The joys of a balanced boat!!!

K

Kushtaka

New member
Oh man!

I'm getting to know my boat again after some upgrades, and adjustments and although the changes were very great in and of themselves, the culmination in a well balanced boat is just wonderful.

Until this spring I had a kicker motor waaaay to starboard with my one and only battery in the same lazarette. So my boat listed to starboard. Add me in the helm and my poor trim tabs were all of of throw just leveling us out.

So, new kicker bracket to port, and a second battery in the starboard lazarette (add-a-battery kit too) as well as a stout davit on the starboard side and the boat sits flat in the water! If anything the port side with the kicker sits a little high, but I'm probably going to get a little dinghy motor and put it on that old mount so we should be all set then!

So, now when I'm single handing the boat I can stand in the center, get her all trimmed, and then walk around the boat a little without her making any unschedule turns. I can even go stand in the cockpit and steer the boat by moving from one side to the other.

This is a huge difference. I can't believe I tolerated the unbalanced boat for so long. The other thing is that I still have my old bracket on the starboard side, so if I'm going to take a bunch of people with me, I can put my kicker back over on that bracket, and then the kicker, both batteries, and me balance out my passengers.

It was just so much fighting for so long, it's made my boat generally more fun to run, and the bilge pumps are happier too as water now collects more or less where it should.

I love a good upgrade!
 
I had the same problem. Trim tabs help when under way, but of course they were no use at anchor, and I didn't enjoy sleeping on a list. Looked a bit sad sack as well.

I kept the kicker on starboard because I have the swim platform on port and like it that way (use it a lot and don't have to clamber over all the control wires/hoses), but I traded a fully featured ~110# kicker for a "lean" 45# kicker (which suits my purposes better anyway).

Then launched. Oh my, how nice! A boat that doesn't list! :thup

Since then I'm in the process of moving my heavy house battery out of the lazarette and just forward of amidships and closer to center line. I expect another notch of improvement - we'll see.

Anyway, great to hear of your success. Ahhhhhh, balance.
 
I sleep on the stbd side. If the boat leans to stbd, I'm very comfy in bed with my back to the bulkhead. If the boat leans to port, I roll into my wife. :wink:
Win/win situation.

Martin.
 
Only downside to balancing my boat fore and aft is that when I'm sleeping in the berth without the cockpit cover and it is raining, some water sits right between the seats. Before, the boat was so stern heavy that water always drained to the back sump for the bilge pump. With rubber mats down on the deck, the water doesn't really come up above them, but I have to remember "no stocking feet" in the morning. Small trade off for a better handling boat.

Mark
 
It's the best!

I am loving it so much I took my own boat out at work yesterday. I ran about ten miles through a pretty narrow channel from my cockpit, steering surfboard style after I got her on step and running flat. It was dead calm and zero traffic, so pretty low risk, but man, is that ever fun!!! Who needs a helm in the cockpit? I actually got her to make some sort of tight turns, (relatively speaking).

If you decide to try this new sport out, do so at your own risk. When I was first doing this I reasoned that having the bow trimmed too low could make things go poorly, so I trimmed the bow down, like if I was running into chop, and the boat did not surf well at all. Get your bow up if you try this.

Also, this is probably a horribly stupid thing to do, and maybe something I shouldn't even be doing myself, let alone writing about. I am also lucky enough to get to clock boat hours while getting paid, so probably have accumulated a level of experience at this point that makes things like this seem fun, but may not be so fun for you. I am very very comfortable on small boats, so your results may vary!

I used to work on a sea duck research crew that had four small (but great) skiffs. The smallest was a zodiac Mark I (11') and that was the one I ran every day. The largest boat we had was an 18' RIB that could handle anything. It was my job to decide if we were going to work on any give day based on whether I was willing to run our littlest boat or not. Most questionable days had me disappearing into troughs with a big smile on my face, and coming up on crests waving the fleet to come join me, then a lot of radio talk from the people in the big boats saying they didn't want to go out there. I am absolutely not putting this down to brag, but to clearly state that I have a screw loose and like things you probably don't, so maybe don't take my word for what is going to be fun, unless you are similarly afflicted.
 
Kushtaka, great to hear about your improved weight distribution, thanks for sharing! Those little Zodiacs are amazingly seaworthy, even the smallest Mk1...I grew up running a 13' Achilles SR132 (very similar to the Zodiac Mark series and Grand Raid) all over the San Juans as a teenager and did some pretty stupid things I'm too embarrassed to write about here, but somehow survived. Your "C-Dory surfing" sounds like serious fun, but I think I'll pass unless I can find a first-mate to grab the wheel if needed, LOL!

All the best,
-Mike
 
I like the MKII and GR a lot. I have two Mark IIs at work now, and even with a few six-figure vessels in the fleet, they are among my favorites! But they tend to twist and flex more than I like. The MKI is much stiffer and really can get through almost anything if you know how to run them. Plus you can get a sweet rooster tail going and soak your buddies in the boat next to you!
 
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