Crowney

i have black hawks, i love them. the major problem was that the hull design needed to have natural bow lift. For an unproven drive it was difficult for hull builders to redesign bottom hulls to maximize the hull drive combo. On the boats that had the natural bow lift like the bat boats and the scarab P29 the drives yielded much better numbers than their bravo alternatives. Now prop selection makes fine tuning difficult. Hoss props was developing props but the BH project was dropped and never really finished at Hoss. I have seen a couple sets of cleaver props but not 2 sets of the same pitch. At best your selection would be 27, 29 and 31 of the mercury props. I heard of people trying to switch the front and rear props of the 27 and 31 but not enough good sources to substantiate such a large investment for R&D. The BH is a solid drive and can handle power of 500hp.

spectras only

Team Archer, you guys the same who built the Speedster, what happened to that boat? Saw you guys in Lake Havasu back in 2012 at DS.Really liked that design > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olcFDuKCUo0

J-Bonz

iTrader: (3)

This is cool to hear.. Was just talking to Nigel this past summer at the Michigan City race about the 26'..... Kinda ironic, I also just thumbed through an old magazine with a picture of a white one under the Wellcraft Scarab Banner. I also just put away the V8 Power mag that had an article on the red one with a speedy...
Jr.

spectras only

This true 26 Larry Smith Scarab was sold around 6 years ago for 36K at a government seizure yard. It was absolutely mint then, apparently it isn't now but still a nice boat. The trailer was built with closed chamber frames and pressurized with air to keep water out. It's been for sale at this price for quite some time. Owner doesn't budge on price I guess.

http://www.seadogboatsales.com/2000%...20-%20MB29.pdf

TYPHOON

Love these projects with pics. How long do you plan on the build to take?

Team Archer

Larry Smith hull & deck but Wellcraft rigged

Team Archer

we hope to have the first one on the water testing by first part of April so we are ready for Desert Storm.

Team Archer

Yes we are the same ones that build the 32' speedster we still plan on producing them as soon as we get an order but I have been sitting on the 26 mold for the past 10 years and have had some intrest into them so we thought time to build one and show it off.

Gh700xx

I have personally probably close to 300 hours or better driving a 242ls formula with a 502 mag and a hawk on it for merc when they were doing the endurance testing. I loved the drive, initially there was a gear case floor problem and a cone clutch issue. got those resolved and most bugs went away. Not sure what all updates or improvements they made as testing went since we were constantly swapping drives esp if we blew one up, which later one was usually close to 150-200 hr mark. The big thing was they wanted the drive shock loaded at WOT which meant flying the poor ole formula as often as possible which was fun but hard on the boat and you. once they got the bugs ironed out and we were getting reliable hours on them we started shaking blades off them. I know cause I was the first to do so and nobody believed I hadn't hit anything till a week and a half later I shook two more off of another set lol. had to change those in the water in the middle of the lake. The props were literally being blasted at the base of the blade and getting cavitation and hard water burns and getting thin. Then it would pitch the front blade and take the rear prop blade 180 out from it with it. good drives though and I would love to have one but hard to find.

Team Archer

Worked with Hoss and Dennis C at Mercury racing Props back in the 90s Hoss says they will still build them.