Hole in the water, 17' Alumaweld

barrelroll

Red Skull Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2020
Member Number
1790
Messages
112
Loc
Alaska
This spring the wife and I moved to Juneau, Alaska. There's 0 wheeling and the local joke is the key to tolerating life in Juneau is buying a boat and getting out on the ocean. Might as well make a thread to watch me throw dollars into the ocean and hopefully not go for an unintentional swim.

The wife and I had a couple requirements: under $20k, aluminum for beaching/ we know we are going to hit something, must have a top and windshield since all it does here is rain and is usually 60 degrees or colder, newer motor, and not a complete project. We know nothing about fishing/ boating but decided why not give it a try. There just aren't many boats for sale here under $20k that aren't clapped out fiberglass piles and decent aluminum boats under $20k go in a hurry. Buying from out of the area would have involved a couple grand in travel/ shipping and with covid traveling to Seattle or Anchorage and trying to ship a boat back wasn't in the cards.

After searching craigslist for a while a 17' 1998 alumaweld stryker with a 2014 60hp Evinrude etec with 180 hours, 6hp Suzuki with 50 hours, top, windshield, 5" lowrance HDI, trailer, manual down riggers, just about everything besides life jackets to be legal, and a newer not completely hack but probably flat rate wiring/ rigging job popped up for $14,500. $13,500 and a sea trial later and it was ours. The previous owner took decent care of it and all the work was done by a local shop with a decent reputation.

The thought is this is a starter boat, use it for a couple years and move on to something else. Learn boating, learn how to fish, and get out on the water. I'm not 100% sold on the etec but so far so good, the boat is a solid 20mph boat at 4,600rpm and according to the previous owner 3gph at 4,600rpm. It's not perfect but is plenty usable, the floor is getting close to needed replacement, the rigging/ wiring needs some clean up, and it has the typical 22 year old boat wear.

Here's a thread I have going in OSR looking for some fishing advice https://irate4x4.com/outdoor-sports-and-recreation/88463-ocean-fishing-for-dummies#post88486

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We went on a sea trial with the PO before exchanging funds, he insisted on it and that gave me a little confidence he wasn't selling us a complete pile. After the sea trial we paid him for it, hooked it up, and headed right back to the marina for it's first voyage. We enjoyed the trip and tried fishing with 0 luck. One of the things we realized was the boat was a mess when we were on the water, it came with a lot of extra stuff from the PO. We had junk everywhere and nothing had a place. It was also a mess unpacking and things were everywhere. With the jeep we could be ready to go 4 wheeling in 10 minutes and unpacked in about the same. It had a dedicated set of tools/ parts so we didn't have to pack that suff every time. Our neighborhood is pretty decent but leaving a bunch of boat stuff out overnight there's the possibility of things disappearing so we like to put the easily stolen things in the garage.

Short term plans
-Give everything a good clean and throw out a bunch of junk from the PO
-Remove old humming bird fish finder/ GPS and mount a 7" Lowrance Elite Ti2 left over from desert racing to go along with the 5" lowrance currently on the boat
-Find a place for everything, work on mounting things so they have a places they live
-Pick up a set of dedicated boat tools and acquire basic spare parts
-Work on organizing our stuff so we can load/ unload the boat quickly and it's not a floating disaster
-Clean up the rigging/ wiring a little bit at a time
-Drains in the bow deck for green water

Long term plans
-Replace the rear flooring with the same stuff as in the bow/ open the can of worms to see what's under the floor
-Possibly a fish box
-New Seats with heat for the wife

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One of the things the PO mentioned was the boat had some rattles and he had things like a rag shoved behind the shifter and a rubber glove on the motor cables in the splashwell to keep them from rattling.

I discovered 1 of the shifter mounting bolts was too long, 30 seconds with the hackzall and 1 rattle was gone.

What else are you supposed to do on day 2 of boat ownership than buy $100 worth of stainless hardware and start drilling holes in the new boat?

I mounted some pico clamps under the rail in the back to give the kicker motor linkage and anchor light somehwere to live out of the way. Another thing that's no longer in the way and rattling.

I mounted some bungee cords at the cleats to give the dock lines somewhere to live besides a pile on the deck.

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The boat came with a questionable humming bird GPS/ fish finder the previous owner left in because it was easier to leave in than pull. I got it out and left the transducer in the loom since it will be easier to pull when we dive into the floor. I had a left over Lowrance Elite Ti2 from desert racing that needed a new home. I pulled the navionics chart out of the 5" lowrance and put it in the 7" so the 5" is dedicated as a fish finder and the 7" for charts. I had looked under the dash when I bought it but not all that closely. The boat has a switch panel with breakers, a + and - bus bar, and has 2 other types of fuses and lots of extra wire under the dash along with a complete lack of grommets going through the dash. I ended up rewiring both lowrances with the same type of fuse holder, actually installing a grommet, and shortening the wires as much as possible. When I have some time I'm going to work on getting more things wired into the switch panel/ just cleaning up the wiring. Not having to do split screens on the 5" was nice fishing last night.

