Boat Builder Central - Builder Forums

Haven't built the windshields yet, still need to clean up the wire tangles, but it was close enough to lauch.

Brand new Mercury so didnt take it over 3500rpm but at 3500 we were going 24mph by the GPS, 17mph at 2800rpm. Thats with 3 of us on board and 19 gallons of fuel.

We filled it up with fuel which took a while, the fill hose has too many bends in it so couldn't open the nozzle wide open without it back feeding. Not sure if I will change anything or live with it. Then we hooked a hose up to it and tested it would start and run ok. (It did)

Then we dropped it in the water and Landon and I took it around the bay a couple times. Everything was smooth so we picked up momma and went out on the Lake. Put a total of 50 minutes on it but wind was picking up and we were starting to slam Landon in the front pretty good so we called it a success and headed back in.

The side drains are well above the water line but I didnt take measurements. Will have to play around with that a bit next time we are in the water. I did have Landon and Alison both stand against the motorwell bulkhead and with the full 19gal tank they were still above water(without me in the boat)
I'll post adventures on the water with it here and continue the build related info in my build thread.

Your boat looks right at home on the water and I really like the angle it is on plane. Bet there was 3 very happy people putting that thing on the water!


The extra spray coming up at the transom, is that the transducer kicking it up? Did it read ok on plane?

Congrats Narfi, she looks great on the water!!! Jeff

Congratulations! Looks like it's floating nice. 24mph at 3500rpm is pretty good with a stock prop. I was hoping for a 25-26mph cruise at 3800-4000rpm when I'm done. To many people focus on WOT speed, but how often will you run wide open for a long time.
Well you definitely beat me to the launch.

OrangeQuest wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 3:29 am Your boat looks right at home on the water and I really like the angle it is on plane. Bet there was 3 very happy people putting that thing on the water!


The extra spray coming up at the transom, is that the transducer kicking it up? Did it read ok on plane?

Yes very happy! Was one of those surreal feelings when we were coming back into the bay, a moment you have dreamed about and it just registers that you are now experiencing it A feeling usually reserved for extravagant vacations that you plan for years in advance.

Good question about the transducer, I never even messed with it while we were out, only had the engine info on screen. I still have a lot to learn about the use of the MFD, but like you said, we had 3 eager people ready to get out of the house I can toy around with that as we go.

Last 2 weeks has been a hard push to get this far, and now even less time as we will be on the water more, and I have 2 weeks backlog of mowing the lawn and burning trash to get done as well.......

Jeff wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:15 am Congrats Narfi, she looks great on the water!!! Jeff

Thanks!!!

silentneko wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:54 am Congratulations! Looks like it's floating nice. 24mph at 3500rpm is pretty good with a stock prop. I was hoping for a 25-26mph cruise at 3800-4000rpm when I'm done. To many people focus on WOT speed, but how often will you run wide open for a long time.
Well you definitely beat me to the launch.

Break in is up to 3500rpm for first hour varying settings, up to 4500rpm second hour varying settings and WOT for 1 minute increments every 10 minutes, and then the remaining 8 hours max 5 minutes WOT at a time.
I doubt I will ever need to go WOT much, it is a big lake, but I am cheap, so will have fun learning economy settings more than top speeds.(unless the weather turns on me of course)

As for beating you.... I did cheat quite a bit. Been going on marginal sleep last couple of weeks to get this far, got home last night and felt the stress had left me and I was in bed by 8 thought I would watch a movie and passed out promptly. The windshields arent done, need to figure out how to operate all the electronics, need to straighten the tangled wires everywhere, cup holders were cheap and most of their LEDs dont work, so we didn't really secure them down, just their cheap foam tape for now, but need to replace them with some sort of quality. Etc..... Ill be the rest of the summer at least in the build thread I think actually finishing the project. Was very nice to get it in the water though, looking forward to seeing yours wet as well.

Boat looks great on the water. And it runs really well too. I am sure it was a great day for all involved. Congratulations!

Looks great! Love the performance report as I just hung a 60hp on mine but am still a ways from launch. Some good speeds for mid throttle though I'm sure mine will be a heavy one.

How tender is the boat? That's one of the things I'm most curious about. With a few people on board do you need to be careful as people move around at all or pretty stable?

joe2700 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:19 pm

How tender is the boat? That's one of the things I'm most curious about. With a few people on board do you need to be careful as people move around at all or pretty stable?

