Finally Started on 23 Inboard

[EBEACH]

Ralph,

Your boat looks great! Nice job.

For the dash, you could get a unique appearance with a carbon or silver carbon type of woven fabric.

something like this:
Fabric

or this:

L-SIM

I just did this last weekend on one of my dash (glove box) panels for my Tsunami. I still have a little more work left on it, but it looks fine. I think I will coat it with the signature finish to give it some UV protection.

Jim

[RalphD]

Jim, I like the black fiberglass. Which did you use? Did you lay it in the mold to start or apply it on the surface afterward with epoxy?

[EBEACH]

Ralph,

I had some scrap pre-preg (epoxy already applied) woven carbon graphite (black) around, and I was just experimenting with it. The stuff I used requires an oven at 240 degrees and under vacuum. I don’t have an oven for that stuff, so I just spread out some epoxy over it and sucked it down with the vacuum (not required, but it helps).

That stuff from the Netherlands looks pretty neat, but I don’t know if they distribute in the US or if you could buy just a small amount.

The cloth could be used just as you would any other fiberglass. Coat your board and then lay the carbon or whatever on top and saturate that with poly or epoxy. Use an auto body spreader to remove any excess. I’m not sure about what would be best for a top coat. I think the epoxy needs some type of UV protection for durability (?)

[RalphD]

Done at Young's Fiberglass except for boot stripe after she's splashed and painting console (if I'm ever done with it), great guys and a great job.

Shots w/ rub rail installed

[GetReel]

Frank:

She looks totally mint and the Youngs did a great job. Love the 'Ice Blue'. Keep us posted on the Repower job...you've got me thinking about that again...I will be very interested to find out your numbers and prop spec's. I assume you stay with 1.1/4" shaft??The Yanmar rep at the NY boat show wasn't 100% sure on that when I asked, but I assume he was figuring on the bigger 6 inline. ?

[RalphD]

Frank:

She looks totally mint and the Youngs did a great job. Love the 'Ice Blue'. Keep us posted on the Repower job...you've got me thinking about that again...I will be very interested to find out your numbers and prop spec's. I assume you stay with 1.1/4" shaft??The Yanmar rep at the NY boat show wasn't 100% sure on that when I asked, but I assume he was figuring on the bigger 6 inline. ?

Thanks

The shaft is going up to at least 1 3/8". I'm going with 1 1/2" if it will work. My strut is fabfricated stainless steel so I'm having a machine shop remove the existing barrel and weld on a new one. From everybody I talked to, 1 1/4" isn't enough.

[GetReel]

The last time I looked at this it was the 240 hp 4 cyclinder Yanmar, several sources 'thought' the 1.25" would work and not have to re-shaft but was only a first look then....are you going with the newer in-line 6? How much hp?

Keep me posted! When will Holtz finish???

I may wonder south for the AC Boat Show.

[RalphD]

It's been awhile but here's pretty much the end of the story. Still some stuff to do, but after two years, that's it until winter.

For those interested I ended up with a 4-blade 17x19 lightly cupped nibral prop from Atlantis Propeller. WOT is around 3,470 rpms (OK per Mac Boring). I could be slightly underpropped but I want to wait until she gets loaded up.

I'm getting 30 mph at 2,950, 31.5 mph at 3,100 and 35+ at WOT. We checked the instrument tac from Yanmar and it's off by 200 rpm's high over 3,000 rpms. It' about exactly what I was told in the beginning.

Here's some pics. I'm going fishing.





Inside Console





Console and Overhead



The overhead and the T-Top would look better if somebody didn't plaster those Pipe Dreams Marine stickers all over the place.

[Old'sCool]

That is very, very nice!

[PipeDreamsMarine]

Boy those antenna's sure are straight.... She sure is pretty.. Hey guy's.. I've seen this boat though the whole process and the work is top notch and very well thought out. Hats off to you Ralph..