Offshoreonly.com - The other "OSO" boat ...

Hot Duck - Excellent pic! Even though the conditions are not necessarily what we would call "fun" you can't dispute the color of the water and the quality of the shots. The color of the TG on the deep blue water made for an awesome shot!

Chad aka Jawbreaker - The boat was completely re-rigged with NO cabin. I did not want a cabin. I wanted to maintain the light layup. The boat has a dry weight of 7800 pounds which is considerably lighter than the standard Top Guns. The only thing I changed was the cockpit area. I wanted it to have the full pleasure cockpit.

The upholstery was all replaced, the pleasure engine hatch was added (in place of the lightweight race hatch), a swimstep was added, all the gauges/bezels/throttles/shifters, etc. were replaced. I also added the handles behind the seats for the passengers. I suspect that the hatch and the swim step probably added a couple hundred pounds between them.

As for the drives they are stock Bravos with nosecones and low water pickups. The low water pickups were a must as the drives are mounted considerably higher than stock (about three inches higher). I am turning a 31 pitch prop with 500's which is a pretty high pitch for that power, however, the weight is where the difference lies. Knock on wood (again) - I have not had any problems with the drives and do not feel that XR's are necessary. The three things that kills drives are weight, horsepower, or bad throttling. I am very light, have "stock" horsepower, and hopefully am a decent throttleman.

Ron P - The Gladiator is a "company" boat that will stay in Florida and be used mostly by my partner Steve. He actually bankrolled a majority of the boat's cost since it was staying over there. Kind of hard to "share" a boat from coast to coast. It will hopefully make its way over to the west coast later this summer for a couple of months.

IDRPSTF - The F-2 Top Gun is not really for sale. I was toying with the idea when I was thinking about purchasing a second Gladiator for myself over here, however, I just love the Top Gun style and the boat is awesome the way it is. Also, there is the matter of sit down versus stand up. The jury is still out on that one for me. Bottom line ... it's not really for sale but if someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse ...

Chad - If you are thinking about this type of boat I can't rave about it enough. If you can live without the creature comforts (cabin) you are left with a lightweight boat that will run all day long on stock 500's with literally no trouble. This reminds me of a funny incident last year ...

Our club (SCOPE) had an event to San Diego. 10 boats went (including DMAN). It is about an hour and a half cruise at 45-50mph from Newport Beach. Upon our arrival there we fueled up. The F-2 Top Gun consumed 63 gallons total. DMAN's Top Gun (1999 w/full cabin, 1000SC's, #6 drives) consumed 135 gallons. We cruised together all the way down. Just a funny bit of trivia.