15 Sep 2005

Glen-L,
I just finished my River Rat, the hull is 20'6" with a 2'6" outboard bracket/swim platform. What a cool little boat. If anyone is thinking about this hull, it's super. I get a solid 23 knots with a 1986 70 h.p. evinrude outboard. It handles great, overtaking another boat wakes, it tracks incredibly straight. It makes an excellent crabbing, clamming and fishing boat, and its very stable at rest. It is an excellent bay boat, and from the design and how easy it is to plane, real easy on fuel. I also like the bow, nice and high, like this is. I don't know how much water it draws, but its not much, the transom corners at the chines are about 1 1/2" under water. As I was building my River Rat I was concerned about the boxy appearance, but as you can see from the photo's that gives a lot of room inside w/ plenty of storage in the bow. It planes at 12 knots with 3 adults on board, and doesn't squat at all coming out of the hole. My outboard bracket is an extension of the hull for about 26" and is about 2'6" wide at the bottom (wet surface). Getting on and off the trailer is a breeze. I built the trailer low enough (hull to road height), so I launch and retrieve the boat with my rear hubs (dual axle trailer) 2" to 3" above the water. And finally trailering this boat is a breeze, as I said before, the hull sits low on the trailer and the top rail is at my chest level. I am more than pleased with my River Rat... please pass on the good word about this boat.

One last thought as to how tough the hull is... last winter the boat was up on concrete blocks and at a friend's house, (it had snow drifts completely covering the boat, and a lot of water got in the hull as things melted and thawed). He put 5 gal. of antifreeze in the hull through the same open hatch. latter as things thawed again he knocked it off of the blocks, as it fell a couple of blocks had broken and only one small dent in the 3/16" bottom on the bow, its in the photos but I can't even find it. I thought that was pretty cool. A well made all welded aluminum boat is a really strong hull. If any one has any questions on what I did, I'll be glad to answer. (Email address in Project Registry)

Bill Zubko