The boat came with 3 scotty adjustable rod holders and 2 fixed rod holders. There just wasn't a good spot to put a net out of the way or a spare pole without it getting in the way. I added 2 more scotty mounts and another adjustable rod holder to put the net and a spare pole up against the "cabin" area while still putting 2 rods in holders in "fishing mode".

We added some swinging adjustable cup holders and I added little pieces of vinyl tubing to cut down on rattles. The jurry is out on if they will stay or get replaced, the wife isn't a fan so far. You can see the wife has started to move in and fill up the dash with "essiental stuff" that can live there till winter.

The boat came with a very old tiny fire extinguisher crammed under a seat. I upgraded to the next sized up and mounted it in the passenger foot area out of the way so it can live there full time.

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When we were 4 wheeling every weekend we had packing the jeep and leaving for the trip down to a science, the goal is the same with the boat.

I wanted some sort of waterproof boxes we could move around for ballast/ keep everything organized. Rigid makes this interlocking tool boxes with an O-ring seal that should work nicely. They fit beind the seats still in the enclosure or in between the front seats giving us some locations options for ballast. 1 of the shallow boxes got filled with tools and spare parts, a deeper box got filled with jackets/ a blanket for the wife/ clothes, and there's a clear lid shallow box for fishing junk/ tackle. We have another deep and shallow for food and more clothes for longer trips.

For the tool box box it got a set of really basic hand tools including metric sockets, a jump pack, spare spark plugs, spare recor water seperator filter and clear motor mounted fuel filter, fuel line and hose clamps, vacuum line, fuses, wiring connectors and wire, tefflon tape, electrical tape, duct tape, jb quick, zip ties, bailing wire, spare drain plug, a quart of etec oil, wd40, rtv, a hand full of nuts, bolts, and screws, and I'd like to pick up a spare thermostat. If there's anything I should probably bring along that isn't in there let me know.

That puts us up to date with the boat. I'm pretty happy with it so far and don't plan on anything else right away besides some cleaning and possibly some wiring cleanup if I have time to kill. I have to quarantine for a week before heading back to work starting Saturday. Fishing is an approved activity while in quarantine so the wife and I are planning on 3 days of fishing starting tomorrow. We'll see what we want to change after a couple more days on the water though I'm hoping to not have too many more boat projects till the winter. Hopefully we can get on some fish.

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if it seems slow to get on plane , think about a prop pitch change
below is not me


I have a 17' stryker with a 60 hp 4-stroke merc and a T-8 on the back. With 4 people on board and running a 14 pitch prop it won't get out of the hole. With a 13 pitch prop it does nicely and with a 12 pitch prop I can hit the rev limitier and still have throttle left. That all being said, a prop change may get you where you need to go for a lot less money than a repower.
post #17
https://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=444216
 
if it seems slow to get on plane , think about a prop pitch change
below is not me

Thanks for the link. I don't think it's slow to get on plane but I wouldn't know what I'm looking for. I do think there might be some more in it. I keep meaning to go down and pick the guy who rigged it's brain. I'm wondering if he just guessed and sent it on it's way or if he took it for a ride and dialed it. After reading that thread it makes me wonder how heavy the semi sagged probably water logged plywood deck and most likely water logged foam is.
 
We only got out twice this weekend because of weather. Getting the our sea legs and learning how to handle the thing in semi rough seas is taking some getting used to. Of course it rained every time we went out, first time we took it out we couldn't see much, the windows were fogging up and having a wiper only on the driver's side sucks for the passenger. Second time we towed the boat to the ramp, dried all the windows off and cleaned them up with some rainx brand windex, that helped a ton. A second wiper is on the list of upgrades for the winter. The boat is going to sit for about 6 weeks while I'm at work and then we'll give both sides of the windows the rainx treatment before we take it out again.

I attached a couple pictures of a "normal" day in southeast Alaska and why a windshield and canvas top was a must have. Having the pasanger able to see is nice, there's a fair amount of marine traffic, a ton of trees and other junk and crab pot buoys everywhere you look so a second set of eyes really helps.

We finally did get on some fish. Changing what we were using, understanding the depth finder, and changing depths helped. My wife caught our first keeper, it's really hard to tell if it's a pink or a silver, and we threw back a possible keeper of a pink, a bunch of undersize salmon, and 2 flounders.

