Gilera

Thanks for the info Jon. It is a fair point - all boats degrade over time...

Thanks, I had briefly thought about this but might look into the options again. How well would an inflatable stand up to being exposed to the sun constantly. It is one thing to have a small cheap tender deteriorate but the larger RIBs are not cheap. Also have heard they can be very wet boats. Still they often require smaller motors for their size and you can't have everything I guess.

Fair comment. I could extend about 1.5m with Council approval but would not gain a massive amount of depth. Council do not seem to maintain the depth in the canal despite it being Council owned land. Apparently it is the owners responsibility to maintain a depth of 600mm under the pontoon. I think this is to protect seagrass.

Doesn't need to be 11m, just listing my limitations as far as frontage goes. Have been looking at 23 feet + but these smaller leasure style boats don't really have the accomodation for a weekend away at least with any level of comfort with 3 kids. What is the average 30 footer shaft drive going to draw? I realise that shallow draft is the biggest challenge.

I have a friend with a Sea Ray 290 and he reckons it only draws 50cm with legs up. In reality if it draws a touch more then it wont be a massive issue. I'm sure it will settle into the sand a little.

Wondering if I could get some ideas of which brand/model people might suggest that fits my needs so I can keep an eye on the second hand market. I live on a canal but it is fairly shallow. At the front of my pontoon it can be down to about 50cm at a very low tide. If my boat draws more than this I will have to constantly maintain the frontage by regularly pumping out sand. A cat would be ok as it can sit level. It is only sand/mud - no rocks to damage the hul. Looking to get a larger boat after owning multiple small trailer boats. Length limited to about 11m. Height limit 6m due to bridge (no mast). Would like something dual purpose for reef fishing plus weekend get away for the family (3 kids). If I can't have both then fishing/comfortable day boat for the family. Doesn't need to go fast but needs to be relatively fuel efficient. Price under $60k (looking at second hand). Obviously any boat left in the water will mean a lot of maintenance. Ideally outboards which clear the water would be great but as length goes up this get unlikely in the price range unless multiple old large 2 strokes which kill any chance of reasonable fuel efficiency. I want to avoid old large carby V8 petrol inboard/sterndrives for same reasons. I am hoping to get to know which branded hulls are likely to have stood the test of time and which might present good value long term so I can focus on finding a good well maintained example and jump on it when it comes up. So far have looked at Sea Ray, Mustang, Bayliner, Sunrunner, Leeder. Also things like Noosa Cat but these larger powered cats but these seem to command a real premium for some reason. Any opinions welcome as I still have a lot to learn.

I am concerned about this but I thought these type of "closed cell" foams are not supposed to absorb water. I guess anything put there will have the potential to hold some water (and salt) in the area. The only other option I can see would be to use some kind of hard plastic like the strip that is under the ribs (like cutting board or something) but it wont be very flexible and might have to be glued in to keep it in place.

Thanks Frank. Much appreciated.

Just an update on this. I filled the boat with just a little bit of water and found a clear pinhole leak. It was forming a drop about every 10 seconds in a spot that was under a rib so I would never have found it from the inside. I might get some knead it and see how it goes. As far is the gap under the rib goes, I found some edpm foam strip at Bunnings. I might cut some pieces and try to squeeze it under the ribs and see if it helps.

The part with the patchy paint is the plastic strip. It sags off the rib a bit and if you push it back on properly the gap is a bit bigger than shown. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I think as far as the leak goes, I'll start by putting a new bung in and put it back in the water and look really hard around for any signs. I've attached a photo of what I mean by the gap between the floor and the rib.

I can take a photo of the gap but harder to show the flexing. I'll try to take one tonight.

Hi, I recently bought my first boat. It is an older Clark 3.66 and has a 2003 model USA made Mercury 9.9 on it. Overall in very good condition for its age. I have noticed a couple of things from my first outing and would appreciate advice from some experienced boaties. The boat is very light. From what I understand it was kind of like a Car Topper. I read that it weighs 57kg. The rolled sheet flexes if you push hard and I think I read that it is 1.6mm thick. With the 9.9 it goes pretty fast. On the GPS speedo it showed 35-40km/h depending on the current. When going along, there is a little flexing in the frame - you can see the front twist slightly when hitting small waves (it is only a river boat). I'm not to oconcerned as I imagine this is due to the light construction and fact that there probably aren't as many horizontal ribs as a heavier duty boat. What I was a little concerned about was that just in front of the driver, there is a gap between the floorsheet and the rib. It is probably about 8mm. The hard plastic moulded strip that goes between the floor and rib is in poor shape (cracked and bit broken off) but essentially still there. The gap seems like it was not intended to be there from factory and has formed between the plastic strip and the floor. I'm thinking either it fatigued over time, perhaps overloaded or something. The issue is that when you are going along, this seems to allow quite a lot of flexing in the floor sheet. It is like the pressure of the water underneath means it is constantly rippling in and out with the water. I'm wondering if this is something to worry about and whether the flexing might lead to cracking if left as is. My immediate thought was to get some kind of foam/plastic/rubber stripping and use it to fill the gap. The question is what to use? It would have to be flexible but also not retain salt water or allow salt to accumulate causing corrosion. I rang a few marine shops, whitworths, plastic moulding companies etc and no one seems to know. One said use HDPE. Another suggested EDPM. The other thing I was wondering is that the boat was in the water for about 24 hours, and when I drained the bug it had about 2L of water in it. Is this normal for an old tinny or should I be looking into this further. I was thinking about partially filling it with water to see if I could find a leak. Is this the best way? Cheers, Mark