It seemed pretty stable, but I didn't really test that much. If weather is nice and we go out tonight, I might try walking around the gunwlaes and see how it feels.

As to the transducer question, I found a picture I took of the screen and it does seem to be displaying depth ok.

Oh Hell yes! Congrats! I too had those crazy 16 hour days at the end of the OD18 build and can appreciate the thrill of running her for the first time. You did it!

Took a friend with us after work to roast sausages on a beach across the lake. 3 adults a 115lb youth and a dog with big lawn chairs and bags of food, still went 24mph at 3500rpm.

Played around walking on the gunwales, its pretty stable, had my wife take a picture with me on each side so you could see the difference in how it sits. (Thats with most of the 19 gal under left console and me at around 175lbs)

Was over an hour so went to open it up to 4500 on the way back, but realized I never rigged the cables, just hooked them up.... ran out of cable just over 3500 which I'm sure doesn't hurt during break in. (Can I claim it was intentional????)

So will adjust them before we go out again and then see how it does at 4500(3/4 throttle)

Took our dog with us..... he jumped out of the boat while we driving down the runway, hit face first and bloodied himself up. He didn't like the chop on the way there but was a smoother ride back and he was worn out so laid at my feet.

congrats! boat is looking great!

Looks like a lot of fun was had!

Nice Narfi, sorry about the pup!!! Jeff

narfi wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:30 pm Played around walking on the gunwales, its pretty stable, had my wife take a picture with me on each side so you could see the difference in how it sits. (Thats with most of the 19 gal under left console and me at around 175lbs)

That description and pics on the gunwales are great, cover exactly what I was wondering thanks! It's still a small boat but actually a little flatter with you up there that I was expecting. Enjoy the new ride! Hoping to have mine in the water before the end of the season.

Just checked in. Sure looks great. I am a year away. It is hard. These splashes help inspire me to keep on.

joe2700 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:29 am
That description and pics on the gunwales are great, cover exactly what I was wondering thanks! It's still a small boat but actually a little flatter with you up there that I was expecting. Enjoy the new ride! Hoping to have mine in the water before the end of the season.

Looking forward to seeing yours in the water as well It is crazy how all the little details and 'just one more thing' we want to add or change adds so much time to the building process.

fallguy1000 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:54 am Just checked in. Sure looks great. I am a year away. It is hard. These splashes help inspire me to keep on.

Thanks!
Love reading your progress, I am very strongly considering a skoota at some point in the future.

narfi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:34 am

fallguy1000 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:54 am Just checked in. Sure looks great. I am a year away. It is hard. These splashes help inspire me to keep on.

Thanks!
Love reading your progress, I am very strongly considering a skoota at some point in the future.

Build the 36 or the 28. Super nice boats. Mine is awful lot of work.

Congrats on the splash Narfi! Boat looks great, really nice work. You and Coach have been provinding me a lot of motivation lately with your splash stories, much appreciated!

Congratulations Narfi! Great looking boat.
Rover1

Sweet! Awesome work, congratulations!!

Great job! Looks nice on the water!

Got to test out the new prop yesterday after work.
The creek by the beach we go to there has huge overflow ponds that heat up in the summer, makes for a real enjoyable swim hole for Landon, he can wade around for hours without getting cold, dragging logs and the dog around or paddling his kayak while we sit in plush lawn chairs and read or nap while stoking the bonfire.

Michigan 13.75x13
Heavily laden with about 800lbs+ of people, dog and bonfire luxuries (food, chairs, horseshoe set, plastic kayak for landon, etc...)
24gal of fuel (full 19gal tank + i forgot to take out the extra 5gal jug I filled when filling the boat)

6050rpm and 30-31mph

Everything removed and just me and 17gal of fuel
6200rpm and 32ish mph

Comfy speed for the wife is 24ish... more than that and she usually complains.

Beautiful.

Some great pictures there Narfi. The next to last one is that a black bear I see? Every time I see a picture of your pup he looks tough enough to eat a black bear.

Fuzz wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:28 pm Some great pictures there Narfi. The next to last one is that a black bear I see? Every time I see a picture of your pup he looks tough enough to eat a black bear.

