yet another duck boat rebuild... kinda

[Aeon]

as some of you know i am slightly obsessed with duck boats. Of all kinds, big and small. Today i start what is my biggest project by far. Where i hunt we mother ship layout boats to the hunting area. My mother ship is a Airboat. A classic Hurricane hull built in the early 80s and rebuilt a few times over the years. The drivers seat is a tall one and very hard for my 74 year old dad to climb into so i got the wild hair up my back side to build a new hull with seating setup for my old man. There is nothing really wrong with the old boat, it handles amazing well even at very high speed hauls a LOT of gear and has worked very well but never let the fact that something is working good stop you from spending money on a boat.

THE OLD BOAT IS STILL FOR SALE....

The new Hull is going to be a battle ship. 17'x8' with 30" sides. 3/8uhmw polly on the bottom for running over cars or other obstacles. It will have over 8 feet of flush deck installed for bow fishing off of. @Lungpopper can you teach me LED bars facing each direction to light up the planet.

Its being fabricated right now in Elba Alabama by Circle H Airboats. turns out having a hull built is not so easy when you are on the wrong side of the USA for Airboats. ( anyone want to haul it back to california for me? $$$$ ) There are a couple of builders in Utah but pretty much no one local. I have known Kenny from Southern Airboats for quite some time and picked him to build the new barge.

so we begin......

part 1 the tear down, So all i am going to reuse on the new boat from the old is the motor. not to complicated so today i started taking things apart



lots of small bolts and other thing holding the cage on.

more to come stand by....

 

[ilovesprig]

Cool project

 

[TRICER]

Www.freightquote.com is a freight broker that should be able to get some decent freight numbers. If they don't, I have a couple freight companies we use that I can get you in touch with. We have been shipping containers to Maui for a year logistics stink.

Rad boat will the new hull be aluminum?

 

[Lungpopper]

New boat sounds pretty cool. As for bowfishing. Here is everything you need to know.
DON'T LOOSE A BET

 

[Aeon]

yeah the new one will be Aluminum 5086 .190 bottom metal so built like a tank
First sneak peak

 

[Aeon]

 

[Aeon]

 

[Bonejour]

Bill, Grumman must be jealous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NBK]

Damn - you must be rich Bill! That thing is awesome!

 

[fishingkid]

That's awesome looks like the build is coming along nice.

 

[Aeon]

shit is getting real.......

Do any of you guys have a good hookup on hydroturf, seadeck or any of the other eva decking pads. i want to the whole deck with it and that stuff is not cheap!

 

[Aeon]

Photobucket broke all the image links, sorry for that

 

[ilovesprig]

Damn Bill.......That deck looks like the USS Ronald Reagan.......

 

[TRICER]

It needs a camo flame job.

 

[Lungpopper]

It needs a camo flame job.

I'll bet he has heard that before.

 

[Aeon]

right now she is going to get grey powder coating on all the tube stainless steel. The hull will be painted flat grey with black stripes in some places. The deck will be grey with snow camo or marble hydroturf

no flames but i am working on a couple tweaks that will look cool

 

[Aeon]

new prop got here

 

[Lungpopper]

new prop got here View attachment 32306

That's a badass ceiling fan.

 

[NBK]

new prop got here View attachment 32306

That prop looks insanely expensive. And while you are spending your daughters college fund (and little Billy's ), bail out on those seats and get a set of Recaro's!

 

[Fowl Play]

Looking great!

Hydro turf is just closed cell EVA foam with some traction patterns hot rolled in. The interlocking mats sold for kids and yoga mats are the same thing. Although, I'd hate to see yoga mats coating that duck boat after everything else you've put into it. You could probably find a dealer willing to sell sheets of the stuff, but may not have the pattern or colors you want.