Another Maine Starchief

[laurentide]

Great, congrats! The first ride is sooo satisfying! It looks great sitting at rest, not stern heavy at all. 39 is fast on this boat, that's awesome. Really, really nice job. You've still got a ton of "construction" season left, too (the other two being winter and mud seasons...bad New England joke).

 

[oldhaven]

Thanks all. I am pretty pumped up that things turned out well. I had visions of my first trip looking like Chem's last picture of a boat on the end of a tow line after my fuel problems last week. Plenty left to do, since this was a very bare boat trip. The necessity of adding seats as leaning posts become apparent when hitting the throttle. My Friend Bud was missing a good grab rail to hang on to.
I went out a bit ago to check recorded consumption on the monitor and if the fuel flow sensor and usage calculation is correct I used 2.7 gallons for the 20 miles, most done at mid range RPM's around 20 MPH. I need to put the paddle wheel on to use troll control, which can get me to 550 RPM but I got a good salmon trolling speed at the standard 700 RPM idle. It will also get me more accurate inputs to the trip statistics..

These little Starchief's tow nicely too. I hardly knew it was there. When I towed it to the dealer I had a higher hitch ball mount and noticed the wind resistance, but I lowered that and things were a lot better as the bow was tucked in behind the car roof.

My wife and I always figure that fall begins here on August 20th, our anniversary, so time is flying by.

Ron

 

[laurentide]

I went out a bit ago to check recorded consumption on the monitor and if the fuel flow sensor and usage calculation is correct I used 2.7 gallons for the 20 miles

Wow! That is great. I do 28 mile runs once in a while when it's not windy and I burn about 8 gallons at 4000 RPM on my three cylinder 2 stroke. Man, I've gotta get one of these.

 

[laurentide]

Ron, on my way to meet those guys after they hailed me yesterday I had an 8 mile run with a north wind following sea, basically surfing and bogging into the next swell with my prop occasionally popping out. Not once did I stuff the bow. You'll love the hull in flat water, it'll pound in rough stuff, but it will always pop right up and bow steer is not a big issue in downhill situations. It's a great hull for safety and efficiency.

 

[Decker83]

Congrats on your successful splash..eace:
That big 4 stroke Merc did a great job for you.
Looking forward to seeing more pics.

 

[pckeen]

:clap2::clap2::clap2: SPLASH :clap2::clap2::clap2:

Congratulations - great news. Looks great on the water.

 

[oldhaven]

Thanks pckeen. I notice you have a similar vintage Holiday with a similar newer 90. Is yours an 18' with the same hull as mine, and what performance do you get? I apologize but I don't remember any information on that or if you posted it. This is a big forum..

Secondly, I did not get any water out of the transom drain after the trip, (to my relief, since we did some pounding), but I later noticed some dripping at the transom bottom. That concerned me a little but it turned out that the riveted on bilge keels had water in them, and it was slowly leaking out at the transom end of the keels due to the bow up angle of the boat on the trailer. There is still some dripping this morning. These keels have holes at the front for drainage, but I don't see any at the rear. Has anyone else noticed this? I am tempted to very carefully drill weep holes near the transom so they drain quicker.

Ron

 

[pckeen]

I wouldnt be drilling unnecessary holes. With a 19" pitch prop, I'm getting upper 30s, low 40s for speed at WOT, working from memory.

 

[StarTed]

The boat looks great on the water.

Congratulations on a fine job.

Fish beware! The fish won't even know you slipped over them.

 

[g0nef1sshn]

SPLASHED! Nice work! Glad to see it in the water!

 

[MARUSS]

Nice to see that old girl on the water. That big 90 pushes her along pretty good too.
Congrats.

 

[Watermann]

Oh yeah another Chief hits the waves again! Nice job on the successful splash :thumb:

These boat hulls with the double windshield and substantial deadrise start taking a huge amount of HP to continue gaining speed over 40 MPH. I rarely go over 30 MPH as that's my cruise speed. I would hate to know what my Chief uses for fuel at WOT with the howling pop can secondaries. Sounds like you've got a really fuel efficient motor at the lower cruise speeds. So far my longest cruise has been 110 miles round trip and I used around 25 gallons. You'll know know more about what prop is best when you can run WOT and get your speed.