Yup, its a black bear, we saw it crossing the creek towards where we had the fire just as we were pulling away from shore.
Brutus..... he has the muscle, and the look. But he is a wuss. 10lb dogs have backed him down, and he cant take the cold.
In the winter it is all we can do to get him to step off the door threshold before peeing outside :/ and as soon as he is done he is back inside prancing because of his cold toes.
Every outing in the boat so far he has spent the return trip huddled under my feet between my seat and the console, shivering with a towel draped over him.

Beautiful place Narfi!!! Great bear shot!!!! Jeff

Great shots Narfi!

HI Narfi,
You live in a truly beautiful area. Love the dog. Looks like he has high hopes on that root though.
Wish I could go back to Alaska. Most beautiful place on earth.
Rover1

We went camping a couple of nights last weekend but I never got around to posting pictures, here they are.

We headed out Friday around 3. Bought burgers to go at the food truck and launched by 3.30
Headed up the lake about 45 minutes and pulled off just before the sandbar at the head of the lake and put on the old nasty prop.
Then we braved the channel up into the little lake..... made it part way before running aground and I jumped out and walked it a hundred feet or so through the shallowest part then we carefully motored up the rest of the way into the little lake. (Never did hit the prop I had it up pretty high and shut down the instant the boat hit sand) the channel is about 8-10ft wide right against the cliff, but the glaciel silt makes it impossible to differentiate from the huge sandbar it cuts through. During high water earlier in the summer its deeper but it was about 2ft average and 3-6 inches over the sandbar, barely up to my ankles.

Once in the lake it got back to 100ft deep or deeper though with cliffs straight up all around, the pictures font do it justice on just how massive and awsome it looks.

We camped at the mouth of a river/creek below a huge waterfall we hiked upto on Saturday, about an hour hike up the bear trails to get there. Pretty rough going and had to cross the creek a couple times, huge borders make it a bit scarry. Brutus doesn't know how to swim and wouldn't cross.... i had to drag/throw him across while knee deep in the middle of the rapids :p

We took landons canoe and every imaginable luxury. Camp chairs, blow up mattresses two tents, though landon and brutus got cold and crawled in with us the second night. And totes and totes of food and spare clothes for landon..... he goes through clothes at an impossible rate. ("OK you are dry now, these are your pj's, dont get them wet....." turn around 30 seconds later he is chest deep in the lake............)

We motored around the lake enjoying the scenery Saturday night just looking up at all of God's beauty in the cliffs and waterfalls, could even see part of a glacier up between a couple of mountain peaks.

The canoe got lots of use, we sent landon out with it to collect firewood multiple times and the creek we were at was silly, so over to a smaller creek to get drinking water as well. I went up the lake a bit with him on Saturday and we went into some of the little hollows/caves at the base of some of the cliffs, one was big enough we could turn the canoe around in, one had a crevice going back up at an angle further than we could see, landon wanted to explore it but we didn't have a flashlight with us.

All in all a great weekend for both of our bateau boats

Such a beautiful place!!! Jeff

[youtube]https://youtu.be/cHo8aSRDKH4[/youtube]

Really well done Narfi!!! If you don't mind, I want to add your video to our YouTube section on the new website!!! Jeff

Certainly
We went kind of slow so the drone could keep up, but its amazing how well it could follow us and how steady the footage was. My friend owns and operates it and put the video together for us.

narfi wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 3:58 pm Certainly
We went kind of slow so the drone could keep up, but its amazing how well it could follow us and how steady the footage was. My friend owns and operates it and put the video together for us.

Amazing indeed! I kept wondering if some of the shots were from a plane!

Great work Narfi, it will go up on the site tomorrow afternoon!!! Jeff

Great video, boat and scenery!

Living the dream!

Nice video! Thanks for posting it.
Must have been a little chilly. I see you were bundled up and Landon even had a jacket on

That was awesome! Made me think... I should have built the FS17!

Coach wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:04 am That was awesome! Made me think... I should have built the FS17!

Hehe.... you got your repairs done, so you can start one now

Very nice boat! Love the simrad.
Beautiful pictures and video!!

I just saw the video. Great pictures there, and it really shows the performance of the boat. I'm no expert, but it almost looks like you could lift the motor a little?

Raising it slightly gains a couple of knots.

Was that saltwater or freshwater? Incredible spot.

Boat looks great.

fallguy1000 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 04, 2021 3:18 am Was that saltwater or freshwater? Incredible spot.

