It was such a special day the Fleet Captain even put the flags up for me
The shop was closed on Friday, I took advantage of that day off by getting up regular time and heading to the boat by 5:30.
I had a laundry list of things to do, things to fit, things to check, things to test.
I probably could have waited till Saturday, but my friend who is a damn good mechanic was going away for the weekend. I kinda wanted him there to look things over, and if something went wrong, he's better then me at finding and fixing.
The plan was I'd be done when he made his way down after work at 7.
Put the boat in...check things out at the dock and if all looked good take her for a spin.
He got there a right on time, I was a little behind so he helped me get the last few things done as the wind started kicking up. Would have been nice to have a breeze during the day. While the breeze felt really good, I knew the weathermen were going to be right with their prediction of a severe late afternoon thunderstorm.
I already blabbed I was going in on Friday to too many people. After saying I'll be ready to go in the water in "a couple of weeks", "in a few days" for many many months, now I had to go in...
So we fired up the lift, they were putting the strap under her as I was finishing bolting down the tower...
AND after a year and a half
Splash
With the wind kicking up I knew the idea of going into the slip to check out wasn't going to leave any time for a spin...so we checked out best we could in the well, then went for a quick spin.
Sorry, no pictures or video as there was lots of checking happening and a storm was rolling in...not the best conditions for a checkout ride.
Anyway, she idled her way out real nice, much quieter than expected, extremely smooth.
Brought throttles up to 2000 and we were doing pretty good, temps fine, exhaust pressure about 1lb but the chop and wind was making it tough to see out the windsheild, so I brought her around and headed back in than goosed her open. 20.5 knots at 2500 rpm and that is all she had. If these are 210's they should see 2600 WOT. Exhaust back pressure went up to 1-3/4 psi and then I was back in the harbor and had to bring her back down most of the way...we now had wind and gusts with lightning. So it was a quick pace back to the dock. and that was my ride.
I was a bit disappointed she didn't overrev as expected. 20" square wheels should have let me hit the no-load limit of 2850, especially as she's light with less than a half tank of fuel. Also wasn't happy to see backpressure go over the 1.5 psi max.
On a good note, even if I don't find anything wrong I should be able to bring the rpm up by just dropping a blade. I'm also pretty sure that I can divert some of the raw water from the dumps to bring down the backpressure till I redo the exhaust with risers. After putting motors boxs on I see I have a good amount of room to fit them.
So far I checked cable throw and she goes to 2850 with no load, so that seems good.
As much as I wanted to go back out the last two days...the boat needed to be organized enough so I can clean it enough to organize. If you saw it, you'd understand. I still have some electrical work to take care of, electronics need to be wired, maybe I'll put the batteries in their boxes and strap them down now. With hatches and boxes out in the weather so long, the wood tracks that hold up the center hatches need to be replaced before they let go.
...so that is it, it floats and it goes.
Some tweaking left to do for sure.
