Building The Vera Cruise

[neel thompson]

Carl..... I have never worried about keeping the tank full on any of the boats I have had over the years. I will tell you this.... I have a Checkmate boat with an I/O motor that I take to Florida each winter. Last March it had about a half tank of fuel in it when I headed north. It sat in my driveway from March 3rd until about two weeks ago. I put it in the water to make sure it ran and then had it winterized. So it sat with no fuel additive for nine months or so and it fired right up and ran great. I have done the same thing now for about six years. And I don't fill it until it gets down to a quarter tank, and not after each use. So I would say if you are going to let your boat sit for six months or more without using it, it is probably a good idea to put some Stabil in the tank. But I would not bother to fill it after each use. I think 25 to 30 gallons would be all you need. As Bill said, that should get you around 100 miles. 30 sits better with me than 25. You could probably get two boating days out of 30 gallons and not have to fill it until you are ready to use it for the third time. There are also two different schools of thought as to whether or not you should fill the tank for winter storage to prevent condensation. I have done both, always putting in Stabil, and it doesn't seem to matter. Let's see what others say. I've been wrong before !!

[Bill Edmundson]

Well... I don't always fill the tank. I use Sta-Bill. I was just putting out recommended practice. I do have fuel/water separators and filters. I have never had to drain them.

Bill

[TomB]

Carl,

I have to chime in, ethanol is hydroscopic, it attracts water and mixes with it...very little water on a relative basis will contaminate E10. As a result, the shelf life of E10 is much shorter than "real gas". I routinely go too far from shore to row or swim home so I only used E10 once. (Maybe water separators help, don't know?) I fill up after every outing (no place for condensation other than in the tank at the gas station ), store the boat full for the winter, use the same fuel in my snow blower (translation for southern friends -noisy lawn mower for cutting snow in the driveway), and I don't stabilize, never an issue. I use www.pure-gas.org to find gas, stations off the water sometimes call it "recreational" gas. Around here it is expensive and usually higher octane. All my motors can tell the difference. On the other hand, if you use the boat enough you won't give the E10 a change to collect water.

Tom

[hoodman]

There is a product called "Star-Tron". It is like Sta-bil but treats a lot more gas per bottle. I use it or sta-bil in my gas for the boat and the mowers and never have problems with the gas. I don't worry about keeping the tanks full. I don't know how it works, but the gas treatments mitigate the problem of moisture in the gas. In Texas, you're probably not going to store the boat long enough for the gas to go bad anyway.

[mrintense]

Excellent responses Bill, Tim, Matt, Tom, Neel, thanks for the insight. It would seem that 30 gallons capacity will be fine. Matt, you are correct, down here, we have quite a number of nice boating days. Tom, I looked at pure-gas.org. It appears that there are at least two sources in my area, so that's good news.

What's scary about this is the cost of 30 gallons. Even at today's prices that's 60 clams!

One place on the list of ethanol free stations was charging 4>50 per gallon, yikes!.

Electric propulsion is definitely looking more and more attractive. Come on Tesla and other car manufacturers, let's get these batteries down to a reasonable price!

[jenko]

stop whining about fuel cost I have a 100 litre tank @ $1.80 au per litre

[283]

stop whining about fuel cost I have a 100 litre tank @ $1.80 au per litre

I see your 1.80/liter and raise you a twin engine two stroke jet boat

FWIW every gallon of gas I buy for the boat and small engines gets the marine version of Stabil and Yamaha ring free.

[chugalug]

Just depends on what you call fun.Some folks come up here to stay at mom's resort paying 600 or more to stay a week,rent motors ( boat comes with cabin) and buy gas,minnows,leaches,soda pop to go fishing for northerns,crappies ,perch and walleyes.they must be having a good time as there is a waiting list to get in (June,July and August).She's been open since 1963 and she's taking reservations up to 2022 so far.to get to the point-walleye fillets would cost in the hundreds

[TomB]

Just depends on what you call fun.Some folks come up here to stay at mom's resort paying 600 or more to stay a week,rent motors ( boat comes with cabin) and buy gas,minnows,leaches,soda pop to go fishing for northerns,crappies ,perch and walleyes.they must be having a good time as there is a waiting list to get in (June,July and August).She's been open since 1963 and she's taking reservations up to 2022 so far.to get to the point-walleye fillets would cost in the hundreds

Ah yes...But watching a moose having breakfast in shallow water at the end of the Gun Flint Trail is priceless!

And now back to "Building the Vera Cruise"...

[mrintense]

Yep back to building the Vera Cruise.

Today was about doing three things. First off I spent some time planning out building the aft cabin and getting my punch list more in order. This also involved evaluating the parts that I've already made.

One thing I decided was that I needed an additional long floor support so the second thing I did was make one more of those and get it assembled. The reason for this was because I wanted to have the supports under the middle access panel edges to give it better support at the edges. This left me with too big of a gap in the center , hence the need for another floor support.

The third thing was I began mocking up the helm station. I am going to try and use some old radio cabinetry as an inspiration for this design. Not sure I can pull it off, but a mock up was the first order of business to see what would be required. I still have more work to do on the mockup, and I almost certainly will change the design fromm the picture below. But it's a start.

[Bill Edmundson]

Carl

I thought it was a Change Station at first. But, Oliver is getting a little big for that! OOPS! Oliver is Matt's son!

Bill

[mrintense]

Hmmmm! I guess I will need to do some additional design work. Definitely didn't have that in mind when I started working on this Bill!

[mrintense]

Got more work done on the helm station mock up. I placed it in the boat for a reference and I can see that it will probably be too tall as currently designed. But that's why I am mocking it up. Some of the design improvements, curved sides framing the instrument panel, a raised section wrapping around the front for mounting the steering wheel too. This will undoubtedly be taller than it is currently shown. Another improvement, although rather hard to see is that the width of the helm will be wider from the instrument panel down . It's going to be stepped on the sides. Finally, although I didn't show it, the front corners will be rounded all the way around from the top to the floor.

Also not apparent yet, but the helm is going to be mounted on a raised platform, so it will definitely be shorter than it is now. I need to get some of the items attaching to this (instruments, steering wheel, seat pedestal and seat) before I can make final decisions about everything, but this will be a good reference.

Also got the additional floor supports started on the encapsulation process and added two more small floor timbers for the aft end of the floor.

[chugalug]

Looks good,Carl.this is from the ol ' Chris-craft

[hoodman]

Carl

I thought it was a Change Station at first. But, Oliver is getting a little big for that! OOPS! Oliver is Matt's son!

Bill

He is too big for that!

The helm design looks great, Carl! You'll need a pretty wide area for a Teleflex/Seastar helm. I can get you the measurements if you need them.