Boat looks great.

Glacier fed freshwater. We are landlocked but live on a 60mile long lake so lots of adventuring and weather to be had.

Have had family visiting last 1.5 weeks so have had the fs17 out a few times.
Over 1100lbs of people and dog + cooler of sausages and smores and drinks + full fuel @wot = 29mph on smooth water (momma still prefers 24ish which is easier on the fuel anyways)
Still handles great in rough water but slowed down quite a bit to keep everyone somewhat comfortable.

Bought a 2 person towable inflatable and pulled Landon around a bit with it, the boat doesn't seem to know its there. Slight learning curve for me, if I start slow the floaty digs in but if I start quick it pops up and does fine. (probably obvious to anyone that has done it before, but I hadn't )

Finally got a functional chart on the plotter. I had bought Navionics Alaska Lakes charts last year for an exorbitant amount of money and they didn't even show our lake which is big enough to see on a desktop globe, just showed me boating around in large swaths of yellow land :/ After lots of back and forth with their tech support over a 3-4 month period they finally refunded my money.

After much struggling with doing it wrong and researching and trying over and over, I have figured out the process which is actually quite simple once you understand it for creating your own charts with google satellite images (or any publicly available charts) using all free/public domain software. I was struggling for a while with about a 750ft offset, but got that figured out last night and now when powered on my plotter shows my boat sitting right in my yard where it is and all my paths on the lake go to the exact locations on the beaches and launch spots we have been.

I am quite happy

Good stuff Narfi!!! Jeff

narfi wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 5:41 pm Have had family visiting last 1.5 weeks so have had the fs17 out a few times.
Over 1100lbs of people and dog + cooler of sausages and smores and drinks + full fuel @wot = 29mph on smooth water (momma still prefers 24ish which is easier on the fuel anyways)
Still handles great in rough water but slowed down quite a bit to keep everyone somewhat comfortable.

Bought a 2 person towable inflatable and pulled Landon around a bit with it, the boat doesn't seem to know its there. Slight learning curve for me, if I start slow the floaty digs in but if I start quick it pops up and does fine. (probably obvious to anyone that has done it before, but I hadn't )

Finally got a functional chart on the plotter. I had bought Navionics Alaska Lakes charts last year for an exorbitant amount of money and they didn't even show our lake which is big enough to see on a desktop globe, just showed me boating around in large swaths of yellow land :/ After lots of back and forth with their tech support over a 3-4 month period they finally refunded my money.

After much struggling with doing it wrong and researching and trying over and over, I have figured out the process which is actually quite simple once you understand it for creating your own charts with google satellite images (or any publicly available charts) using all free/public domain software. I was struggling for a while with about a 750ft offset, but got that figured out last night and now when powered on my plotter shows my boat sitting right in my yard where it is and all my paths on the lake go to the exact locations on the beaches and launch spots we have been.

I am quite happy

You literally never cease to amaze.

narfi wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 5:41 pm Have had family visiting last 1.5 weeks so have had the fs17 out a few times.
Over 1100lbs of people and dog + cooler of sausages and smores and drinks + full fuel @wot = 29mph on smooth water (momma still prefers 24ish which is easier on the fuel anyways)
Still handles great in rough water but slowed down quite a bit to keep everyone somewhat comfortable.

Bought a 2 person towable inflatable and pulled Landon around a bit with it, the boat doesn't seem to know its there. Slight learning curve for me, if I start slow the floaty digs in but if I start quick it pops up and does fine. (probably obvious to anyone that has done it before, but I hadn't )

Finally got a functional chart on the plotter. I had bought Navionics Alaska Lakes charts last year for an exorbitant amount of money and they didn't even show our lake which is big enough to see on a desktop globe, just showed me boating around in large swaths of yellow land :/ After lots of back and forth with their tech support over a 3-4 month period they finally refunded my money.

After much struggling with doing it wrong and researching and trying over and over, I have figured out the process which is actually quite simple once you understand it for creating your own charts with google satellite images (or any publicly available charts) using all free/public domain software. I was struggling for a while with about a 750ft offset, but got that figured out last night and now when powered on my plotter shows my boat sitting right in my yard where it is and all my paths on the lake go to the exact locations on the beaches and launch spots we have been.

I am quite happy

Good deal Narfi that will allow you a lot of freedom.

Tom