I put a SS grab handle on the nav side bulkhead for the admiral to hang onto and it's needed in rough water even with good helm seats.

 

[classiccat]

Congratulations oldhaven! Sounds like she's already rewarding you for your herculean effort! Well Done!!

 

[oldhaven]

I want to collectively thank everyone who has followed along so far for your good thoughts and congratulations. Also, this Iboats forum is a treasure trove of information that held an answer to every question that came up for me. I am far from done and will likely see things stretch into 2017 before I feel ready to call the project completed. I would like to say that it seems like just a short time ago since last September when I started this, but in fact it seems like a couple of years... There is a huge amount of work in these old boats, if you want to do a good job.

I am taking a few days off on Russell mountain. No boat work except mental prep. I did get the cabin plywood cut out and fitted over the weekend, including covering the forward end of the front tank and the fill and sender area. Getting those panels coated and installed and adding seats and a grab rail will be necessary before I can get my wife out in the boat. She is anxious for that to happen after hearing my report on the sea trial run. Before the end of August we should be able come here towing the Chief, put in at Greenville and do some cruising on the big lake. That has been on my bucket list for quite a while.

Ron

 

[Patfromny]

Spoken like a prize fighter after winning the belt. Happy, satisfied, a little beat up, taking a break before hitting the training again. Must have felt like a prize fight doing all that in less then a year. Wow. I thought you read my thread? Take it easy, it will all get done, 5 yrs later but it's almost all done. enjoy the vaca.

 

[oldhaven]

Hi Pat,

I have been following along with your project, and can see your excitement, along with a bit of frustration, now that you are close to finishing. I have the advantage of being retired and being "the old guy who is always tinkering in his yard". Otherwise, this would have taken three times as long, at least.

Ron

 

[Patfromny]

I hear you there. Retirement also means it's hard to get away from it when frustrated though. Great job and nice to see you in the home stretch too. I worked for a guy while in college that was nearly 40 years older than me and he would work circles around me. We would sell and restore old pontiacs and parts. This meant that most of my time was spent ripping old Firebirds and Gtos apart to sell the parts or putting one back together from scratch. Very hard work. He would say that you are only as old as you think. He is in his late 70s now and hasn't changed much since the early 90's. There's a lot to be said about keeping yourself busy. I'm looking forward to see the last few rounds of this heavy weight title bout.

 

[MARUSS]

When I lived in Maine (years ago)I used to hunt & fish Moose Head Lake area with my uncle that was a hunting fishing guide living right on the lake. He used to work out of Tom Heagan's camps. right in Greenville. That's were he used to put his boat in or take his truck over the ice, as there was no road to his camp. He now lives in Alaska. I guess it got to populated for him.
Dress for the weather it gets pretty chilly the end of August up there.
It's a beautiful area, great choice for your bucket list.
Some day I would like to do the same.
Russ

 

[oldhaven]

More progress to report. After the first run I now need to get some of the comfort factor things into the boat in prep for a trip with my wife, possibly to Moosehead. I installed the cabin door trim and the folding door I picked up on the the i-auction site. Also installed, (2 screws and 5200) an epoxied and painted Coosa block on the transom for the paddle wheel, sonar and structure scan transducers. The rubber inserts in the step pads were really bad, so I fabricated inserts from the teak I had around. Yesterday I cut and fitted the cabin berth/floor plywood and got most of the aluminum trim I will be using on it done. These panels will come out again for painting soon, and then go back in with rivets. the cover for the fuel tank filler and sender that you see just beyond the door has a removable top that is held down by the seat hatches, so it can come off very quickly if necessary. Also used some of those nice folding spring hatch supports for the front deck hatch. I like those a lot.

Another big item is seats, and those will be installed in the next couple of days, after I slightly modify the Garelick folding seat hardware to lower it a bit on the sidewalls. The seats I have will sit too high otherwise, especially the helm seat with a quick release, swivel, and sliding track all adding to the height.

Ron

 

[BWR1953]

Nice progress!

Would you please provide a link to those nice folding spring hatch supports for the front deck hatch that you mentioned? I'd like to check those out. :sneakiness: