JGB,
Sorry for not getting back to you on that question, I'm a bit scatter - brained....

I'm not planning on having any tranny betweent he engine and surface drive. Arneson's guys advocate see-doo style jet drives. I was thinking however that since the engines have 12kw generators on them (each) I would take a dc reversable motor and clutch this to the drive shaft. it might not be able to haul ass in reverse, but I suck at close in manuvering anyways, so the ability to go fast isnt really apealing....

Forlaser I remember reading that thread and as i can recall someone replied that there was one somewhere near Miami on Rt.A1A heading south that you couldnt miss sitting along side of a building. Sorry i cant be more specific as to the location. If your from south FLA. It might be worth the ride.

forlaser , I don't know if you have any personal experience with turbine boats or not . But I can tell you for sure , You do not want turbines running at all ,anywhere near anything else . For docking ,cruising back channels near houses and marinas , going to bars and restarants etc , You do not want that turbine running , blowing 1500 degree heat at people on the docks ,blowing the fumes ,and making way too much noise !! Don't get me wrong , I love the idea of the turbines but you need another power source for docking etc to make it user friendly and to be welcome back where ever you may go ! Jet set , here in NJ is a 40' skater with turbines . It was Howard Arnesons personal boat . It has a single 10 or 15 hp out board jet drive on hydraulic lift that drops down into the water with a push of a button . Steer it with a button too . (Electric cylinder ) REAL COOL set up ! Pushes it about 10 mph !! He only runs turbines out in the open water when it's time for buisness !!

YOu could use a brake on the out put shaft and run a crash box trans . But the out board is the way to go ! Good luck . Cool project !;)

Fosler, I found the thread. It was posted by GLASSDAVE under ; ARANOW/USA RACING/BLUE WATER CAT/V BOTTOM THING ??? The reply was from MR.CIG that there was one in KEY WEST on RT.1 Sorry for the lapse in memory. hope this helps you out.

boot-
Thanks for the pointer, that is something I was unsure of, but expecting... I had anticipated having one large battery bank to run both starters. If both generators were operating under max load, I could recharge a pair of deep cycle batters from dead to full in no time at all.

fyi I have NO turbine boat experience... this will be a 'learning project' for me.... I ahve 4 perfectly good engines just sitting at my shop, now all I have to do is buy a hull for less than what I paid for my house to put um in!

darn it all to heck!!!! (I dont know whats acceptable with regards to colorfull language here, so I figured to air on the side of caution.) I just missed a usa39 by 5 days!!! The bare hull went for 15,000, and it was aparently in tip top shape. (the one refenced on here) if only I would ahve got in touch with the guy sooner.....

hey forlaser . .ever think about run'n those turbines in an old ocean express hull. . .its about the same size as the usa 39 but a true cat. great rough water boat and they can be had very resonably if your not afraid of a project (an it sounds like your not)
these boats are built like a brick s#%/ house, tons of engine room .most of them came with arnesons to. might be a little easier to find.

heres a link to one i just painted 39 express this boat is an 84 and i believe he got it in the mid 20's. dont get me wrong im not knock'n the usa 39,i've always been a huge fan of those big water classics, but they are very tough to find. just thought i would put out the sugestion. i think boot can back me on the ocean x too. :D :D :cool: :rolleyes:

Dave,
The only requirements I have for a potential hull is that it: be roughly the same class size as the usa 39, not be a vee hull, be configured as a pleasure cat, sturdy construction, good handeling in rough water, and thats about it. As far as the 'name' I could care less if it came from the s&h catalog store (remeber the green stamps they used to give out at gas stations back in the day?)... two other major requirements is that it should not require excessive glass work, and that I'm looking for a hull minus power. No sense in buying a powered boat if the first thing I have to do is rip out the engines, unless, naturally the seller wants to pay me to take um out :)

With that in mind do you ahve any potential suggestions?

Thanks!
Stan

well i tell ya what . . i will be up at ocean x some time in the next couple of weeks and i know that they have a 35 foot 6 bolster race layout cat without power and i know they want to move it, they also have a few others i could check on (mostly projects w/out power). . . as far as sturdy construction, the one that i just did was an 84 and if you lined up all the stress cracks that were in this entire hull end to end it would be only about 2 or 3 feet. these things are extremely well built. i think you might like the layout of the ocean x alot better (cockpit and cabin) lots of room. plus the usa was unfortunatly a relativly slow hull.

i have several more pics of the x on my hard drive i could send them to you so you could get a better look at the whole boat. i also have about 8 ot 10 pics of usa 39's too.

I can vouch for the 39' ocean express ! I have one . LOVE IT !!The Aronow cats are cool ,no dought ! But real pigs in the water . If you put too much power in it I would be afraid it may bow steer and maybe even roll over .Who knows ! Just my opinion .... Not ment for real speed .

Vonwolske just told me about a 39'express cat in Florida real cheap . ABout 15K E-mail him and ask about it . Tell him "Boot" (JOE) sent you

[email protected]

Or if you have any other quesions mail me at [email protected]

Good luck ! Would you consider selling 2 of your motors ? SERIOUSLY !!

:)