36Tango

First, some background. I have always wanted a Skater. Not just a cat, but a Skater. For one reason or another, the 28 with outboards has always been on my mind. The Mrs has always been afraid to let us get one (she is aware of all of the accidents/deaths). Anyway, a few months back, my 25 year old son and my wife were sitting on our dock at LOTO, and an outboard cat ripped by. The Mrs said that was kind of cool. Junior said "that is what dad and I have been talking about". She then said "well, maybe we ought to get one". About a minute later, Junior reports to me, and then I call a buddy that had talked of selling his (BAM-Brett). Over the next few days we tried to work out a deal, but rightfully so, he decided not to sell. A couple of weeks later, I found one in Toronto that the tanks had been done, the engines were fresh, and the survey was excellent. A couple of weeks later, I took the Tres Martin course so that I could get insurance. After that, it was off to the shop. Here are some before pics.

36Tango

May son and I had always like the Lee Aerospace wraparound windshield, so we pointed our project in that direction. Jim and his guys were awesome to work with. We purchased a generic "receiver" from Chris at Boat Customs that took quite a bit of work to fit, but we gout it done.

36Tango

And then it was time to get out the cutting tools. Besides making room for the receiver, we had to "flat deck" the area in front of the windshield, and had to figure out what to do with the dash. By the way, this is a 1996 with 300x's.

36Tango

The windshield came in oversized and we had to do allot of cutting and scribing to get it to fit correctly. I might end up cutting a bit more off of the top, but want to get out on the water first. It is far easier to cut more off than to cut more on!

TBAG

Sweet, can't wait to follow this!

36Tango

So, once the glass was totally mocked up, it was time to work on the dash. I decided to remove all of the analog gauges (except for 2 gas gauges) and go with an 8" Simrad on each side and a 12" Garmin in the middle. All new switches will be in the middle, just under the Garmin, so they can be reached from either side. I had one of the Livorsi GPS's redone, so we will be mounting one of them on the back of the console for the rear seat passengers.

To make it all work, and to have clearance between the dash and the glass, we moved the dash back about 4". It will have no effect on leg room.

At the advice of Jim Lee, we are also adding bilge blowers that will draw air from down low in the bilge and blow through four dash vents. A bit of moving air in the no wake zones could be nice.

We opted to go to the black box stereo system from Ron Muller (Electronics Unlimited). Everything electronic, he has been a wealth of knowledge

36Tango

Getting behind the dash in a 28 is a real feat. If a guy needed to work up there, add weight, or move battery boxes, trim pumps, etc., it would suck. With that in mind, in the flat deck area in front of the new windshield, we are adding a hatch that will open with an electric actuator. It will also be a good place to store fenders, additional ropes, etc.

I know, I know, most of you are looking to eeek out every last mph and it is a sin to add some of this weight. Frankly, I am just looking for a boat that we can cruise to breakfast at 85 mph without working anything too hard. I'd rather do that in a 115 mph boat (before mods), than push an 80 mph boat beyond its limits.

36Tango

When working with the designer on paint schemes, we decided that this Skater needed a name, so, for obvious reasons, it will be known as the "Bucket List Skater". The name will be done tastefully on the top deck.

Home for the Skater will be LOTO, but at some point we may also take it to our place in Cape Coral in the winter. I'd love to ram around some of the waters down there on each coast.

Our hope is to be completed by the Shooutout Street Party and then to run the Poker Run on that Friday. In the mean time, we just have full paint (I will not post any pics until after the Street Party), a full interior, final hookup of all electronics, remount the motors, install new rub rail, final install the glass, ............the list goes on! We will make it, but I am certain that it will take some hours down the stretch!

36Tango

BTW, the picture in my avtar is of a 24' BatBoat that we rebuilt several years ago and ran a 3 year campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness (my mom is a survivor). Chris Reindel now owns the boat and runs it on the OSO circuit.

cougarman

Nice Thread