ReallyGottaSki

Welp, my next boat project has commenced, and seems time to begin a photolog/discussion.

I can only hope a photolog remains for posterity,  However it appears my 351 build in ccfan lost its images, as well as my RCB build here lost its images, but alas! Lets play boats!

My 82 Supreme went offline two summers ago, just as my RCB project boat came online; its pylon was getting creaky and its old bones were just too soft.

Why bother one asks? because this boat consistently provided the best ski experience i've ever had. And not just for me but for the family and others. I embrace the challenge of improvement, making a mind-melting, unique old ski boat, making people wonder why such a thing is not available in 2024, 

I contend the 26-30 mph skiers got shortchanged in the incremental pursuit for record shortline performance. Then we ask where are all the new competitive skiers?  3000#+ boats cannot perform well in this realm, no matter the cost. Weight, with new draggy hulls create more propwash volume, that hump becomes the new 'wake' no matter how wide they make the boat.

aim it make it no heavier than before, add some spray rails, no wood. Coosa/1708/epoxy layups. Play with carbon engine cover and platform just cuz. 

Beware this is going to take a while, going to look worse before it looks better. we will learn new skills along the way. Will be much slower than the prior projects, i welcome your patience , interest and dialogs

Looks to me like a fundamental is missing there.

Appears he is not yet aware of the level of isometric tension one has to engage to first get into form, and the isometric tension to maintain that form during a session. 

i observe someone just kinda surfing on their ski, hanging loose, flexing and complying.  

the tension to hold form, cannot lag behind the power one intends to increase, else things go sideways fast.

i would firstly advise rolling things way back and revisiting how to stand on the ski and hold that form all around the lake from start to finish each session  so it becomes the new default state.

Then holding that form on pullout drills, followed by increasing the power applied to the rope, 

any humility applied to rethink these fundamentals, will be rewarded tenfold with a season of accomplishments and personal bests.

Looks like trial 1 didn't work so well

One consideration in the future that  i don't see a good solution to is, no matter how complete, functional and aesthetic a refurb or restoration is , and these later models age, if the boat has a glass cockpit with a system that is nla or 10 thousand+ to replace, very few buyers will take on that liability without a deep warrantee for something so fragile and too quickly unsupported by factory

The result could be discounting the boat and quickly finding the refurb business model unviable.

Interesting.

Absolutely viable if one is doing it for oneself, one can make a smashing boat for very low coin.  I'm building a second now, and a third is staged.

The quandary is,  farming out any services is absolutely budget-busting, no margin left.

IF one can sew, so much better. but even pre-made skins and bulk foam is 5k and rising. more for open  bow.  the hours to just break upholstery down and reinstall is immense.

its easy to put in 400-700 hours to make something impressive, soup to nuts, new boat equivalent.   i recently built one, without repower, for 18 all in, thats boat,trailer,cover, platform, speed control, de-foamed, floor leveled and reinforced, cables, helm, hoses.  Every component scrutinized, replaced or refurbed.  Then, say it was somehow worth 40 to someone after that, thats 'paying me' 30 bucks and hour or so in this 700 manhr case, 😐. pre tax..

55k could make a smashing boat! Unfortunately If one spent 55k to make such a boat we all desire, and one could sell for 60k, thats  10 bucks an hour for 500 hours of work or so. 

Boat 2 will be extensively modified to have mind-melting performance (for what is), and,  will do some things better than 100k+ new boats, including skiing.    challenging myself. 

I concur careful weight control is a major factor and solves multiple parameters. 

However all that said, i'm also not chasing  ZO solutions for myself either.

5 gph could be what one uses over an hour, but its not the usage rate, because the duty cycle is likely not an hour continuous.

5 gals will burn in about four 6 minute ski sessions in an efficient hull. Much more is needed on some of these zambonis.  

suggests gph is more like 15+. 

another way.. say about 140hp is needed to push these hulls at 34-36 mph steady state, and that could be low.. thats 105kW.  Plus more needed upon acceleration and speed compensation.

