Do it! But wouldn't the ice chests and fish tubs do ok on the floor?

I'm all about big decks, but not sure what's the advantage of decking the entire boat.

 

Don't mean the shooting deck would go all the way down the boat. I want to do it like the jet drive boat that gargod and garquest has just with mud motors.

 

I wouldnt deck the entire boat. Especially putting the console up that high. Just my opinion though.

Also, you're prolly gonna want to go flush on any deck you make. If not all the blood n guts will wash right back into your boat.

 

It would be like ddm's boat on here just with the floor opening decked and a raised deck on front.

 

If your running twin mud motors I wouldn't do a complete deck over, unless your okay with running 20 mph everywhere. If Your running mud motors keep it as light as poasible. I'd hate to have that much in a boat and only get 25-27 mph out of em

 

That's the kind of answer I was looking for its going to be 3/16 bottom with 1/8 sides and all decking inside. If it will run 25 on stock motors and get on step I would be fine. This will be used for getting through those shallow spots in rivers where we only run around 10mph tops now

 

Martys boat is AWESOME but its heavy and requires alot of motor hes got a 200 or 225 jet pump and yes it runs faster than my 1860 with a 75 prop but not as much as i expected

 

I doubt you'd get 25 out of her. Tail and scales boat does that full of fish (i think thats what he said anyway) and a deckover would be MUCH heavier than the boat he has. Maybe trip mud motors? If you dont mind going slow than i guess its no problem but i wanna go fast!

 

I think we are running about 28 mph loaded down. Full of fish about 25. No speed demon but I'm lovin it.

This is tailandscalesc's post from their boat build thread. If you go to it and look at the hull they have you will see its built to be as light as possible. Hope this helps some.

 

We will have duel pro drives and a chit ton a weight and the guys say it should run around 35mph

 

What guys?

 

I am trying to get prices on this:

I want a 1984 and I mean 84 inch bottom with 3/16 inch thick 5086.
Tapered inverted ribs.
1/8 inch thick 24 inch side 96 inch beam and 10 inch walk around.
Smallest light rail that can be made with ******* fixture.
Center console and room for my fold down fan to fit between the 2 prodrives. Got to have 2 Seastar driving station.

 

I would be careful on what you buy motor wise. We've ran the "suped" up vanguards, ran the black death by BPS it was 48 hp with a ton of motor work and had nothing but problems. Even with that do you think dual 50's have more power then a 90 4 stroke? 90 4 stroke on a heavy custom hull that I've seem tops in the lower 30s high 20's

 

Thats some good info. Damage has been done already. They already got them bumped up. Wish I would have asked someones input. I guess you learn from mistakes. We shall see first of August see how everythings gonna work for us. So your thinking it won't run over 30mph? That sucks.

 

What are the specs on your hull? Go look at tail and scales boat build in their section they get 25 loaded with fish with duals

 

You mean like this?
I would also hesitate to run that big a boat with surface drive motors as well, heck I ran a 200 and now 175 Mariners and it is a load getting it up on plane with a load in the boat. The more aluminum you put in, the more weight you are adding as well.
My boat is decked over except for the fish tub behind the front deck to keep my fish barrels and big coolers in, everything else is under the deck or in the lockers on the side and I keep my generator under the back fan stand/deck. You just step down off the front deck and can walk all around the boat. No climbing in and out! Love it!

 

More!

 

That's almost exactly what I'm thinking of doing. I don't see the gobs of extra weight everyone is talking about though. Most guys have a floor, so instead of your floor being on the bottom of the hull, it's raised. Sure you add bracing and supports, but I don't think were talking 100's of pounds here. I've got some pretty good autoCAD drawings of what I want. Just waiting to pull the trigger.

 

You'd want a regular subfloor underneath your deck over, most people have a subfloor with the deckover especially if doing storage in the deckover. Can you immagine stuff sliding under the deckover with no subfloor crap would slide everywhere. I've never seem a deckover with no subfloor

 

It's more weight then you think. That is several sheets of 1/8in aluminum along with the bracing, supports, etc. but I think it's worth it as everything you need is on top and you can walk around the boat very easily but also you are sitting up high and very easy to see over the deck as you drive and nothing laying around to trip or stumble over.

 

I am hoping we are somewhere around 30 sounds like that is high hopes though. It's a 22ft boat and 90inches wide at the main beam. This is going to be a HOG. So Sounds like we are gonna be lucky to be at 20mph. O well motors can be changed later I guess. These guys didn't seem it would be a problem at all to push this thing. I don't think getting on plain will be an issue though. The big fuel tank is up front as well as the built in fish box on the platform. IDK I just wanna get on this thing and see how she's gonna run. It is a beast.

 

Mine is not sub-floored, but all I really have under the deck over is my gas tanks, oil tank, batteries, push pole, jack plate resevoir, etc. Most of my other stuff is stored in the 2-story compartments under my front deck and in front of the fish tub area. The bows and arrow stuff goes in the rod lockers on each side along with my spare gas cans. I have I-beams on 12in centers running the full width of my boat from front to back so it makes great mounting locations for all the tanks and stuff down there.
Mine has 32in sides and really they are a little too tall, I think it would be better with 28in sides since it sits so high out of the water it seems with bigger fish they hit the side of the boat about 4in when you try to swing them over, but the 32in sides are nice when your out in rought water and have been 20 miles off shore in it and in 6ft seas with no problem.

