aristo craft boats?

[ziggy]

well, ya all know my boat is hosed. no drive, no engine, no boat. i'm still cuttin on that. anyways. here's a boat on iboats.

http://www.iboats.com/cgi-bin/marine_classifieds/adv-search.cgi?id=191587

i know the lime green sucks. rekon i could get used to it, or chage it, upulsty aint critical anyway. the ol lady likes lime green sx-r's by kawasaki, anyways.

anybody know anything about these boats?
from what i've found these boats aint got wood in them. at this point i hate (rotton)wood. i have no idea what technology went into these boats. found a link that i can't find anymore(grrrr) that stated these boats have no wood. they use a foam floation for support and floataion???? what's the front motor mount hooked too? what's the transom made out of? any info on these types of boats? + side is i got lots of il6 parts....now if the rest of the boat is servicable......that i might be able to deal with..............

how would i find out if these boat is servicable? from 500+ miles away? any ideas. don't reckon theres a marine survayer to close to somewhere SD.....

seems like a engine that's sat for 15 years would be seized? from the blurb about this boat. that wouldn't be the implication.......

any ideas about this.......?

 

[tiller7104]

Re: aristo craft boats?

I have never seen one but can I tell you how cool that thing is...you would be the envy of us all with that thing LOL I just called and tlked to the guy about it, old dude but he says it is mint, we have all heard that before

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

old dude but he says it is mint, we have all heard that before

well, i went 540 miles to see if it was mint.
i don't know if it is mint, but it is in better shape than a lot of 90's boats that i have looked at.

i will let ya know if it's anygood. as now it's my problem....i towed it home.....time will tell......

 

[Texasmark]

Re: aristo craft boats?

Check out www.fiberglassics.com/forms/forum818

Gotta join to see but in there is a full page test report from Merc on a Aristo-Craft 17' Funliner with hardtop driven by an 80 hp Merc back in June of '60.

Neighbor had one when I was in Biloxi, MS. He liked it fine. I thought it was pretty, nice and roomy, but never rode in it. According to the test report, with 80 hp it will run out at 40+ mph with one person. Not bad.

Mark

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

i remember the from the late 60' early 70's. they were cool then and definately cool now. have you checked compression etc. post it in the i/o forum. best part it's a merc not omc.

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

compression was a shade low on 2. and did post the #'s on i/o forum. i'm hip to the fiberglassics www. though aint checked it out in depth yet. ya think i might qualify for a fiberglassic? that would suit me fine....though i thought i read the cut off was older then 75. i will go see.
not only is it not an omc. it's an il6 so i got mitigateing parts from my poor ol trisonic. like a new manifold and such.
against my better judgement, i took it out today, what a crappy cloudy day and was even spittin rain. good thing i had a hard top.. a 16' boat to a 19' is a fair change for me too. lots of rum, aaa, room i mean. i need to check the u-joint i think asap to make sure it and the gimble brg are cool. perhpas this week. it ran just dandy, seems pretty fast to, i didn't open it up for to long today but i had to try it. i was spinin a 17 pitch alum. on my trisonic il6, this one is spinnin a 21 alum. hole shot seems ok, only comin in on the low side of wot spec though, might have to down size a bit......at full trim down this boat don't seem to have much bow rise. that's nice. no idea what speed it does as it don't have a dreamometer and my darn gps won't get me a lock anymore. guess it's wore out from 9 years of jetskiin......boatin sure is fun.... had the whole 1800 sq. acre lake to my self today too. very peacefull..........
so far i like it, and best yet it my sweety likes it a lot. and that is worth it's weight in gold...

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

glad to here the test run went so well. i would submit it to Fiberglassics. it is a classic.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

just checked fiberglassics, there are no real pictures of the Aristo Craft.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: aristo craft boats?

I have one sitting in front of me; it's a Page 1 of 1, "Boat House Bulletin" , stated thereon to be "A factual report from the Mercury proving grounds".

I'd give you the whole url, but the end of it is missing. You might start with http://fiberglassics.com and work your way through forms to forums and to this particular article/posting/whatever. It is a subset of an article as on the front is a prompt that says "Please click the image to return back to the main page."

If you still can't find it I will go and see if I can relocate it and print out the whole address for you.

Mark

 

[Texasmark]

Re: aristo craft boats?

Ok I did it for you

Search www for aristo-craft boats

Retrieve fiberglassics thread and pursue

Under the heading "Still in Use" go to #5.

Open #5 and go to last pic and blow it up.

There's the data sheet.