When they build a better viable product, things will correct themselves. before that its just force fit, the energy density is not close for carefree nor practical boating for the masses.  

Surfing is the fastest way to make your lake restrictions 14' and 1200#.  ski with a ski boat

We will long for the days when an engine could operate with just one purple wire

1 hour ago, LOTW said:

There was a previous thread on this.

I see what you did there..

Consider install something like this once, then things get easier afterwards

Thank you Dave, very gracious 

it really surprises anyone i pull with it.  well, who doesn't poo poo and dismiss the offer for it for being too old a boat

this image 34/28, one truly feels nothing  at 28 and 32 off

my 99RCB restoration came on line last season, and just in time, as this 82ss'  stringers were getting soft.  This boat is apart now, getting a composite rebuild to remove all wood this winter, it will rise again and ill gain more skilz in the process. i intend to add some spray rails to make it usable 35 off in some breeze. i'm a chronic turd-polisher, but sometimes they come out alright.

It appears to me the new boat designs with heavier high-drag hulls, low speeds are no better or worse, and when faster, the wake is now replaced with more substantial thrust-wash mass of water, that tends to launch the skier in its stead unless skiing in front of it. That works for us, but for the less proficient the ski experience is meh.

Thank you Scott, its been a budget continuous improvement project since i acquired it clapped out in 96

the manifolds saved more like 55 pounds, still substantial

it skies well also, not just for me but at the speeds the smaller ones enjoy

this is the wake at 28 mph/15 off

i think the big 3 could learn that the youngsters have not seen much for boat improvements in a few decades, one could argue from a girls/boys 1 -3   perspective the ski experience is harder with these big boats. then we ponder where are the youngsters in comp skiing. Combined with costs, a couple decades of that starts to add up.  

Im thinking the 427 is just too much, it gives up the benefits of small boat economy and  longevity due to side loading from long stroke and short rod .  

heads, smart cam, intake, took a 40 yo 351 that i could swing the speed +/- 2mph with no throttle inputs, and became to +/- 0.5 mph. just engine.  while exceeding 50 mph as a party trick.

Throttle response becomes both immediate and linear in all areas. Compensation, when applied, is instant, one from the improved VE and two from being in the meat of a flat torque peak and well within the useable range of the primaries,  verses skiing where they go flat. 

yet still be docile and predictable enough my daughter can enjoy pulling me slalom and not fret about speed because the speed delta was now inconsequential  (no pp) . When this boat gets pp, its not going to be doing much throttle jinking

Maybe a 393 gets you both modern big-boat power levels but can still let it spin 

ok, ill play boats too!

 

21 hours ago, Scott Russell said:

An aluminum (engine) block will remove 100-110 lbs from the center of the boat. From that you said, it sounds like that would be of great benefit in reducing weight in the rear as well as the overall boat weight. I can think of a lot of ways to move remaining weight forward so that would be fun to experiment with. 

My Stars and Stripes had the side spray problem, but the wake was still great at short line lengths. 

it's hard to imagine that the newest boats don't already have the most "idealized" hulls for the best wake, but the new boats are much heavier than the old ones, so the same principles that apply to make the wake of the new boats so good, might not apply at all to the older lighter boats, so there might be great gains to be had. I have no idea, but I think it's going to be a fun journey to find out. 

Not entirly

I can confirm Aluminum heads, rockers, intake, front cover, and commander ss exhaust can take 141# off a std  PCM 351 iron. its about 340hp i suspect.   With cam everything was about 3500 in parts, in 2019

so it follows an aluminum engine, your looking more like 240# gone when setup similarly 

 i concur the secret to making old hull perform great is scrutinize every component and structure for weight 

for other projects i scored an aluminum 5.3 LM4 for 600 bucks.  an intake and spark box combo is 750 bucks. add a smartly chosen BTR truck cam and one has cheap, light,  power,  310-330hp for not much scratch at all. 