Plans are to put the boat away while I'm at work. Then we are renting a cabin about 20 miles by boat from here for a couple nights when I get back. We are going to give crabbing a try and try for some more fish.

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Those little 12v diesel forced air heaters all over amazon work wonders on a small boat like that. My buddy has one in his 20 footer with a canvas enclosure and it's awesome to actually have some heat and keep the fogging down.
 
maybe this will help

Thanks, that's a big help.

One thing we always worry about is how much fuel we've burned, the fuel gauge shows full most of the time and I don't trust it. Playing with the Lowrance HDS-7Ti2 I discovered it has a setting for fuel consumed for the trip and season and will give you a tank level bassed on fuel burn/ tank size. It looks like you need a $100 Evinrude NMEA cable and a I have NMEA starter kit left over sitting in the garage along with a Point 1 antenna. You might need a fuel data manager for another $100. The motor has a tach and idiots lights for everything else and tying the motor/ gps into a NEMA network would give us that info on the GPS as well as water temp, engine hours, trim, ect.

I'm leaning towards on pulling the trigger on $100-$200 worth of NMEA crap after I call Lowrance in the morning and confirm it will work. While I'm at it I'm not sure if it's worth it to install the 1 point antenna, it doesn't seem like it really needs it.

I always try and remember to bring extra fuel and will continue to do so but the peace of mind of knowing we won't run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere would be nice.
 
I had to scratch the itch and clean up the wiring under the dash/ clean up some of the rigging. Wires not connected to anything, wires running everywhere, and fuses is 4 spots were driving me crazy. I also decided to pull the trigger and link the lowrance to the etec to try and get accurate fuel data

Here's the only before picture I have

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First thing to fix was the wiper. It worked but didn't have park, was off the windshield for part of the cycle, and there was a wire just dangling out of the wiper motor taunting me under the dash. The wiper motor was wired to a on off/ toggle with a glass fuse inline and where ever you shut it off is where it stopped. I found a manual for a very similar wiper motor (pretty sure it's the same motor just in a different box) https://doc.jamestowndistributors.co...structions.pdf I had a on/ off/ on toggle lying around, 1 of the wires is the high speed, 1 is the low speed, and the 3rd is for park which is routed to the always hot +, I mounted it to the incoming power for the switch. Wahlah high and low speed and it parked, just off the windshield in the horizontal position. The wires got ran nicely with a bunch of zip ties, zip tie mounts, and the wire was routed to a ATC fuse at the + junction block (more on this later).

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I discovered you could adjust the amount of rotation by moving the hole the arm inside the motor mounts to the gear and if you put it in a different slotted hole it would park vertically instead of horizontal. The arm it's self was adjustable. A couple trial and error tweaks and it now covers a lot more of the windshield, stays on the glass, and I had it park vertically instead of horizontal so crap didn't accumulate on the blade when it's in storage.

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More on cleaning up the wiring mess and understanding marine electronics to come

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The next thing was the electronics and learning about NMEA communication between electronics and the outboard. NMEA0183 is the older not as advanced communication system and NMEA2000 newer system. It turns out the VHF and 5" Lowrance Elite-5HDI are NMEA0183 capable and the Lowrance Elite-7Ti2 and 2014 60HP Etec are NMEA2000 capable.

Why would you want the VHF radio to talk to the GPS? The radio has the ability to broadcast your GPS position/ vessel information if you make a distress call and receive the positions of other vessels making distress calls through DSC (digital selective calling). I also needed to register for an MMSI (Mobile Marine Service Identity) with Boat US to have the ability to make DSC's/ transmit my info if I made a distress call. Both the GPS and VHF had bare wires just dangling out of them so this would terminate them and tie up some random loose wires. The VHF was hard wired with wires running through a hole without a grommet in the dash. I pulled on the VHF coax and the plug came right off, a quick check on google found it was supposed to be soldered together. I ended up drilling out the hole in the dash, putting in a grommet, soldering the VHF coax connector, wiring the VHF to a ATC fuse right next to the + junction block, and putting weather pack connectors on both the VHF power wires and NMEA wires so the radio can come out for the winter.

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In case anyone needs to connect a Uniden UM380 to a Lowrance Elite-5HDI here's the wire combo that worked for me, the wire colors in the Uniden the manual is not right and finding the Lowrance code wasn't easy

Lowrance Side VHF Side
Yellow Transmit + Yellow Receive +
Blue Transmit - Green Receive -
Orange Receive + White Transmit +
Green Receive - Brown Transmit -
Bare Shielded Ground Bare Shielded ground

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That ties up the NMEA0183 network, NMEA2000 network to follow
 
At this point I had dove into the wiring and there was no turning back till it was all cleaned up from under the dash to the transom.