 

Lower sides are what I was thinking too Mark. Less wind resistance, closer to the fish. A good deckover with scuppers like the good flats boats. You might get some water over the sides in real rough waters, but if everything is tied down, like it should be, it should just run right back out.
Clark, I'm thinking like Mark for bow boxes too. If you use bulkheads in your hatches that go to the super structure would eliminate most shifting
but still create the isolation you need for dry items, etc....

 

Yep! Have not gotten much water over the sides of my boat but whatever did come in just runs out the back with no problem. That's the other nice things about the deck over, if water rolls or splashes in the boat it just runs off the back and does not get all down inside the boat, except for around the outboard well area but I can run my pumps and get it out quickly!

 

I don't mind the speed of 25 with stock motors I think with stage one kits I would be back to 30ish. Hey we are use to only running 10mph on rivers and being worryed about taking our foot off. I will put in a sub floor and bulk heads to section off most compartments. This is just one of those things you want to get right. Lol. Thanks for all the input keep it coming some more ideals are popping up. For the side if I go deck over I will proably drop back to 24 or 28. I would like to see some of the fish boxes y'all got on the boat that has been the other thing I been trying to decide on.

 

Well made up my mind I amgoing with a deck over my builder feels it want add that much weight anyways from what we already had drawn up. As for speed if I have to drop in stage ones in the motors oh well at least you will hear me coming.:hb:

 

With a 2054 pdrive sbx hull that is plane no bells and whistles we see 33mph loaded with 5 people and decoys. It can bump 38 with a good tail wind. Like others have said mud motors are very sensative to wieght. Twins are not much faster but do push the loads better. As for the hopped up ones some run forever no issues....others maybe get 50 hours. Really depends on who does the work on them.

 

I think that Bryant may have his specs wrong on the boat HE is getting lol. His idea of what the boat is, and what it is going to be, and be used for, are all different things. The boat is being set up not only with bowfishing in mind but duck hunting as well, something he doesn't get to tag along on. Speed during duck season isn't crucial but having mud motors to get a boat full of decoys and hunters into places where a normal outboard won't go is necessary to have. For bowfishing the boat will be operated from a console at the back and on the bowfishing deck itself so that at night I can cruise the banks without burning up battery or having to listen to an annoying fan. Pro drive mud motors are made to go through things that standard outboards simply cannot handle. My outboard that I had was a waste of time in a foot of water when I was blowing mud and water 20 feet in the air and just creeping along. Dual mud motors on a wide boat(72in. bottom and 102 in. top) "not (90") main beam" will float in super shallow water and will push through as long as there is soft bottom. The boat has a layout that is made to accomodate hunters when the blind goes on with heat and electricity so that I can stay overnight in hunting spots and not have to get up at 2 in the morning to drive to a place. For bowfishng the blind comes off and the bowfishing deck goes on with MY idea of how I want things to be arranged and how it operates. With this being a boat unlike any other, being as it is a truly custom boat, built to MY specifications, there are unanswered questions that cannot be answered until the boat is together and has been run on the water. I could have went with a smaller boat and the same motors but there are other problems that arise when you do that and still try an accoplish other goals that you have set with the larger boat. A lot of thought has went into this boat and its layout and yes I could have done many things differently but it is what I chose to do and not be like some people and just copy what others have done necessarily. Pro Drives are amazing motors with their full power reverse and the guys at PHOWLER are a good group of guys to have working on my boat. I have seen different boats at their place that are phenomenal that will outperform lots of similar sized mud boats. I wonder what person would talk about a boat or something so much that they know so little about and act like they know what they are talking about, hmm must be a car salesman or something idk. Overall don't put down a rig with a certain setup unless you don't wanna ride in it, that's cool too I guess. I got the right guys puttin the right pieces together and they have been doing it a while so things should turn out pretty good if you ask me. As far as commenting on the initial thread, sounds like a cool boat, can't wait to see it and I will get some pics up of mine when it is finished also.

 

I think that Bryant may have his specs wrong on the boat HE is getting lol. His idea of what the boat is, and what it is going to be, and be used for, are all different things.

So that new boat being built is yours?

 

Thanks rhb on your post and you are so true on what you say. I am now trying to figure out if I want to put front controls so it can me ran from the front or just stand at the back on the raised console and drive and let other shoot(there will be a trolling motor as well)

 

What's y'all opinion on fully decking the boat 4" below the gunells the entire boat...

Whether fully decked or not...one thing I will do on my next boat is make sure any decking is NOT flush. 4" might be too much recess...but I know I want at least a couple inches.

 

Why would you NOT want any flush decking? I couldnt live w/o mine.

 

I am a RV sales and Finance person not Car anymore Dick lol. I have not told one person this is MY boat if you go back to the threads where I first started showing pics of your boat I said my partners boat. And I was simply getting ideas for YOU from guys who have this stuff so your not spending stupid money on something you shouldn't be. Not that my input counts but sometimes you listen to me lol.