf14. I advised not to let the rocker go and thought about it and think that it should be shared for everyone to ponder and to help Gary and future builders come to the right conclusion.

I checked the bottom of my boat once while building and thought that it was flat from the mid seat back, which is what I had read in threads dating way back on the gfs. I launched with an old mariner 15 and was quite happy. It would push the boat 23-24 mph by myself and would plane okay with my wife and small dogs. Later, My brother and I took it out to the flounder hole and he weighs a touch more than Maggie! :) The boat really struggled to get on plane with that extra weight up front. I also noticed that the bow was riding higher than I thought it should and it would porpoise really bad by myself. I was okay for a while but about six months went by and I started to question what was going on. I then checked the bottom closely and found pretty much the exact rocker as is in this thread. Last 20 inches or so had 1/4 inch of rocker. My thoughts were that the boat was trying to run on that 20 inches. By adding weight, the motor struggled to lift the bow to run on that planning surface. Thinking about how to correct my mistake...... I decided to turn it over and take out the rocker. Luckily, I used graphite on the bottom and up the sides a bit. I taped the paint and sanded the graphite down some. I glued a 1/4 piece of ply to take half of the rocker out, cutting around the runners. I shaped it down with a grinder to about 1/8 inch thick toward the bow and used biaxal strips at varied widths to build up and take out the rest of the 10" or so of the rocker. I covered the ply and the biaxal strips with a full piece of biaxal. And then one more piece to cover the entire patch and around the sides a little. Then a new fillet along the runners and taped them again to tie it all together. Faired and rolled some graphite on it all.

I noticed a difference right away. The boat would run with a lower bow at 27 mph by myself with the same motor. No problem planing with two and porpoising was all but gone while running solo. I don't know if my repair was the best way but it has worked well for a couple of years and if it fails (don't think it will), a gf16 will be in the future with no rocker in the last 20 inches. I am sure that more horsepower would have overcome my situation and I thought about getting a 25 before the repair. I did replace the mariner with a four stoke 15, due to dependability of the mariner, and it performs the same with the heavier motor. Does any of this make sense or am I just obsessive about getting the best performance possible! :)
My son and I are building a GF16. We noticed the 1/4" gap from the bottom of the stern transom to the work table we are using. We noticed it before we flipped and installed the bottom. We reviewed various threads for the GF16 and found this rake is common (probably universal). There seemed to be two approaches. "No big deal . Leave it." and "Probably best to fix it". Reading the "post bottom installation" solutions they all seemed like a pain in the stern. We decided to fix it before the bottom was fixed to the transom. We placed a 1/4" x 3/4" strip across the beam on the bottom panel where the bottom of the boat meets the bottom of the transom. We stitched the bottom panel leaving a gap which tapered from 1/4" at the stern to 0" about 20" going toward the bow. We glue/puttied the gap. This was a mega simple way to fix the problem. Thanks to every that posts. It is a great help to know in advance what we are facing.

Noles309
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Re: GF16 In The PSL

Post by Noles309 »

Cool....That's the easy way to fix it for sure.
Gary
GF-16 Completed

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