Boat Builder Central - Builder Forums

T minus 4 days to launch the boat at final destination Marco Island. I decided to stretch wrap the front of the boat seats and motor from road rash for its 24 hour journey from Wisconsin to Florida. Just got on the road.

Sunday night or Monday I’m picking up a poling platform from a guy in Naples. I have a bunch of real work to do on Monday and Tuesday, but hope to be splashed in the water on Tuesday afternoon. I will get it all shined up and take a bunch on pics from every angle.

I decided to put in a lift for the boat, but it won’t be ready for a couple months, but that will give me a excuse to come Back to FL. I’m also looking to get a cover made down in fl.

Cbuf.

Safe travels.

You are very close!!!! She looks great!! Jeff

Have a safe trip!

The trip down was great and uneventful. I had shrink wrapped the cushions, motor, and front of the boat to prevent bugs and road rock from chipping the paint. Also the original trailer has a 8’axle originally, which was too wide for a 5.5 foot boat. So I took the trailer apart and cut a foot out of everything and welded even thing back together. I‘M so glad I did that it made it narrow than the truck which making pulling much easier.

The boat made it all 1200 miles without any issues.

The day we got to Fl I stopped at a guys house that I met on Facebook markplace. He had a polling platform that I thought would fit perfectly. Unfortunately it was 2” shorter than I needed it. However I really liked the hugeness of the platform. I have been on platforms that are small and I find it challenging. This platform is 40 by 32 plus it came with 4 nice rod holders for the right price. It was the wrong color, so for the next 2 days I stripped, primed, and painted it to match the boat. I also made 3”x2” risers to make you the extra height I needed. My mom, my sister, my son and I went out to catch some dinner and caught3 keeper grouper and som snappers.

Once all the paint and sealent was dry. We launched it. It floated higher and ran much better in the saltwater. I was really impressed with how well it performed.

Top speed 35
cruise with 2 guys full gear, full gas, and full livewell was 30 mph @ 4900-5100 getting 7 mpg.

I only has a half a day on the water to play with it because I had to work the entire trip. However we took it out caught some fish and met up with my family on a small island we like to fish from. I took some good pics there.

Right now the boat is in the garage waiting for a cover to be made and the lift to be installed. I will be back down for a fishing trip in either oct or nov once the lift is in. Hopefully I will not be so busy at work and I will be able to fish more.

Cbuf

I'm glad you made it safely!

Sounds like it performed perfectly! Congratulations!

Looks great! Can only see one thing wrong with it. Not enough cup holders.

That sure did turn out nice! I bet you will have a ton of fun with it.

Congratulations, she looks and performed well!!! Jeff

The boat looks great, and you broke it in right. What color is the outside hull? It looks excellent on that hull.

Very nice, congratulations on the launch and thanks for the speed figures.

thanks all. This site it great for encouragement to continue to push on. At times I was overwhelmed trying to prethink everything, but in the end the solution always present itself. The encouragement and power of " build on" is important.

P.S. since I switched from a tiller to the console I did lose a cup holder. I plan to add it to the cast platform for a total of 4. Also, my passenger requested a grab bar in the front of the livewell seat for bouncing wakes.

She is Smokin'!

Beautiful boat! Love the center console and remote steering. Thinking of building something similar. About how deep is she drafting with the console and the 50HP Evinrude?

Looks amazing! Ill bet it feels great too..... people asking you about it and you cant help grinning with pride

Browndog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:50 pm Looks great! Can only see one thing wrong with it. Not enough cup holders.

Those are just the secondary cup holders, these are the primary,

Beautiful boat Chuf. May you have many uses of her.

Tom

Marco island hurricane ian.
Storm surge was 10’
The neighbor sent me a pic right before the power went out. Once I saw my lm18 in trouble I hopped in the car and drove 24 hours to get there as soon as I could. When I left madison Wisconsin the hurricane was still over the water, but because it stalled out I made it to Tampa after it came through. I have been working 18 hours days and am finally in the car heading home.
The house is good, we lost a screen and screen door. The family toys didn’t fair so good.
Deck boat floated its cradle and broke it rope. It floated for 2 miles finding a nice 4 million dollar boat to crash into. It must have hit tons of things along it journey because it is totalled
The Everglades stayed on the lift but landed on the dock.
1 of 2 jet skis was in a tree and resting on a bush and a fence. It broke its safety clip
And finally my lm18 was strapped to the lift and submerged for 3 hours.

More pics to come.

In that last pictures zoom in on the left side and you can see the lm18 above the water just before more water came in and killed it.

Damn that is a mess! Did the house make it through in decent shape? That is a bunch of water toys to lose all at once. How bad did the LM end up being? Losing something you built would be much tougher than something you just bought, at least it would be to me.

Horrible!!

I hate looking at that. Glad the house stood.

The house did well. We lost a screen and the screen door, but the toys didn't fair as well. My homemade green boat seen in the second pic was under water for about 3 hours, I had to rewire the boat, but it survived. The big boat shifted forward in the cradle and I had to get it back into the water, switch was successful. However I have an electrical short that I still need to resolve. We had lost one jetski, that wound up across the canal in a neighbors tree. I made a ramp and successfully got that into the water, no real damage. My moms boat broke free and took about a mile journey bounces off of lots of things and landing against about a 4 million yacht and did some damage to that. The hole boat will need a faired and repainted. All in all we were lucky. I was told the Isle of capri had the most damage and many homes are no longer. The guy living in that 4m boat said his home there literally washed away down to the slab.

As for the LM18 the motor didn't submerge. The wiring and terminal blocks were all underwater and pretty much melted. Luckily I had another terminal block and move all the wiring to just under the seat. I should have thought about that when building. From now on, all wiring I do will be at about the highest point on the boat with home runs and no low connections. When I built the LM I put weep holes in everything, so I dont think I will have any problems. I ran the boat to survey the damage in the area, and it ran fine.

Terrible!!!! Jeff

Very good news that the LM is back up and running! Says a lot of good things about the boat And great news for you that things worked out as well as they have.

Glad that you are well, and things are working out well also. Tom