Seafari Stern

[Bigshrimpin]

gaulois - Roy's Zancudo Lodge in Golfito Costa Rica has 10 boats powered by twin Suzuki 115's. They claimed to be logging 2000+ hours on the motors w/o any problems (that was a year ago) and cut fuel consumption numbers in half.

You might email them and get details.

[Mike_D]

here are some pics of the back of my 1971 20'. because it had duals the transom opening is very large. I have had waves crash in and taken on alot of water in rough seas while reversing and never had a problem. Water comes in hits spash door and gones out. A few times I had water come in with door down but still drianed out.

[oldbluesplayer]

Would you have a picture showing the stern, from the inside, with a larger / wider view - showing the whole rear end from side to side - preferably with the cockpit floor in the forground ? Are there any seats, or other enclosure, either side of the motor cutout/ splashwell area ?

That would be appreciated -

I'm noting that it looks like your double wide motor cutout, is even wider than Nicks, whom I thought had the double wide, but still has seats on either side, as opposed to mine being the single wide motor cutout - interesting variations

Thanks

Bill

[Mike_D]

I have this one,

Mike

[oldbluesplayer]

just the shot I was looking for !!!

That makes three variations on 20' Seafari sterns -

yours I'll call a wide double, no seats/boxes adjacent

Nicks is a narrow double, with adjacent seat boxes

and mine is a single, with adjacent seat boxes

Curious. Yes, with that much exposure in the rear, I can imagine you've taken a few across the stern, and from the last pic, I see you still have the original thru hull scuppers intact, and you report they've worked fine.

I'd be interested to know, and probably Galois would, how yours performs with that Suzi 115 ?

Thanks

Bill

[cSickNick]

Bill,

I think my stern is the same as yours?


I would say mine and yours are the single/ adj boxes and Mike's is certainly open for a double.( I would call it the NE tuna door option! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])

I wonder if the double option was on early years only and then went to the single only on later years? Mine is a 1979.

Does that leave only 2 original transom outboard configs for the 20' Seafari?

- Nick

[oldbluesplayer]

What I notice in yours, is the port seat hatch hinge width, is much narrower than the starboard side hinge width, like by about half; not the case in mine. Also noting where the upper motor mount bolts are, in relation to the rest of the splashwell structure, granted the Suzi and the Johnson may have different motor bolt patterns, though I would guess not all that different - I'll have to measure mine for the length of the bottom of the transom cutout - It also looks like your transom doesn't provide a full back to the seats.

I wish I had the same pic available, don't right now, but have these two which I think will show some of the difference -



I'm out of town tonight, but will shoot the comparable interior / transom / seats pic this weekend and get it up here - I'm convinced there are 3 variations showing here. By the way, mine is a '73.

Nick - do you have a built in fishwell under the port side seat, like mine, or a lift out baitwell, like the specs page talks about, or just open storage?

I think maybe from this pic, you can see that there is darn little addional width on mine, past the motor.



If you go to the home page here, and look at the 20 footers, I'd say mine looks just like Hammer's 20 CC, while your's appears to be just like Tim Dugans 20CC.

So back to rebuilding the stern section, doing away with the seats, and building an improved splashwell / gate, kinda like that 18 cc - if you put in a subfloor, or extended the cabin sole, so that the batteries, one on each side, were raised up, and easier to get to, would that have a significant impact on balance, or create other issues?

I'm beginning to like this design concept alot, and am tempted to lay it out over the winter, but really want to figure out the variables and get it right - as it stands, looking back on my recent transom rebuild, there are a bunch of design related things I wish I had done different, rather than just rebuild the way it was - just for example, putting a larger radius in the lower corners of the transom notch, and then having the side of the notch be vertical, rather than sloping....

groping... and learning... and having fun

Bill

[gaulois]

Hey Nick,
You have the same model stern that I have. Even though Mike D's stern is different, his folding splash board would work.
I like that idea- a rather simple solution. The rattling is probably nerve racking....
What kind of engine do you have nick? Is that a Suzuki 2 stroke? If so, is it reliable?

[Fr. Frank]

My '72 Seafari is like yours, Nick. Anchored up in a strong current with a following sea, my bilge pumps run constantly as water gets past the cable boot around the steering and control cables. The original hole for thse cables is below the level of the transom, so when the engine well fills with water, the boot is underwater. In these conditions, EVERY wave comes splashing into the boat. That's even if I leave the fishwell under the port transom seat dry. I have a '91 Merc 150, plus a 10 hp Force kicker. It's the main reason I installed a second 750 gph pump with it's own float switch 2 inches higher than the main 1000 gph pump. (It's only kicked on once, when the float for the main pump failed.)