Originally Posted by Skater30

Here is the 2010 Miami 308 - it belongs to Greg Reichman and was re-rigged by Joe Abelera with triples. I don't think this boat is widened, nor do I think any of the other 30 OBs are either. I was discussing your boat with Rik yesterday, and neither one of us are sure what the outcome will be performance-wise with the widened tunnel. At the speeds you will be seeing with OB power, the lift generated by the tunnel is fairly small. Therefore, the additional weight of the widened/flat-decked/wrap-windshield boat may cancel out any benefit from the additional lift of the widened tunnel over a standard-deck/standard-tunnel 30. The lift generated by the tunnel doesn't really start doing a lot until around 120 or so, regardless of size or weight of the boat. The wide-tunnel DW32s and Victory X-Cats are super fast because their sponsons are much narrower than the 30 Skater's, not so much because of the tunnel. From what Pete told me back in '04, the widened tunnels help stability in the rough, and speed on the boats running big #s (but it is also easier to blow them over, which is why I stayed standard width for the size/speed of my boat). Proof of lift generation needing speeds of over 120 to be effective, regardless of size or weight can be seen in rotation speed of commercial airliners. Whether it's a 737 at empty takeoff weight of 90,000#s or a 747 at max takeoff weight of 800,000#s, they both rotate at around the same speeds over 120mph (140mph for the 737, 180mph for the 747), even though the 747 weighs 10X what the 737 does! You shouldn't be looking for the widened boat as a performance benefit as much as just being what you want. I talked to Pete in length about the pluses and minuses of widening the tunnel on my 30 when it was being built, and I decided to stay with the standard width. But that's what is so cool about Skaters - they're all different and unique!

And as for these 400hp performance outboards you guys keep thinking Mercury's coming out with, I keep telling you all to forget about it - it isn't gonna' happen! These same exact rumors were even hotter than they are right now back in 2004 when I started my 30 build - it didn't happen then, and it isn't going to happen now. If Mercury does release a 400hp outboard, it's just going to be a hopped-up version of the 350hp Verado (which would still suck on a Skater). If you guys want to go fast in a 30, just build it as an inboard boat.

Originally Posted by precisiondetails

I

Dale- are you sure this boat now has 3 motors? I just saw it in Havasu at Desert Storm and I could have sworn it only had 2 still..??

Originally Posted by Nastybug

I saw pics of that yellow/orange 308 also and it had twins. I had spoke to Greg thru Dale and I thought that was the boat we were discussing but we may have had our signals crossed about which boat we were thinking about. Looked to me like it may have had twins the whole time. Loved the boat. It is totally awesome. Was the one that pushed me over the edge to buy one. He did have it for sale when we spoke. Im friends with the current owners on Facebook and have asked them that question but I got no response. They may have switched it back to twins out of convenience. I was curious about this too.

Steve.

Originally Posted by Nastybug

Hey Guys, Just got a pic of my rear seats. Think they came out awesome. Tony Cutsuries had a great vision for these. Great job by the seat builders who executed his Idea.[ATTACH=CONFIG]543389[/ATTACH]

Originally Posted by LAriverratt

trying to pm you nasty/...your box is full