Please Welcome Mud-Skipper.com as TinBoats newest Sponsor

Please welcome mud-skipper.com as our newest Sponsor. I would do a general introduction to the group here, but Mike Caswell already did a great job of introducing himself in the motor section. This is a very cool story so you have to check it out. Please check out the link here: https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=30138

Mike runs several companies listed below, a couple of them are pretty cool in my opinion. I was checking out the submarine one when my wife walked by and said "No Way" :LOL2: That makes me want one even more now.

https://www.caswellplating.com/
https://britishfasteners.com/
https://sub-driver.com/
https://mud-skipper.com/

Welcome aboard = cooooooool stuff
Jim lest get a sub for the inlet this spring - I bet Stevie could fit inside and lead us to the fish!

:WELCOME:

VERY cook stuff and Welcome aboard.

Are those subs legal in tournament fishing?

We did the maiden voyage of our sewer pipe raft today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZpdYDF4zEI&feature=share&list=UUigPzFy8orZHZIxBu9DWfqQ

That's actually pretty amazing.

How stable did it actually feel to you?

How fast were you able to go?

How far can you go on a tank of gas?

fender66 said:

That's actually pretty amazing.

How stable did it actually feel to you?

How fast were you able to go?

How far can you go on a tank of gas?

Click to expand...

1. Much more stable than a Jon boat. I weigh 210, and my neighbor's boy is 150lbs. That displaced about 3/4" of raft. We were still riding with half of the pipe submerged. When we were at speed the bow came up fairly well. I think we were doing about 15mph. The Predator (harborfreight) 6.5hp is rated for about 3 hours on a tank of gas. I'm not sure if that was at an idle or full speed.

We are going to add some more decking this weekend.

I am going to build a 26 foot raft using 6" pipes very shortly.

We're working towards becoming a dealer for Xtreme Boats from Florida, as our warehouse has a stream running by it which runs into the Erie Canal.
Use Google maps to see our warehouse and stream. -- 7696 rte 31, 14489

We added about 4' of decking, and with both of us on the raft, it plowed the bow under. Back to the dock to remove that!

With my 'apprentice' sailing solo, the raft performs really well, so we're relegating this 'vessel' to being his own personal water transport.

Lessons learned?. Don't use 4" pipes! We're going to now try to make a 26' raft using 6" pipes. But first, we have to perfect bending them!

Here's an update on our raft situation.

We got the 14' raft registered as a home made boat with New York State. The Sheriff had to inspect it and give it a BIN #, and he said we got pride of place on their notice board where they pin photos of unusual boats.

I am really ticked off that we used those darned elbows to make the bends, as they create a lot of drag in the water. Never the less, the raft travels at about 15-20 mph on the canal.

Everyone stops and stares when they see the thing scooting through the village of Fairport.

We've started on the bigger raft. It's 28' feet long and should carry 8 people plus the driver.
The pipe bending has become easier, now that I've screwed it up a few times. I hop to have some photos, but it's a pain not being able to load pics to the forum directly.

Welcome aboard , Skipper ! Best of luck with you venture.

That raft is freakin' awesome! LOL! Love it!

Wait until you see my latest one - it's 28 feet long

There is a link to a thread I have on our submarine site which is hosting the photos.

https://forum.sub-driver.com/showthread.php?2252-Chinese-Rafts/page5