Cockpit Mezzanine & Tuna Tube Winter Project

[rustybucket]

The boat looks really good and glad to hear how happy you are with it. Just out of curiosity what was your budget for the paint and how close were you staying under or over it?

Thanks
Walt Hoover

Thanks for the complement!

lol, i try not to think about budget anymore .

Originally when we only planned on doing mezzanine and baitwells our budget was $25-$30k. Adding the bridge extension was a decision made after we got into the project and was not factored into the original budget.

If you total up everything we've spent over the last 1.5yrs on the boat including yard time, rental house for the workers and myself, food, water, drinks...etc it's gonna be right at $100k. Of course we did a LOT of additions/projects/incidentals that were not in the original scope, like spending $2k on heavy duty screwless rod holders, several $k on getting the fighting chair pedestal and spider setup and installed, stripping wallpaper and painting both heads, full bottom job, running gear, underwater lights...etc.

The actual money spent on the paint budget was pretty low. We probably have $2k in actual paint and non-skid. We did all the prep ourselves and hired a pro painter to come in and shoot everything, his bill was around $1k.... but we spent weeks priming, sanding and prepping before he got there.

Things we went wildly over budget on were really the small things like mixing containers, tape, gloves..etc. Wish I had bought them by the case from day 1, would have saved thousands of dollars and considerable time chasing down supplies. Nitrile gloves, used more than I could have ever imagined, coupled with the corona virus during this time made it VERY hard to come by gloves and we had to pay a premium price for the ones we could find. So instead of $7/box at harbor freight we were paying over $20/box wherever we could find them.

Same goes for dust masks, filter cartridges for my 3m masks, these basically became un-obtainable by the end of the project and we did lots of work with mask cartridges that were well beyond their useful life. We also had to share masks, which I absolutely HATE doing (especially during a global pandemic lol, sorry WHO), but given the circumstances it was our only option.

We spent hours/days chasing down these supplies and having to pay a premium for them whenever we could actually find them.

Tape and masking plastic/materials were another item i wildly under budgeted. I probably have several $k in tape and plastic and paper board for masking areas.

If you remove all the incidentals and extra projects that got folded into this time period, the cost for the mezz, baitwells and bridge extension are probably somewhere in the $60-$80k neighborhood

 

[pdog]

Bay seatrial after splash, light on fuel and water.

2350rpm = 22.5 knts
2300rpm = 22 knts
2000rpm = 20 knts
1950rpm = 18 knts
1900rpm = 17 knts


Loaded heavy, full fuel, full water, full gear...etc for multi-day fishing trip, 3' head seas with a 10knt head wind.

1950rpm = 16 knts

Fuel burn at 1950 loaded heavy seems to be somewhere in the 45-50gph neighborhood.

Thanks for the info. Been kicking around the idea of moving up. The 52's I've looked at all have the 892's still so was wondering about speeds etc. Very similar speeds to my 46. My fuel burn is a little better but that is to be expected I guess with the additional 6' of length etc.

 

[rustybucket]

Thanks for the info. Been kicking around the idea of moving up. The 52's I've looked at all have the 892's still so was wondering about speeds etc. Very similar speeds to my 46. My fuel burn is a little better but that is to be expected I guess with the additional 6' of length etc.

My 52 has twin 600hp 892's, which appears to be the lower end of what they offered with the 52. It has enough power, definitely not underpowered, but i really feel like 800hp per side would be about perfect for this hull. Lots of the later 52's had 725hp/side and should have better cruise and top end.

 

[Cricket]

Rusty you went full in, and then some, on the projects so why stop there, 1,000HP per side.

 

[JCG-PR]

Rusty you went full in, and then some, on the projects so why stop there, 1,000HP per side.

Agree 100%! Would love to see that.. jaja

 

[VieEnRose]

Awesome, keep the pics coming.

 

[pdog]

My 52 has twin 600hp 892's, which appears to be the lower end of what they offered with the 52. It has enough power, definitely not underpowered, but i really feel like 800hp per side would be about perfect for this hull. Lots of the later 52's had 725hp/side and should have better cruise and top end.

Ok. Yes the ones I've looked at have had the higher horsepower. Anybody got any idea on actual cruise speed fully fueled etc

 

[rsmith]

Buckets should be 650hp. The later slant window boats were lightened up with a cored hull also. I believe they got another 3-4kt cruise but it seems that the higher hp engined were problematic. I have to wonder if the wet liner 92 series can’t handle the extra heat.

