55 foot power cat project
 

I always love to read this thread, so here's mine. I live on Aruba and bought a 55 foot power cat project boat. The boat was operational and did sightseeing tours between 2003 and 2005 and has been on the dry dock ever since. I was in love with the boat from the first moment I saw it and decided to go for the challenge and try to make it the ultimate Caribbean pleasure boat.

The boat has 2 Yanmar 440 HP diesel engines, Twin Disk transmissions and Arneson outdrives. This setup is new for me, but from what I read about it we can have some fun with it.

That's a bad O hot rod, enough chairs for an Opry.

We removed the old seating, made a frame for the new seats and put epoxy and gel coat on them.[ATTACH=CONFIG]530859[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]530862[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]530860[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]530861[/ATTACH]

I go to aruba every year,where in aruba are you?

Pulled the engines and transmissions[ATTACH=CONFIG]530863[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]530864[/ATTACH]

The good thing of having a boat in Aruba is; you can use it 365 days a year. The bad thing; you can get almost nothing on the island, so we have to order everything abroad and wait until it gets here....

I live in the north of Aruba, close to the hotels and nightlife. The harbors are in the middle of the island and also the boat. I hope next time you are here and lay on the beach, you hear a lot of noise, see a huge rooster and see me pass with 60 mph :cool-smiley-027:

I saw that boat for sale seemed like a decent ride for the money. They have one here in Miami that runs tours out of bayside, they run almost everyday. Keep updating with the progress.

They have one in Miami indeed, I have done the tour there with my wife and kids a couple of years ago. Didn't had the slightest idea I would once have one myself back then. The one I have is a couple of years older and in the new model they shortened the nose of the boat to fit in an extra row of passengers. That makes the proportion between the front and the back somewhat weird in my opinion.

One of the things I cant get my head around is how deal with sun protection. Best thing would be to make a large T-Top but aesthetic that's kinda weird. Do you guys have any suggestions what to make for that?