Glen-L.com

Took my new-to-me cabin skiff out for a little shakedown fun earlier this week. Love it. Glassy water, gray whales, can't beat it. For reference, at wot I saw 5500 rpm and about 23-23 kts with a Yamaha 40 4S.

I was surprised by the amount of spray thrown, and in particular by how vertically the spray was thrown. The obvious thought was to investigate whether anyone had added spray rails, and if so, to what effect, where and what style, etc.

I'd be interested in trying some type of hard rubber or vinyl extruded rail that I could install, trial, remove, reposition, retrial, etc., if anyone has any thoughts on candidates for materials and adhesives that would be suitable.

Any insight would be great!

It didn't take long for me to decide my Cabin Skiff needed spray rails. The spray follows up along the hull sides and keeps going above the gunnels. If there is any crosswind blowing it comes right in the aft section of the cockpit. If building again OR doing a serious overhaul I would add chine flats. Somewhere on the forum OYSTER had some nice photos of how to construct them but I think they have been removed.

To solve my problem I added a piece of aluminum angle on each side. They work well and solved the spray problem. There is a little information and a couple photos here - http://egyptian.net/~raymacke/Cbnskif23.htm.

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So Many Rivers,
So Little Time....

That is exactly what I am observing.

I just looked at your pics of the aluminum angle, and then watched the youtube video "glen-l fleet" with your boat planing along nicely at about 1:40. I assume that in this shot the rails are installed because the difference is profound.

I suppose the question is whether to go "out" from above the chine, as you did, or to go "flat/down" from the chine, or even to run a rib along the contour below the chine. I'm hoping to evaluate a bit of placement variation, and will post findings.

Since I was not sure how they would work I decided to just bolt them on and I could remove them if it didn't work out. Because of that it then made sense to keep the bolts above the water line. Installing them flush along the chine may have been a cleaner method but bolting through the interior built up chine on a stitch & glue hull presented some problems. Gluing it to the outside rather than bolts might be a better solution but I am not sure if you can get away with epoxying an aluminum angle to the hull.

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So Many Rivers,
So Little Time....