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When I started digging into electronics stuff I discovered the 7" Lowrance Elite Ti2 had the ability to display engine information/ act as a dash board. I found a fuel menu on the Lowrance and it and had a setting for trip fuel consumption/ had a fuel gauge on the dash. After some googling it sounded doable. I needed to build a NMEA2000 network which requires it's own power. I had a NMEA starter kit along with a Point 1 antenna sitting in a box in the garage to start the NMEA network and decided to add the antenna because I had it. To tie the motor in I needed an Evinrude Etec to NMEA 2000 cable. According to my searching it was debatable if I needed a fuel data manager for the NMEA network or not. I ordered etec cable and fuel data manager off of Amazon to install once I get home in September. Once I had the wiring torn apart and realized I was going to go all the way to the transom I figured now would be the time to run the NMEA cable to the transom for the motor instead of diving back into the loom again.

The gauge function on the Lowrance

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The fuel screen



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The fuel used screen

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Here's the last of my wiring cleanup project. Basically I cleaned everything up and mounted it all in bundles zip tied together cleanly, only 1 wire around the entire bundle at a location so it will be somewhat easy to pull apart. The motor harness had an axu power wire running the hour meter, fuel gauge, and the gauge light was wired to come on when ever the motor was on. I was able to shorten up the wire and now have the tachometer light to come on when the running lights are on. There's a bundle of black and red wire zip tied up, it's run from the switch pannel and will power a 2 hole USB outlet that's on order. I didn't have an aux fuse block lying around so I ended up using some ATC inline fuse holders and zip tied them together


The main wiring loom heaed to the stern was 2 pieces of loom shoved together and the junction wasn't tapped. I was able to get all the wires out of the side try and into the bundle. It still needs a pico clamp where it enters the dash.

There were a couple long wires in the motor harness I couldn't easily shorten so they got doubled backed and burried in the loom, the things I couldn't shorten got put in nice loops and burried under a piece of foam in the back compartment. The fuel sender, bilge pump float switch bypass, and anchor light got zip tied together and run in the big loom to the stern where they head their seperate ways.

The wires under the splashwell all got cleaned up and in loom, they still need a couple pico clamps when I get home.

I was able to test out the Etec tied into the NMEA network and I get motor gauges on the GPS now, it will not show a fuel tank level without a fuel data manager. I have some sitting at home to try out when I get home from work.

Plans for the next round of days off
-Tie up a couple loose ends in the wiring redo
-Add a fuel data manager to the NMEA network and hope I can get a fuel gauge/ track fuel consumption on the Lowrance
-Install a Blue Sea Dual USB outlet on the left side of the dash
-Add an auxiliary 12 gallon topside tank under the spashwell, add a second fuel water separator, plumb a primer bulb and fule hose to the kicker so it can run off the aux tank or the tank on the top of the motor, and put quick connect fittings on both tanks so they can be swapped out easily. This will up us from 15 gallons of fuel to 27 gallons of fuel

Possibly buy a dinghy and go camping at a cabin that requires anchoring at a mooring ball and taking a dinghy to shore. Waiting to hear back on one on craigs list or maybe pulling the trigger on a new 7'6" Achilles. We need a dinghy where we boat/ camp and if we don't have one this fall we'll have one by next summer, there's just too many coo

All parts are on order, corssing my fingers everything gets there for the fuel tank install, otherwise most of the parts are in stock in town for about 30% more. I get home on a Saturday night and we leave Monday morning for our first cabin trip. We may do a second trip if we get a dinghy/ it doesn't get booked before we get a dinghy.

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I like that switch/fuse panel. A horizontal one would be sweet for a vehicle!
 
Maybe try to find a spare prop. Should be a prop shop down there somewhere, they can repair some pretty extreme damage. Dual batteries? Survival suits or floater jackets.
 
I like that switch/fuse panel. A horizontal one would be sweet for a vehicle!

It uses glass fuses and the wiring is kinda melted on the back side. I'm pretty sure sea dog line is the smittybuilt of the jeep world. I'd look at a blue sea systems.

I'm back home and we took a 3 night trip to a cabin, visited the glaciers in Tracy arm (as seen on most Alaskan cruise ships) and then the next day the wife caught a 36" 24 pound halibut 15 minutes outside the harbor in Auke Bay/ Juneau. Depending on seas we are headed out to a cabin Wednesday afternoon for 2 nights. We have a super tiny Achillie's dingy in the mail for the trip along with a 2.3hp Honda outboard sitting in the garage.

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