After running this hull for a week it may be safe to make a few comments. First one is simply "awesome!" She's a beast of a taxi and has actually exceeded all expectations from shallow performance to handling heavy chop.
23'-11", exactly 9' wide, floats a legitimate 7-8" depending on loading, jumps up immediately with little or no bow rise (straight up) in I guess about 10-11" , and spins up even shallower. I haven't really pushed the full limit yet, but it appears that if it is floating it will leave.
With the stock Bravo 1 22p prop it's pretty squared up, meaning you are running about the same speed as your RPM, i.e, 4K rpm = 40 mph. It hit's about 53 or so loaded with 4 men and gear. I put on a heavy cup 19" Power Tech and it sees about 46mph at 5k rpm. The Merc 225 Pro XS is rated for 6 grand but haven't pushed it there yet. With the 19 prop getting on plane is instantaneous and it will plane level about 14mph with tabs down.
Running depth is ridiculous as I didn't think anything would beat my old 25' Flats Master, but this thing still feeds full water pressure jacked up to 6 and will easily run inside a coffee cup. Believe me, we did it several times for hundreds of yards and were all amazed, especially because it didn't even really leave a mud trail...even that shallow.
The best part is rough water work, a prime reason we chose these hulls. We were tired of getting beat up and wanted to do something different. It want's it straight into the teeth...and the faster you go the smoother it is. We can cut straight across the bay now instead of having to pick our shots and keep skinny. A true game changer. Quartering in confused seas is a different issue however, but I'm sure we will learn how to do it a little better. Running a Cat is learning all over again being that it's such a different animal.
Additional comments are that the Coastline trailer is built for an Abhram's tank and the torsion axles make it so smooth you really don't notice it back there. Also, all of the boat aluminum is sprayed with Rhino Liner so there went another maintenance issue.
Big kudo's to Chris Marine in Aransas Pass. Outstanding all the way around, and we are excited to experience a totally new game.
If anybody has any additional questions I'll try to answer as best as I can. Did I mention I live this rig lol.....
Linear Mode
