f_inscreenname

Santa's sleigh? He wishes.
Last blast with the Nova 24 before putting the old race boat away for the winter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyEiw4kpQg

f_inscreenname

Cant they fix that top block?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyEiw4kpQg

outonsafari

iTrader: (4)

watched some of your resto vids yesterday, pretty cool.
at least that i know of your boat and the turbine thunderbird are the only 2 thinking out of the box boats left on the planet.
i'm also a big fan of shaft strut and rudder, for the most part untapped potential i think

f_inscreenname

The only issue with unique boats it usually cost a motor or something on every test drive. The reason for this test drive (and last ride of the year) was to check a just rebuilt motor after a broken cam thrust bearing chewed up a bunch of metal and distributed it through out the motor. That and the V drive just got new shafts and was rebuilt back to specs if there is such a thing for the one of a kind V drive..
There is one other unique boat I would like to have and that is Donzi Baby but from what I hear that will never happen.
Just cant get enough of these Brownie boats. Just picked up a 1966 Donzi 16. Pretty sure Brownie was there then.



Be looking for this project to be happening soon.

MDonziM

16's are great, really fun boats. I had a 67' that has been thru several resto's. It'l be interesting to see how the transom work was done going from Volvo to merc. Mine had that same vent piece on the stern, its purely decorative, but different clamshell vents. Good luck!

tommymonza

What kind of speed you seeing out of the old Nova race boat?

f_inscreenname

At the beginning of the summer we gps'ed it at the boat show and it was 67mph. Not making excuses but it also had a sick motor that ended up dropping a valve very soon after, wrong prop, short ride and on flat water. The blast in the video was testing out the fixes that just got done after a summer of broken everything. Between waiting on V drive parts and motor parts (and a way to pay for them) took me up to late Oct. Thought about just waiting until next spring but didn't think I would make it through the winter without knowing if it was fixed. Figure it was a little faster then the last time. Safely into the 70's. And again it was pretty flat out for a Titanic heavy wave crusher race boat (the Cats would have killed us if we were racing).
To be honest I'm still trying to figure this boat out. Every time I learn something new I also learn that I did something else wrong. I basically have to become an expert in totally obscure things. I bet I know more about a Casale C-1000 then Andy Casale does. But typical they made less then a 100 of them 45 to 50 years ago. Not like I'm going to be able to turn that info and ability into a business or even act like a "know it all" on a message board cause no one else has one.
Also I'm not a rich guy. I do all this stuff in my driveway because my garage couldn't fit a compact car inside (its a small shop with a garage door). So a simple prop change may take a couple weeks because of the shop and more likely me paying for it. I've had summers that it got one ride and then the rest of the time was fixing what broke and what needed to be changed. The first rides on my you tube channel we killed a motor and filled the v drive with sea water and all the v drive oil into the bilge. 1/2 hour of fun. Months of repairs.That's why it's taking so long to figure out.
But this summer we think we may have turned a corner. After 4 different sets of motor combinations in 6 years we are pretty set on what we have and finally the rest of the drive train should be as good as it's ever has been. This is the first year in many that we don't have a motor to rebuild for it over the winter. Looking forward to tweaking props and doing oil changes next summer (he says with his fingers crossed).

MDonzi.
Ya its an odd ball 1966. Its a debate if it was supposed to have those vents on it or not. I know the 2 forward ones do not belong on the boat at all. According to the Donzi history http://www.lgdonziclassic.com/pdfs/16ident.pdf the center rear vent should be open and the HVAC looking vent under the seat. No clam shells at all. But then the 2 rear clams on the boat are actually what Donzi used before they went to the square type clams. So they shouldn't be there but they are the right ones and my center vent was never drilled out like 1966's are supposed to be but under the deck the build date of 4/29/66 is there plane as day. Bad for you and good for me but I'm pretty sure they put a transom in it and just re-cut the hole for a Merc. I put a transom in my last 18 that's on my You tube channel but it got a Volvo 280T if interested.

f_inscreenname

Here is the example. This is the first ride with the new Kiekhaefer 482ci (now 495ci) motors. I call it a "non Hollywood test drive".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS8_NsKM6xs