The Silver Surfer is coming! (long)

[pennery]

22" wheels will look ridiculous. Even the 20" wheels Extreme used to use look to big on a boat trailer.. The 18" wheels Boatmate uses are the best size. They track and ride well and replacing tires are going to be much less money.

[ibelonginprison]

22" wheels will look ridiculous. Even the 20" wheels Extreme used to use look to big on a boat trailer.. The 18" wheels Boatmate uses are the best size. They track and ride well and replacing tires are going to be much less money.

18's are for grandma's and high school kids.

22's!!!! DO IT!!!!

[DarkSide]

Total size would be 1" larger diameter, so i would lose 1.5" of sidewall. Would be 255/30 22 for tires. Very low load range, but it is a triple so that is no big deal.

[nyryan2001]

Dark, just FYI... With all the prop testing I've been doing with the OJ 16x16 on the LSA I'm in the 5-6gph range now.... vs 6-9gph avg on the 15x14..... And I've been going heavy. Better performance for surfing. Runs 500-600+ rpm lower for every activity. Only draw back is your 23mph performance may suffer some if you go bonkers heavy above OEM ballast. Otherwise.. Great prop for surfing and gas savings.

[DarkSide]

Ryan,

Thank you, that beats the crap out of the 12+ gph i burn now. Unfortunately i am stuck with 15" prop. Bu doesn't have the clearance.

[DarkSide]

I tested bow bag theory tonight. Original plan is a dismal failure. However acceptable backup plan. Using 400 lb fly high bags. I test filled and got 27 gallons in the bag, which would be roughly 220 pounds per side. Filed and drained super easy. So with only 440 in water i will have to add a touch more bomb wake than planned, but should still have all hidden ballast. ???

This is what i am referencing.

[nyryan2001]

Gotcha. Well keep the OJ 14.75 x 15.5 in mind...

[shawndoggy]

dark, I like your creative thinking but man I think that ballast setup is going to be a nightmare trying to get it to piggyback with the hard tank pumps correctly. Reversibles are simple and robust and not really much more than the one way pumps you are buying. Put two reversibles on each 1100 and they will fill and drain in five minutes. Maybe less if you have extra bottom ports put in the bags and allow them to gravity drain to the hard tanks too (basically using factory plug and play and supplementing with two reversibles). You don't have to worry about passive filling and draining with reversibles either. That would also let you keep a factory ballast configuration.

Having DIY'd reversible ballast upgrades and DIY'd aerators, I'd take reversibles every time.

[DarkSide]

Shawn,

Actually the reversible would be cheaper, because i am also adding the 2nd drain pump. So it is around $300 per side for pumps. My fear with reversible pumps is running them dry. I often have pumps dry running. I know it is bad, and not intentional. The aerator style tolerate this, i have heard reversible will not. Is that information correct?

[DarkSide]

Gotcha. Well keep the OJ 14.75 x 15.5 in mind...

Do you think with the smaller diameter, it would swing 14.75 x 17?

[shawndoggy]

Shawn,

Actually the reversible would be cheaper, because i am also adding the 2nd drain pump. So it is around $300 per side for pumps. My fear with reversible pumps is running them dry. I often have pumps dry running. I know it is bad, and not intentional. The aerator style tolerate this, i have heard reversible will not. Is that information correct?

It's sorta correct. Long periods of dry running would definitely be bad. What happens if you dry run is your impeller will lose some mojo. It's not catastrophic. Eventually the pump will seem slow, and then you put in a new $20 impeller and resolve to do better next time. If you vent the reversibles over the side, the visual of water going out of the side of the boat can be a cue that the bags are empty. The pumps themselves are relatively loud and will howl when running dry.

Both styles of pumps have their pros and cons. Reversibles prime easily and aren't as susceptible to head pressure and passive filling and draining. But they do consume more power and they do need to be monitored to preserve max performance. I'm sure you could rube goldberg something up with a timer relay to adjust how long the pump stays on, but that starts to get complicated because of the reversible nature of the pump (takes three relays IIRC).

on my old boat I filled and drained through the bottom of the boat, and vented through an existing vent with a wye. Filling is easy you know when the bag is full. I'm not going to lie -- when draining I did get distracted from time to time and I'm sure I ran them dry on occasion. Out of four pumps with about 150 hours on them, I did have to eventually replace an impeller. No big deal.

If I were doing what you want to do, I think I'd start out using PNP and then adding a reversible as a supplemental fill/drain. Get real fancy and add two reversibles per bag and seriously the bag would be full in less than five minutes (my old boat had ability to fill 1100s with two pumps and it was about five -- yours would be quicker if using PNP to supplement too). A reversible for the bow setup is also ideal because it will pancake the bags.

It does mean adding a switch bank to control those pumps. But that also means better control over the system.

All that said I'm just a DIY hack who has bloodied his knuckles on this sort of project a couple of times. I'd be real curious to hear what someone like MLA thinks.

[nyryan2001]

Yep. Really depends on how you use your boat. Get some hours in on the OEM, see what you think and then go from there.

With that much pitch.. At some point your 0-23 heavily ballasted will suffer.

[DarkSide]

Shawn, thank you. I greatly appreciate the input. There are a few of you on here with significantly more experience than myself. I am not trying to argue, i am trying to communicate my perspective. I am learning more as the discussion continues. My understanding was the reversible would have catastrophic failure, if ran dry. Evidently that is not the case. I will have to investigate further.

[shawndoggy]

Shawn, thank you. I greatly appreciate the input. There are a few of you on here with significantly more experience than myself. I am not trying to argue, i am trying to communicate my perspective. I am learning more as the discussion continues. My understanding was the reversible would have catastrophic failure, if ran dry. Evidently that is not the case. I will have to investigate further.

I mean.... it might if you left it on for a couple of hours? But not if it sucks a bit of air from time to time. Jabscos allegedly have "run dry protection" which will shut the pumps down. I never had that happen on mine.

http://www.xylemflowcontrol.com/files/18220_43000-0755.pdf

[nyryan2001]

I've got ~250hrs on reversible Jabscos. Love them.

On this current set, 190hrs from new... Just had my first impeller start to show signs of wear... Just a hard bend to all the fins. Slow fill. I put the impeller back in backwards... Works great.

2 per bag like Shawn says would be A+.

[DarkSide]

She is born... Kinda

[Afun]

How much progress will they be making by the end of the week?

[DarkSide]

How much progress will they be making by the end of the week?

Boat should be almost done, and ready to ship. They are pulling from the mould at 7:00, then it starts to take shape fast

[That Guy]

That picture is crazy!

[DarkSide]

Here is the other half.

[JoeA]

That pic was your 1,000th post. Way to go DarkSide,

[DarkSide]

She is born!

[IXFE]

Dang.... from that angle the boat looks soooooo looooonnnngggg.

Such a great color scheme, Dark. Well done.

Can't wait to see that red G4 tower!

[DarkSide]

Thank you,

We got a picture of the hull base rotated 90 degrees, from that view it looks rediculously huge. Really some interesting views

[DarkSide]

A couple of build pics starting with gel....

Edited June 28, 2015 by DarkSide