Welcome

I share your enthusiasm for such projects

However show me someone who put EFI on an old std engine to fix runability,  I'll see someone who also finally improved their fuel filtration like they should have done decades prior.

Like you,  I also am a fan of light hull, snappy engine. 

in my case heads, Cam,  intake and ss logs on a well used 1350hr shortblock has amazed anyone who has gotten a ride or pull.  Same carb, its had, still no dull spots. its seamless as efi.

Just a pv change upon getting it 25 years ago 

frankly deep slalom starts are 15% throttle or less otherwise i get complaints

the ski experience is other-worldly, from 26-36 mph,  for the peanuts to the proficient adults

Still have no need to to efi.  efficiency is off the  charts too, boat uses 2/3 the fuel of contemporaries

This particular boat is offline now, Hull is getting new bones over the next year, and also address the side spray @35 off, and get ppw/zbox. aim is further refine this retromod 

If you build/keep the boat light i don't think you need to be at 400",  

boat has seen 52.5, but i think one side of the hull was getting unstuck, boat has no business above 50

it hits 20mph within its own length plus one big step.

Hips up

Consider hand drive a pass and if still can't reach speed in sufficient time for setup then you know its boat not the zo

Maybe the foam is wet? a public scale then tare it with just the trailer may be insightful

as said, we really need some visuals of you behind it

22 off is where an inboard boat shows its max sadism , so your expectations and boat pain are on converging curves

that said, your boat should be made to work for you, not like you are trying to ski 22 off behind a Resorter or similar 

keeping you boat like as possible is clutch, as it can add up. extra gear, boards, boom, out. weight added should be strategically placed

The pounds, inches, kph and meters just scrambled my brain

what i observe there

2->3  there was not much energy

Breaking down the frames, your pull duration is short, pulling though the whitewater, but not much longer than that.

shutting it off in the trough is standing you up, big smash spray on the wake, but not from the pull

suggests a more progressive pull,  one that be maintained,  less 'peaky', but more area under the power curve, so to speak.

May i suggest, be more isometrically rigid approaching and though th ewake.

Too much conforming the trough and wake  while shutting off the pull, is wheelieing you up on a wake that really shouldn't be doing so.  

I like the ankle flex you have, thats big.

However you appear to be giving the boat more of your shoulders each turn, while not really taking them back before the line loads.  As said, your bent arms are not helping, thus compounding the forces wanting to fold you forward.

chest out start tall stay tall

I'd like to to see you reset the body stack right  after getting up and out of the water.

I'm seeing you still somewhat crushed upper body from the dws then start pulling out, then getting incrementally worse. Get up then chest out, shoulders open, hips forward, ankles flexed forward. open that front hip joint just past 180 so it locks in. You should feel your torso between your upper arms. if not, thats your indicator the hips are stillbehind you.  After fixing yourself, then start the pullout. A compromised stack wont repair itself mid course unless it both starts off strong and you've built the muscle memory to recover it., especially if one hasn't really 'felt' it yet.

lead with the hips out the turn and thrust them forward and up.  butt is falling out as line loads because not committed to getting the hips in front of shoulders and locked in, else i think falls like that will persist with frustrating randomness. 

I find myself thankful there are competitive skiers for decades to push the sport to where it got to regarding equipment. That said i'm satisfied with 15 to 25 year old stuff.  my boats are 24 and 41 years old. I bought a very rough but operational RCB for 7k a year and half ago, it could be skied as-is the day i tested it. It would for someone else too.

I just like to carve. the acceleration. the flow. etc. 3-4 long unbroken  30+ cuts per pass at the best intensity we can muster, so does the circle of skiers around me

I'm observing resurgence in higher-end recreation skiing, after a couple malaise decades of decline,  watching wake sports dominate

Take anything, there will be a segment that has to make a competition about it. Even something placid and therapeutic, like paddle boarding, there is a group that determined to make a sanctioned league and race out of it, or nothing.