Newbee with 1969 20' SF

[mentalfloss]

Again, Thanks.
Sea++'s boat is SWEET! Now I'm psyched.
The guy that restored my boat did not raise the floor. I will let you know how it rides after we hang the motor.

[mentalfloss]

Good news: I bought a half tower and a 150 Suzuki 4 stroke.
Bad news; When we mounted the Suzuki, it thru bolts sunk right into the fiberglass on the transom. And that was with an aluminum plate as a backer. The shop says that the guy that rebuilt the transom used only one piece of plywood. They suggest rebuilding the transom. Damn!

I am thinking about going with a full transom with a bracket.

I am sure that someone has lived through this before! Any suggestions?

[Bushwacker]

. . . I am thinking about going with a full transom with a bracket.

I am sure that someone has lived through this before! Any suggestions?

You picked a heavy motor, so you'll need a bracket with maximum flotation, like a Hermco, to keep it self bailing at rest. Was talking to Don Herman last week and he's considering making the flotation tank even wider to handle the heavy 4-strokes. Suggest you contact Don to see if he can fix you up with one of those! Also consider rebuilding that transom with a composite core to reduce weight back there.

[mentalfloss]

Thanks much Bushwacker. I was considering letting the deck water flow into a tank and having a bilge pump, pump it out. Or even straight into the hull and pumping it out. No self bailing issues. I saw that Avenger and Gause were doing that on some of theirs. What do you think?

[Bushwacker]

There's a reason Moesly set up his 21, 20, 25 and 27' designs to be self bailing - as a Florida native, he knew that we can get 10-12" of rain in a few hours without even having a hurricane! Giving up that feature just because your motor is too heavy is fundamentally a bad idea IMHO. I'd rather move the console, batteries, and even the gas tank to correct the basic CG problem you're gonna have on plane, even with a big flotation bracket, and that would also help preserve self bailing as well. Depending on the batteries and bilge pump to keep the boat from sinking in a heavy rain is tempting Murphy! It's begging for trouble!

If you go with Don Herman's new bracket design and reroute the scuppers to go out the transom with the Raybud ping pong ball check valves, I think you'd be ok. You could even get clever and cross the scupper lines under the deck like Moesly did on some of his designs so the port scupper drains on stbd side and vice versa. That way a heavy person walking to the back corner of the boat gets to keep his feet dry!

[mentalfloss]

I'm back! Got a great deal on a 4stroke Suzuki 150. Went to mount it and crushed the transom. Had the transom replaced and now have the motor mounted. Dropped it in the drink yesterday to see how it floats and the worries about her having too much "junk in her trunk" shows (but not too bad). I am thinking about moving batteries and gas tank foward, under the casting deck up front. Any opinions about this? Please. My only thought is that they will be more apt to getting bounced around. Another option is to move the console and tower foward.
On the bright side, she looks like she will flat out haul a**!

[bly]

Originally Posted by mentalfloss

I'm back! Got a great deal on a 4stroke Suzuki 150. Went to mount it and crushed the transom. Had the transom replaced and now have the motor mounted. Dropped it in the drink yesterday to see how it floats and the worries about her having too much "junk in her trunk" shows (but not too bad). I am thinking about moving batteries and gas tank foward, under the casting deck up front. Any opinions about this? Please. My only thought is that they will be more apt to getting bounced around. Another option is to move the console and tower foward.
On the bright side, she looks like she will flat out haul a**!

With out the floor raised I would think it will be too heavy. After helping my son 2 years ago redo totally a 20 and ad a 140 zuke. I was glad his floor was raised. And a lot of wet foam removed also. I tried to help a guy out that had a 20 mako that was redone wrong!!!!?? He put a 150 yam 4 stroke on there. His boat would not only not self bail? It almost sunk when the bilge pump died during a rain storm. The guy that did his boat redo installed a new floor on top of the old floor and left all the wet foam under the floor also?

[FishStretcher]

Originally Posted by mentalfloss

I'm back! Got a great deal on a 4stroke Suzuki 150. Went to mount it and crushed the transom. Had the transom replaced and now have the motor mounted. Dropped it in the drink yesterday to see how it floats and the worries about her having too much "junk in her trunk" shows (but not too bad). I am thinking about moving batteries and gas tank foward, under the casting deck up front. Any opinions about this? Please. My only thought is that they will be more apt to getting bounced around. Another option is to move the console and tower foward.
On the bright side, she looks like she will flat out haul a**!

I have a 20' Master angler with a 20" notched transom, a 100 HP 4 stroke Yamaha at 366lb, and a 56lb kicker. I have the batteries in the forward part of the console and I put a new tank moved in the console. You have 50 lb more than I have on the transom, and my setup will JUST self bail. Water is not on the deck, but in the scupper tubes maybe 1/2" from the top. I put my cooler as far forward as I can, and I have no leaning post or seat, for what that is worth. Two guys in a stern corner wrestling fish leads to water pouring in the scupper tubes.

