Yeah no kidding huh? What an awesome looking engine, but all that swinging metal for 800 ponies?

I Think I'd go with 725's and Indies, or 700 merc NXTs. This seems to be the sweet spot insurance, performance, and fuel economy wise.

Ive been getting in and out of Schiadas for about 20 years now and Ive always been impressed with them.

Being from Chicago I am inherently "Coast" neutral and look at boats for what they offer individually vs. where they are made.


Uncle Dave

Reminds me of Magnum 40' which sits up tall in the water. I like.

I don't have one straight on, but these are pretty good angles of it. :) I have mentioned it earlier in this thread, but I don't think I got my point across as much as I would've liked too.

Schiada is a different breed of boat company, by that I mean everyone throws the word around "custom" and it has lost it's meaning a bit in recent times. Schiada is truly a "custom" boat mfg. If there is something you want that isn't there, they'll make it, something you dislike, they'll change it. If you wanted a hard top 43 / 32 for hardcore poker running / racing, they'll build you one.

There truly is no limitation to the word "custom" down at Schiada. The only limitation is the imagination and the wallett if you know what I mean. They will quite literally, build you whatever you want.

On a build of this magnitude there isn't anything that you won't pick out. If you want the sun pad larger.. no problem. Flush with the side of the boat? No problem. Beach access door in the front? No problem. That goes into all of their builds. Hell, I didn't like the outboard well on my 10'er... "no problem" now it's a "flat deck" mini boat. ;)

That mentallity allows you to think outside the box a little bit when building a boat with them. For example Jassman, I don't know you or your hobbies, but lets say your into fishing, but you hate the look of a fishing boat. If you were to ask them to make hidden compartments on actuators that raised up out of the top gunnels of the boat to hold fishing rods / gaffs etc.. They wouldn't look at you funny, they would just ask you how many poles does it need to hold, and how big does the hidden bait tank need to be. They are backwards from everyone else. Everyone else your needs have to fit the boat. At Schiada the boat is "built to fit your needs."

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forum...1&d=1255985125

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forum...1&d=1255985125

Sounds like you have a great relationship with the Schiada guys to get to drive the 43- I'm envious. Nothing like seat time. Any picts?

Curious as to a couple of things you say here.

1. Why is there no "real comparison"?

2. Why would the 42 Ol would be a "couple of thousand pounds" heavier? Where would that weight would come from?

The Schiada is longer, wider, taller, has more freeboard, and it is a stated 700lbs heavier based on both mfgrs claims. At best the Ilmors pull 200LB each off the transom compared to Mercs putting it 300LB heavier apples to apples. (if we can trust the MFGR's claims)



UD

Thanks again for the explaination.. custom.. The last pic said it all.. Large boat great dimensions..I would have to change a few things.. otherwise looks good and with the right paint job and my changes would work...thanks Jeff

The OL was fully loaded...diesel generator, ac, Full fuel tanks, vacu-flush head etc, etc...It was a 2001 model boat.

Lee's 43 is stripped down...no frills. No tolet, No gen, low fuel (when I drove it)...

I don't know what the two boats weighed at the time that I drove them...I just know the OL felt much heavier.

2001 would be Non-Epoxy boat.

Your right....I was just implying it was the older heavier hull

Is heavier a good thing for some reason that I am missing?

RD

Lighter is "always" better.

Light by leaving stuff out is probably the right thing for owning a boat -- less stuff to buy, less stuff to carry around, less stuff to break, ...

Light through construction is another good approach.

First, any boat built with polyester should be avoided. Stress cracks, osmotic blisters, and they rapidly structurally deteriorate (they keep looking shiny, but they get very flexible). Way too heavy, brittle, weak, and short lived, send directly to the land fill.

Second, any boat that is not cored is simply too heavy, flexy, and therefore slow to be considered a performance boat.

If its cored, it simply has to be vacuum bagged. There is no other way to get a decent bond between the laminate and the core.

So the absolute basic for an acceptable performance boar is cored (generally foam or balsa), vacuum bagged, and vinyl ester resin.

A significant step up is to use knitted material instead of woven roving and mat. The knitted material is really multiple layers of unidirectional with some very light stitching to hold the layers together as the boat is being built.

Now, let's say you actually want a better boat: lighter, stiffer, and therefore faster.

Vacuum infusion may in some cases be an improvement over hand-laid construction. However, one-off builders around the world have repeatedly found that squeegees in the hands of skilled workers yield a much lighter boat! But most people spreading resin in a mold are not highly skilled, and they leave way too much resin in there, because it looks better. The more resin, the weaker the structure! So given the typical low skilled resin spreader work force, infusion will lead to a lighter boat.

The real step up is to use wet-preg epoxy, where the resin is forced into the cloth between rollers. This yields resin contents closer to the optimum (very low) numbers to get the stiffest, strongest, lightest structure. Epoxy needs to be cooked in an oven, usually about 200 degrees for boats. The oven is just a big room with heaters, fans, and insulation. When the boat is in the oven, its still being vacuum-bagged. This is what Outerlimits does. See the thread on "birth of a race boat."

Next better comes pre-preg. This is like wet-preg, but the pressures are higher so the resin content can be lower.

Pretty much the best in the boat building industry is to combine pre-preg with special films specifically designed for the type of core material. This last level causes a dramatic improvement in laminate to core bonding, with a dramatic decrease in weight due to not needing the heavy goop otherwise required between the core and laminate.

The absolute best is to use pre-pregs and film in an autoclave. An autoclave is an oven where the pressure in increased. This means the vacuum bag is being pressed much harder against the laminate, squashing the layers together more firmly. Very few boats are built in autoclaves: America's cup, some multihull sailboats, that's pretty much it. But this is how aerospace structures are built.