Building the Skoota Coach Launch

Glassed, assembled, and we recruited about 6 folks from the shop to get it down the loading dock and onto the trailer.  The bench and battery box are mounted on T-track that's screwed to the deck.  You can see the microballoon 'schmeer' on the hulls, but it fairs up so quickly when sanding.  The deck cleats are positioned as far forward from the access cover as I could stick my arm in to reach the backing nuts.  You can see the tumblehome on the bow and shear line here.  I'm really glad we took the time and effort to add this detail. The console is okume with walnut trim.  View from the rear.  It looks slightly distorted perspective.  The motor mount is a stock Garelick, modified to lower it a couple of inches.  The rails are off the old launch  I'm really terrible about getting pictures made.  I haven't made the leap to the full instagram generation, but here it is on the water, first day 18, Sept 2019 It floated on its lines, and has ab

Our old boat acquired the name 'Murphy' shortly after acquiring it (it's predecessor was 'Fred').   Last year, we knew Murphy was on life support.  The deck was about to collapse, and with a 100lb of lithium battery and a coach on it, that's not a good thing. This spring, when we realized that the Skoota would not be ready, we threw together a temporary deck out of 3/4" underlayment and a couple of 2x4s.  Slap the old console on, the battery box, and a cooler for a seat and it worked ok to get thru the summer.  And just for fun, I ran some data points. Watts   KpH 1044    9.6 2017    11.4 3720    13.5

It's been entirely too long since the last post, and much has happened along the way.  The boat is basically finished and put away for the winter.  For those not from the upper midwest, the lake is now 6 or 8" thick and will remain so until March (or April). So for now, I'll try to do some catch-up, trying to remember as many of the horror stories as possible! The last set of photos had the deck sitting in between the hulls, but nothing attached.  A couple of days later, we got back from regatta and started final assembly. After a lot of head scratching, I went of a fairly brute force approach to mating the deck and hull.  The photo on the right shows a 5/8" stainless bolt and 1" aluminum bar, tapped and designed to mount 'blind'.  In hindsight, I underestimated the difficulty of getting the darn things lined up and threads started.  This will get modified in the spring to have access hatches in the deck, and at whatever point the billets strip out,