Batteries and tank forward are a good start, but you might need a bracket or lighter motor, based on what I see with my setup. I would also strongly suggest flotation in the hull and cap. A '69 with no/little foam just sank very quickly off the Vineyard recently. I can't say it was fun figuring out where to put almost 15 more cubic feet of foam in my Master Angler, but I am glad it is there.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by mentalfloss

I'm back! Got a great deal on a 4stroke Suzuki 150. Went to mount it and crushed the transom. Had the transom replaced and now have the motor mounted. Dropped it in the drink yesterday to see how it floats and the worries about her having too much "junk in her trunk" shows (but not too bad). I am thinking about moving batteries and gas tank foward, under the casting deck up front. Any opinions about this? Please. My only thought is that they will be more apt to getting bounced around. Another option is to move the console and tower foward.
On the bright side, she looks like she will flat out haul a**!

Mentalfloss, with all due respect, you (and anyone else running a similar motor, or even a V-6 E-Tec or Optimax on a 20 sf or Seafari) should seriously consider adding a raised splashwell. The one in picture below in Kevin's 78 20sf would be a MAJOR safety improvement! This is the OEM raised splashwell option that Potter came out with in the late 70’s. Suggest you send a PM to Pianewman (Ed Newman) who is looking at having Don Herman build a batch of them. Check out this thread (http://www.classicseacraft.com/commu...ad.php?t=23137) that Ed started for more pictures. The more guys that sign up, the cheaper they’ll be!

Regarding the safety issue of low transoms and splashwells, anyone that hasn’t seen it should checkout this thread (http://www.classicseacraft.com/commu...ad.php?t=23037) about Mitchman’s 20 sf that went down suddenly off Martha’s Vineyard a couple of months ago! Mitch’s boat had enough water in the bilge that the stern went under when he opened the throttle, so I don’t know if this raised splashwell would have saved his boat, but I can’t help but wonder if it would have kept lots of water out of the boat long enough for it to accelerate away from the stern wave and maybe have bought him some time to start pumping the bilge with a manual pump!

When Carl Moesly designed the 19/20’ hulls in the mid 60’s, the biggest outboards were less than 300 lbs and the boats were easily self bailing with those motors. I believe he actually designed them for the I-6 Merc, which was very light (weighing something like 260 lbs?!) The much heavier V-6 motors came out in the late 70’s, and Potter raised the decks and came out with this raised splashwell accessory about the same time. He deserves credit for evidently recognizing the potential problems with the heavier motors! However I believe those early V-6’s were still under 400 lbs, and folks are now installing motors weighing 450-500 lbs, so the self-bailing issue is changing to one of self-sinking! Notice that all the 18's, 20 MA's, and O/B 23's which Potter designed in the 70's also have a full height splashwell!

BoatUS publishes a great magazine called Seaworthy (http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/sinking/default.asp) that summarizes “Lessons Learned” from reviewing claims from their insurance division. (This is wisdom, as defined by Fr. Frank . . . learning from other peoples mistakes!) The July 2006 issue contains a 3 page article on why outboard boats sink. Of all the boats that sank underway, MORE (32%) sank due to WATER OVER THE GUNNELS/TRANSOM than any other single cause! In one case, a 25’ boat sank off Fisher’s Island, Ny. "because 3 big guys went aft to fiddle with a stalled engine and the boat’s already-low transom was shoved down even further. A wave broke into the cockpit. In the span of only a few seconds, two more waves came aboard and the boat began sliding underwater.” The article said it sank so fast that they barely had time to grab life jackets, and this is a LOT BIGGER boat than the 20 I'm talking about! If you click on the “Taking water over the gunnels/transom” heading in the article in the link above it brings up the following 5 paragraph summary:

“The single most critical reason boats are flooded on open water has to do with transom height. Thirteen of 15 boats in the sample group that were swamped were outboard powered, with engine cut-outs that were often only inches above the waves. (Of the two remaining boats, one was an inboard with very low freeboard that took a wave over the bow and the other was a sailboat that was knocked down and sank when water entered an unsecured cockpit hatch.)

Motor wells are supposed to be the second line of defense when a wave comes over an outboard's transom but, in some cases, the well is TOO LOW, TOO SHALLOW, and/or not sealed adequately to the cockpit. Scuppers in the motor well and cockpit may also be slow to drain, especially if they're clogged. And whenever water lingers in the well or cockpit, the chances of another wave coming aboard increases. So too is the risk of being swamped.

Aside from transom height, the other contributing factor when a boat is swamped is typically weight distribution-- too many people at the stern together with scuba tanks, large coolers, BAIT WELLS, etc. that reduces buoyancy aft. In most cases, the boats were stopped or idling. The one exception was a boat that broached while entering a breaking inlet.

It should be noted that boats under 20' are required to have level flotation, so many of the boats in the study remained awash, although several were rolled over by the waves or by passengers rushing to one side of the boat.

PREVENTION: Especially on outboards with low cut outs, be conscious of weight distribution. Avoid storing scuba tanks, heavy coolers, etc. near the transom At slow speeds, keep the boat moving toward the waves. Don't anchor from the stern.”

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I thought that it was warranted, given Mitchman’s recent close call and the disturbing trend of folks installing motors much heavier than these boats were originally designed for! If we’re going to violate the original design parameters for the boat, it seems to me that we should at least compensate by raising the splashwell height to keep big waves out of the boat when the overweight motor tries to sink it! Denny

[mentalfloss]

Thanks guys. Without this website I would be lost.
Moving the console forward a foot. This also moves my gas tank a foot foward. Putting the batteries under the front casting platform. Will see how she floats and rides after that. Probably add a raised splashwell guard, like ya'll suggested. Adding 2 bilge pumps, mounted at different heights and a high water alarm. Will post some boat porn soon.