Day Tripper

Can’t wait for the water trials! Those look like they are well engineered and thought out. I was thinking you were going with the performance strakes you see on many high end performance tri-toons. When are the “sea trials.”?
 
Rivergoer said:
Good to see it out of welding and Powell-Bound.

Is the plan to mount the 200’s tight side by side in the center transom between the toons?
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As close as possible but there is some structure in the way. They’ll end up with the engine centerline inside of the pontoon centerline by a foot or so but the shafts are extra long. That should help us grab some calmer water and still give us good engine access.
 
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Marina Bum said:
This post is for Boat Geeks and Boat Builders:

I've been ruminating about my next boat project for some time now. I feel marina bound more than I want to be these days down in Wahweap; It's a first world problem I know but taking out my houseboat without the short cut open in the summer is just a drag.

It used to be that I could run right over to Warm Creek in an half hour of travel time if I only have two nights to spare, not anymore. The cut hasn't reliably been open in years and when it has passage through it has been sketchy at best. As a result the Maytag Straights are worse than ever and with all the extra traffic and squeezing by Antelope isn't fun for anyone either. Being kicked about and sloshed around for an extra hour or two is just bumming me out so much so that sometimes I don't even want to deal with it. Sometimes I just don't have the time to make it worth it; two nights out with 4 hours drive time each way and all the fuel doesn't really pencil for me either so often times I find myself slip bound which doesn't exactly suck but it's not up lake.
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So there it is from my upper deck, up lake, teasing me, calling me out but I don't want to drag this behemoth 10 ton rig with me at 6/8 mph max for the next 2 or 4 hours, What to do? Get a faster boat and leave this behemoth condo behind and get out there. But what kind of boat?

When I started my house boating career as an owner I worked on remodeling my first one in dry dock at Rays Boat Yard in Page. Ray was a friendly old guy and we had fun interactions razzing each other. One day he came out and told me that I was wasting my time on that houseboat that I was working on, That he had the best boat for Lake Powell already, the GOAT. He pointed to an old strange looking pontoon sitting in the corner of his yard as he smiled broadly. I laughed it off and told him he was nuts but when he wasn't looking I went over and checked it out. The more I saw and the more I thought about that boat the more it made a lot of sense to me. Maybe Ray was on to something there.View attachment 26782

As the years have gone by I've owned a few different houseboats moving up in size remodeling and repairing as I went. I'd stop by and visit Ray from time to time and we'd talk about things and his strange pontoon boat. Last year he said "I have decided to downsize since I'm starting to get old, I just turned 90." He's funny! So we struck a deal on that strange pontoon boat right then and there.

The boat is a 1987 Patio Cruiser, it was custom built in Norther California by a small boat company. They specialize in trailerable house boats, large houseboats and refitting and remodeling. So far as I can tell this one was ordered without walls and customized for the buyer. The pontoons are aluminum and were hand laid up in a jig in an octagonal shape, not rolled. They are large and heavy gauge.

It's definitely an open concept with a full hard top and I think it might help provide an answer to my closed cut woes. It's hard to describe because it's 10 feet wide which is towable in Arizona without an oversized permit. it's 32 feet long and has a bathroom and two bunks. I cleaned it up there at Ray's and repacked the wheel bearings and towed it home to Flagstaff.

My intention is to modify it to go up lake fast. This might be controversial in some ways for a few folks but I understand that it is totally experimental. It's not my first time building something out of the box and seeing what happens. It's not random, it's an educated risk. I know transoms have placards and engineers went over things upfront but it's a whole new world. Outboards have more power than they could have dreamed of 30 years ago and modern manufactures are doing it daily. Premier was building a 10x32 pontoon with a hard top last year with two 300's on it. The price to get one was listed at over $250,000 but to actually buy one after options and upgrades, tax and deliver ran closer to $350,000.

I'll be careful, I've consulted engineers and studied pontoon and tritoon construction for years. This isn't a "here hold my beer and watch this" moment. We'll see if it works and I'll post follow-ups to my progress. I want a boat that will glide over the chop, go 30 MPH WOT and that has a bathroom onboard. Something I can cruise up lake fast in and stay overnight on if I want to on a whim.

I'm installing two 200 hp outboards and Hydrofin Hydrofoil's under the boat.View attachment 26773View attachment 26775View attachment 26774View attachment 26776View attachment 26777View attachment 26772
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Twin 200's should get you up the lake in hurry. I like the idea of a hydrofoil also. 2, 200 h.p. outboards will set you back a pretty penny. Could you see what one 200 h.p. will do for you first before you put out the cash for 2 of them? Being a boat guy you probably know that a stainless steel prop will help your performance as well.
 
Bajatails said:
Twin 200's should get you up the lake in hurry. I like the idea of a hydrofoil also. 2, 200 h.p. outboards will set you back a pretty penny. Could you see what one 200 h.p. will do for you first before you put out the cash for 2 of them? Being a boat guy you probably know that a stainless steel prop will help your performance as well.
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You may have already heard of this place, but it helped me mounting a higher horsepower and solved the problem of precise placement of the out drive. it gives you a greater degree of controllability of your outdrives. It's called porta plate. A bit pricey, but well worth it.
 
Bajatails said:
Twin 200's should get you up the lake in hurry. I like the idea of a hydrofoil also. 2, 200 h.p. outboards will set you back a pretty penny. Could you see what one 200 h.p. will do for you first before you put out the cash for 2 of them? Being a boat guy you probably know that a stainless steel prop will help your performance as well.
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Understood, thank you for your interest in this project. Yes, everything is very costly these days. This is a home brew project, a hot rodding experiment in the long tradition of red neck tinkerers and scroungers going back to the days of 32 Ford coups with any kind of cheap V8 you could get your hands on in the 50’s. They figured out that faster is all about the power to weight ratio and away they went.

When Evinrude, a 120 year old American company was shut down by their short sighted Canadian parent company suddenly in 2022 it caused a quake of sorts in the marine world. Companies operating rental fleets all ditched their Evinrude motors at once fearing lack of parts and unable to buy replacement motors many switched to other brands. Rental fleets work by having lots of matching motors, when one goes down they quickly stick another on and fix the troubled one later, that’s how they make money, by having spares, keeping the boats going out is the name of the game.

So in that situation of Evinrude’s untimely death I picked up several used running 200 HP original E Tech late model outboards for this project (and others) and we are currently going through them to pick and/or build the best three or four. (A running spare on a stand like the rental companies keep around would be nice) I bought the software and have a certified Evinrude tech helping me. I paid $4,000 for 8 running engines as part of another deal. This is low budget fun, if it works it will be cool.😎

I also like twins on a lake as big as Powell, it’s better odds that you won’t need a tow at some point.
 
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