- Thread Starter
- #21
So this is her, in the almost final form! A few of the bigger learning points so far:
-Gatorglide is sliiick. Like, you need to have at least three hard points between your boat and trailer or else it will absolutely slide off the bunks, slick. Think it turned out well despite the fact that I'm far from a pro. Did op test it on an oyster bed while hooked up to a fish yesterday and had a few very small scratches, but they were much smaller than I thought they'd be and definitely mitigated what would have shown up in the gelcoat. I'm saying "would recommend" if you have the bandwidth for an involved project.
-Flexdeck install is easier than I thought, just light sanding, acetone wipedown and stick it on. I had this stuff on my last boat and it wasn't showing any signs of deterioration after a year of fairly consistent use, so hopefully this will be similar. I really like having it on these microskiff type boats, but honestly next time I think I'd just get a few sheets off amazon and DIY it... having the boat measured and the pieces laser cut looks super sharp, but 850 bucks is steep. For a 20ish foot center console, apparently it can be upwards of 3 grand. Yikes.
-Have a few extra washers for your mounting bolts when installing a jackplate, even if the manufacturer sends you "all you need." The panicked Home Depot run while 5200 is curing is not the move. I also had a lot of anxiety about drilling the transom of my brand new hull and looked up all sorts of info on how to make that process as clean as possible... as it turns out, it's not that big a deal as long as you measure 10 times and drill once.
-Electronics for small boats are a great microcosm for how wild stuff has gotten in the last 10 years. I snagged a Garmin UHD2 on clearance from Academy for less than 300 bucks and it is some seriously awesome functionality. Super stoked to explore the full performance envelope on this with some schooling perch next month. One more note on this- used a "no drill" transducer pad and will absolutely be going that route with every boat I own in the future. 100% the way to go.
Last item inbound is a prop with slightly greater pitch to eliminate a little bit of ventilation I'm getting north of 4000 RPMs. Loving the "micro raptor" so far, though!
-Gatorglide is sliiick. Like, you need to have at least three hard points between your boat and trailer or else it will absolutely slide off the bunks, slick. Think it turned out well despite the fact that I'm far from a pro. Did op test it on an oyster bed while hooked up to a fish yesterday and had a few very small scratches, but they were much smaller than I thought they'd be and definitely mitigated what would have shown up in the gelcoat. I'm saying "would recommend" if you have the bandwidth for an involved project.
-Flexdeck install is easier than I thought, just light sanding, acetone wipedown and stick it on. I had this stuff on my last boat and it wasn't showing any signs of deterioration after a year of fairly consistent use, so hopefully this will be similar. I really like having it on these microskiff type boats, but honestly next time I think I'd just get a few sheets off amazon and DIY it... having the boat measured and the pieces laser cut looks super sharp, but 850 bucks is steep. For a 20ish foot center console, apparently it can be upwards of 3 grand. Yikes.
-Have a few extra washers for your mounting bolts when installing a jackplate, even if the manufacturer sends you "all you need." The panicked Home Depot run while 5200 is curing is not the move. I also had a lot of anxiety about drilling the transom of my brand new hull and looked up all sorts of info on how to make that process as clean as possible... as it turns out, it's not that big a deal as long as you measure 10 times and drill once.
-Electronics for small boats are a great microcosm for how wild stuff has gotten in the last 10 years. I snagged a Garmin UHD2 on clearance from Academy for less than 300 bucks and it is some seriously awesome functionality. Super stoked to explore the full performance envelope on this with some schooling perch next month. One more note on this- used a "no drill" transducer pad and will absolutely be going that route with every boat I own in the future. 100% the way to go.
Last item inbound is a prop with slightly greater pitch to eliminate a little bit of ventilation I'm getting north of 4000 RPMs. Loving the "micro raptor" so far, though!