Mark

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

thanks guys. i found some pics of still in use aristocrafts on that fiberglassics. though i've still not found the data sheet. those still in use boats looks a little rough. like one on the ground, and one w/o it's hardtop. hum? fiberglassics may not be interested in my toy as it's a 75 and they seem primarily interested in 70 and older. oh well.... i like iboats anyways....
i must say my 75 looks like the 72 and 69 i think that were pictured.........
i get a bit of wax onto my toy and i'll see if i can post some pics. here on iboats, perhaps even floating...........

 

[Buttanic]

Re: aristo craft boats?

Good luck with the Aristo Craft. I inherited 1975 19" with a frozen 120 Mercruiser engine from my father in law. I did a resto on it used it for a year and sold it. Last time I saw it hurricane Katrina had made mince meat out of it. They were made in Atlanta , Ga. There are no wood stringers in it but there is some wood for the engine mounts. The foam was pretty well saturated with water and there wasn't much I could do about it.. I found the boat stern heavy with the engine, gas tank and battery against the transon. I put trim tabs on it and it made a world of difference.

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

thanks for the info tb. i was wondering what method they used to attach the front motor mount to. now i know. ya say yer foam was soaked. do you know how the hull is constructed? surely it's not just the foam under the floor that gives it rigidity. i read it has a double hull construction. i'm wondering if it is not like a surfboard or something, then the foam ontop of that, between the floor and the double hull. i don't know. if you do, let me know. i'm just interested obviously...
interesting that tabs did ya justice. i was wonderin about that too. ain't gonna do anything about that right away though as i am impressed with the lack of bow rise on this boat. so far it seems stable to me. a little rolly compared to the tri hull i had, but for now i'm thinkin it's just me being not used to how a v rolls with the waves. had it out yesterday tryin that out in 25 mph winds. was pretty fun. also got to try out my 21 pitch prop. yep, i can achive 4200 rpm wot. perfect. though i did have to trim up a bit to get that. still was in the green on the trim indicator. my gps is still broke so no speed #'s... oh well, it seemed to go pretty fast to me. the tach is what's important anyways.......thankyou.....

 

[Buttanic]

Re: aristo craft boats?

First let me say that I have restored several boats over the years including a 1968 233 Formula, a 1967 31 Bertram and the latest a 1977 Chris Craft Sportsman so I write with some experience about boat construction. I hate to be negative since you have already purchased the boat and yours may not have the same issues. From what I have been able to learn about the boat is that foam fills the void between the hull and the inner deck liner. There are no stringers that that connect from the hull to the inner liner so the foam acts as a structual member. I had found some advertisement pictures of the boat's construction but lost them when my hard drive died along with the pictures I took during my work on it. There were two 4 inch diameter holes in the deck hidden under the carpeted area aft of the seats. These were used to inject foam between the hull and inner liner and were glassed over with only one layer of mat that had deterioated allowed an entry point for water. Also the side storage compartments allow water to seep into the foam. There was a 3 inch ventalation hose which connected the blower in the engine
compartment to the indeck storage well that also allowed water into the foamed area between the hull and inner liner. With the engine mounts removed water could be made to squit out of the bolt holes by stepping on the deck around them. I went so far as to drill several small holes in the bottom of the hull to drain trapped water. I guesstimated that the foam may have absorbed several hundereds of pounds of water. The rear of the inner liner at the transon was slightly warped from the expansion of too much injected foam. In the area on both sides of the transom had black painted cardboard box material used as a form for the foam. The hull appeared to be all chopper gun layup with a high resin to glass ratio. The boat did not have a fuse panel for the wiring. As I stated in my previous post I found it stern heavy but I had removed the sliding hard top because the slides were corroded and it was frozen in place. The top is fairly heavy and that may counter act the weight concentrated at the transom. On the positive side there is a lot of foam high up under the gunnels that shoud keep it floating right side up should it swamp. These boats sold for $4995 with trailer in 1975. I hope I haven't discouraged you, as I said you may not have the same problems.

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

I hope I haven't discouraged you, as I said you may not have the same problems.

nope, not yet. but time will tell. thanks for lettin me in on some facts. i've seen the black foam and cardboard in the back. from what i can feel. it feels dry. no idea about underneath the floor of corse. but at this point, i don't feel that i'm heavy in the back...... not much structure if the blowin in foam is all there is.....very interesting, thankyou.....

ps, this boat has been in storage for a while. so is just now comeing back into service. while in it's long hibernation, it was allegedly in an aircraft hanger. it won't get such good treatment now that i've got it. but it will be either in the lake or covered at the least.........

 

[Buttanic]

Re: aristo craft boats?

If it was and will be stored indoors or covered than the wet foam may not be an issue. Have fun.

 

[ziggy]

Re: aristo craft boats?

If it was and will be stored indoors or covered than the wet foam may not be an issue.

i truly hope that to be the case.....thanks tb.........