The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Wow how time flies! It’s now over 10 years since we commenced “Project N19R” for Trade A Boat Magazine and its years have told a story of good, bad and yes a little bit of ugly. John Wills takes a look back.

The purpose of such projects is to showcase ideas, methods, skills, materials, components and performance and while I am exceptionally proud of the project, time has revealed many things we did both right and wrong.

The project took an old and battered V19R and restored it. We changed the layout to retain the terrific deck space but reworked the transom to a more acceptable sportsfishing workspace, plus reworked the dash to include a wave breaker.

You have no idea how many arguments we all had over the height of the wavebreaker. You certainly can’t please everyone!

While not new the wave breaker idea was only just growing in popularity at the time. We did all the right things at the time including remodelling the dashboard to raise the steering height appropriately, at the same time providing space for the myriad of electronics, accessories, switches and controls. I can’t believe how many wavebreaker I see who’s owners didn’t raise the dash accordingly – how the funk do they steer and see?

Whilst it seems that everyone loved the finished project including me, it eventually showed its flaws. Whilst the wavebreaker provided solid raised protection to the helm I always felt we were the “first on the scene of every cresting wave” with the weight of the crew and most of the storage including the large seat boxes being forward of the shoulders of the hull.

The V19 hull is quite exceptional, and quite possibly the imitated hull in the country however in my opinion almost all of its various offspring still present the same flat riding attitude and hence too much weight forward can be detrimental.

But what I grew to hate was the fact that you always had to be standing to drive it. That may be fine when you are young but let me tell you that long continual days on the water demand a level of comfortable seating especially when you are trolling for anything up to eight hours per day. Hence if I were to do it again I would build a raised windscreen or have substantial windows in the construction.

Also I would certainly build the live bait tank into the centre of the transom complex however the tank we built in the rear port side worked exceptionally well and could be used to further balance the boat if operating solo.

The shipwright made the fatal mistake of not raising the engine-well to meet the increased height of the transom taking it from the original 20” long shaft to a more appropriate 25” extra long. It resulted in all of the engine mounting bolts being above the floor of the engine well which I believe added to the stresses on the transom. This wasn’t helped when a dickhead editor ran it onto some rocks at high speed, but that’s another story!

That said I am glad we chose to re-purpose the engine-well transom and not extend the boat with a pod. Pods to me are a good way to replace a stern drive with an outboard but if you don’t get it right can create more nightmares than you could possible dream up.

The Project N19R all rigged for battle with the original Yamaha 200HP in-line 4 cylinder which we just loved. WOT was a speedy 52mph/45 knots with a light load.

The stripped out fuel tank cavity. We later wished we had cut out the underfloor support to make the fuel tank deeper.

Extending the keel line all the way to the back of the pod is the preferred method and gives the deep-V hulls the added buoyancy required, however you are changing the entire balance of the original hull. If incorrectly designed and fitted the result can be virtual drowning of an engine that sits too deep at rest and low speeds. This is commonly called hydraulicing and there’s not a manufacturers warranty that I know of that will cover it. It can also cause drag, porpoising, excessive cavitation and often creates the need for a larger trailer for strength and legality. There’s plenty of deck room in a V19 hull so why bother? Only this week I was watching a V19 with a pod porpoising abruptly on the Bermagui bar – not my idea of fun and certainly not good at sea!

The brand new layout with plenty of protection for the dashboard worked really well, as did the flooring and seat boxes.

I personally don’t trust the moisture meter that was used on the transom. Whilst the transom did need a rebuild particularly to facilitate the extra-long engines it originally looked like Swiss cheese with the amount of unplugged or poorly sealed holes from years of multi transducers, berley buckets and other fittings. Yet when completely stripped it was surprisingly dry inside with the tiniest bit of rot down around the poorly sealed bungs.

We used the method of rebuilding the transom from the outside and that’s not my preferred method. Whilst it works OK I still prefer the method of removing the rear sections of the top deck and rebuilding from within. Firstly, it retains the original laminate integrity and secondly allows the new timber or synthetic reinforcement to be added in single sections without joins, edge cavities and added fill.

The integrity of the underfloor stringers and structure was still very good and hence only slightly modified to accommodate a new alloy fuel tank. We even retained and reinforced the flat underfloor structure that the fuel tank sits on, however it only allowed approximately 120mm height for the new tank and gave problems with filling. In reflection I would remove the underfloor structure around the tank and strengthen the laminates to enlarge the cavity all the way down into the V section.

During its promotional lifespan plus the added years when I personally took over ownership we never looked like running out of the 120 litres of fuel with both the 200hp 4 cylinder Yamaha and the 200hp V6 Evinrude ETEC even with some large days fishing the Continental Shelf out from Portland, Bermagui and Port Stephens. However, I did run out one day when I filled with a questionable on-water fuel pump and as the boat had a bow up attitude at rest it created a fuel lock that we were unaware of. (Quite embarrassing really!!)

In my opinion we had far too many electrical components on board. Firstly, I hate the micro switch technology currently being used in hard wearing offshore trailer boats. Not only did we have corrosion problems but even the basic navigation, lighting and bilge pumping essentials often failed, or their switches were impossible to see and identify due to the limited size. I’m sure this caused constant burnouts of the underwater lighting when accidentally switched on whilst on land.

There has been some terrific progression in EVA and synthetic decking in recent years but I must say that I loved the “Flexiteak” flooring material. I found it provided excellent grip both wet or dry, it was cool in summer and warm in winter and it washed down quite easily with soap and water. It was quite heavy but the weight was down low in the hull where it should be.

With all of these additions and reconstructions the boat package ended up weighing close to 2500kg on-road. I’m guessing we added at least 400kg to the original gross hull weight, but WOW couldn’t you feel it with the exceptional ride it produced. Everyone who drove or rode in the boat expressed their pleasure of the soft, predictable, and seaworthy characteristics.

Whilst it was the original intention from the magazine to run a giveaway competition at the end of the project life it ended up being quite impossible as the trailer was only rated to 2000kg and the ETEC engine was a pre-release model never to be sold or given away on the open market. Note that I eventually brought the package from the publishers myself and purchased an entirely new production model power head.

I eventually sold the package to a Melbourne based fisho who sent the boat to Hary at RazorCraft for yet another complete rebuild, replaced the trailer with a braked option for legality, and eventually repowered as well.

All I can say is that the boat was, and still is a much loved seafaring weapon and certainly a project worth doing!

We replaced the original Yamaha 200HP with a pre-production model Evinrude ETEC 200. Performance figures were very similar, except we didn’t like the Yammy 4 blade prop due to almost zero reverse thrust.