 

[rustybucket]

Rusty you went full in, and then some, on the projects so why stop there, 1,000HP per side.

Well... I said the hull would do good with 800hp per side, I NEVER said that's what I would put in lol. 1k hp/side min if/when we repower. That type of power would really modernize this boat considerably.

Hopefully I won't have to worry about that for many many years, but in the back of my mind, there's a part of me that would LOVE to see what the 'ol gal would do with 2k hp!

 

[Boatsb]

Long time back I saw performance numbers on a 52c with 900 hp yanmars. I'm not sure you want 1000. It may require some additional structural changes.

 

[Spellbound]

Had a copy of those same performance numbers courtesy of Richard Mastery. Scatterbrain was boats name, engines were Scania 900 hp that Yanmar was going to market. Boat ended up in Costa Rica as a charter boat with some very custom tuna tubes installed in the transom.

 

[VieEnRose]

Buckets should be 650hp. The later slant window boats were lightened up with a cored hull also. I believe they got another 3-4kt cruise but it seems that the higher hp engined were problematic. I have to wonder if the wet liner 92 series can’t handle the extra heat.

What year were the cored hulls? Lighter seems better but were there any delamination issues?

 

[Boatsb]

Had a copy of those same performance numbers courtesy of Richard Mastery. Scatterbrain was boats name, engines were Scania 900 hp that Yanmar was going to market. Boat ended up in Costa Rica as a charter boat with some very custom tuna tubes installed in the transom.

Richard had a 52c he was going to repower just like it until he found the receipts for the rebuilds. He has 50 hours on the documented rebuild.

Hes done some interesting projects like twin out drive on a single engine.

 

[rustybucket]

Just wanted to post an update. Between hurricanes and work it's been tough to get much done on the boat lately. Did a work weekend this past weekend and made some great progress.

We got the drawers and the flat top grill/griddle installed into the mezzanine storage cabinet. Grill is rock solid, uses two heavy duty SS slides on the back and two on the bottom.

These drawers will be getting 1/4" acrylic fronts and each will have it's own latch. The grill drawer face will be stainless with a latch as well.

 

[rustybucket]

First meal on the newly installed grill. I've had various marine grills in the past and honestly they all sucked, this flat top griddle gets screaming hot and sears wonderfully. Breakfast/eggs...etc are all easy. When we picked this grill I was concerned I would miss the 'grill' but man, I'm SUPER impressed, I see our inside stove top being used hardly ever now that this grill is online.

Also, converted the last two floor hatches to hinged with strut. Man it's soooooooo much nicer just being able to open a lid and hop down in, rather than pulling a hatch, finding somewhere to stick it out of the way....etc

Installed the cockpit speakers and cockpit overhead lighting. Overhead lighting is 3 color, red/white/blue.

 

[rustybucket]

Installed 5 cupholders and cut the hole for the final 0deg rod holder to be installed in the rocket launcher. Also, got our last two HD screwless rod holders installed in the gunnels. She is pretty much fish ready at this point. This drill with the 3" hole saw really kicked our asses. No clue where the handle for the drill is, it would've helped tremendously.

Also fabbed up a temporary cover for the fighting chair, apparantly you cannot buy canvas or canvas making materials in pensacola, not sure if this is a national thing or just local b/c of the hurricane....
Used an old sail a buddy had laying around as material. It probably won't last long, but hopefully long enough to get through the great canvas shortage of 2020 lol.

 

[rustybucket]

Also torture tested a couple of led chips and drivers for the underwater lights. The white is 27k lumens, the green is 8k. Super happy with how bright they are, not quite happy with the color of the green light, so we will be using a chip we tested earlier that is a little better color green. Can't wait to see what this looks like with 8 white and 8 green's (4 across the back, 2 on each side - per color)

This is in bayou water.

 

[Cricket]

Looking good. Still can't believe you bit all of this off at the same time, and then got it done.
How about a photo of the bottom of the tuna tubes, and also how do you plumb those?

 

[Avenger]

Really nice work.

I also noticed that you have five cupholders and four rodholders. Nice to see a man who has his priorities in order.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Canvas must be the new toilet paper. Here we go again.