Start to Finish: Building Our 50' Skater
03-10-2016, 08:20 AM
#21
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Awesome project! I'm looking forward to see if you can reach those (optimistic?) burn rates with several hundred gallons of fuel on board at 100 mph. What's your target weight? With all the ply and extra reinforcing, diesels, etc, never mind all the endurance goodies, I would think this is going to be fairly heavy.
Last edited by SS930; 03-10-2016 at 08:22 AM.
03-10-2016, 09:55 AM
#23
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We could use a C130 aircraft. That would be handy, they could drop us spare parts.
When we did the Bermuda challenge people always ask what we Were going to use for a chase boat, the problem was there is no boat in the world that could go as fast for as long as we could in the diesel v-bottom Skater. We had no chase boat, the coast guard helicopter cannot go out as far as we were going, your only hope for help was if there was a cruise ship or container ship close by and you might be waiting days for them to get there. It was really dangerous to do the run. Another thing to think about is if anything broke that caused us to have to idle back on one engine we could have been 600 miles from shore, idling at 6 mph would take a week running 24 hours a day if you could keep it going reasonably straight.
But on that question, we have already offered to be a chase boat for anyone trying to set an endurance record. We could follow them to be a safety boat, have cameras and video. Or we could position the boat close by and be able to run out if they needed help. We are putting a big tow eye in the back to be able to tow someone on plane.
When we did the Bermuda challenge people always ask what we Were going to use for a chase boat, the problem was there is no boat in the world that could go as fast for as long as we could in the diesel v-bottom Skater. We had no chase boat, the coast guard helicopter cannot go out as far as we were going, your only hope for help was if there was a cruise ship or container ship close by and you might be waiting days for them to get there. It was really dangerous to do the run. Another thing to think about is if anything broke that caused us to have to idle back on one engine we could have been 600 miles from shore, idling at 6 mph would take a week running 24 hours a day if you could keep it going reasonably straight.
But on that question, we have already offered to be a chase boat for anyone trying to set an endurance record. We could follow them to be a safety boat, have cameras and video. Or we could position the boat close by and be able to run out if they needed help. We are putting a big tow eye in the back to be able to tow someone on plane.
03-10-2016, 12:49 PM
#24
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After posting I was thinking I should have said plane. It's a shame that there are so few PBY Catalinas still flying, they would have been ideal for the project.
03-10-2016, 01:01 PM
#25
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This is truly amazing. Good luck to all involved. Thanks for sharing.
03-10-2016, 05:46 PM
#28
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Go man Go!! And Tristan too!!
03-10-2016, 08:08 PM
#30
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We were originally going to use Cummins diesels, here we were test fitting them to see where to put stringers in the engine compartment.
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