faceaz

I had thought about the "seat of the pants" feel too. At that point you're only solid connection to the boat would be your feet & throttles. Obviously depends on the shaft length but with a u-joint slip yoke design, I bet you could absorb the 8" travel. Wheel would kind of end up like a Nascar though, right in your chest. Thanks again for posting all your progress.

the bear

This has to be one of the best threads ever! Great read!

noli

.

As I was staring at this 50 footer incredible giant and the beautiful JimLee Aerospace Windshield, I couldn't help notice the other cats in the background that are being rigged? Also curious about the 368 outboard's status

Looks like the factory is busy busy! And busy is a great thing.



Photo Credit: OSO ID BigSilverCat

370ss500efi

https://www.facebook.com/intrepidpow...53622523191234
Check out the intrepid suspension helm.

BigSilverCat

That helm is made by the company that makes the suspension seats we using. They build the consoles that everything moves together. We actually talked about using something like that but it is too tall to use in a high speed cat.

http://shockwaveseats.com/ice/

370ss500efi

Some cool stuff. Have you seen or ridden in the statement that had floating cockpit?? How was that system made?

BigSilverCat

The boat we set the first Bermuda Challenge record in was the statement center console that has the entire cockpit on suspension.
I have done a lot of work at Statement on there boats and been in most of them.

The first time I met Todd from statement was on the Hyatt Dock at the Sarasota poker run back in 2004 ( see attached pic, I had a camera taking pics from hotel room every ten seconds to see all the boats come in and leave) He said he was going to build a new boat from scratch. I was showing him pictures of the one I had designed ((Leviathan, see attached pic.) that Mystic ended up looking like) and was showing him the thread on here about designing the boat and all the stuff I was going to do to it that had never been done before. The suspension floor was one of the things I talked about in the thread. The way Statement did there suspension floor was a little different then what I was going to do, but it works. The way a suspension floor works is, it has "trailing arm" links that go forward to aft and side to side that keep the cockpit centered and then it sits on airbags like for the back of a truck. Then you use a lever hooked to a valve that when you put weight in it the valve opens to level it to the correct ride height no matter how much weight is in the cockpit.

Here is a video of the statement v-bottom cockpit suspension system working. You can see the green tach holders moving away from the windshield on impacts. Tristan is the one in the middle dancing.

https://youtu.be/hw8YJBd2G9I

[ATTACH=CONFIG]554559[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]554562[/ATTACH]

RIPJIVE9311

I have looked at this great thread in the past but after speaking with you in Havasu it takes on more meaning.
Good luck with it and look forward to seeing it on the water.
Did you get everything squared away and how did the little silver rocket do in the speed run Sunday.
I kept thinking about that boat on the way home and what an acceleration monster it must be.
This is Dave from the parking lot at the Nautical

TBAG

Leaving State Dock on Cumberland?

Nate5.0

it's a very cool and different system. Todds new personal boat is fitted with it and it is night and day from standard flooring set ups.