Another launching - James from the USA and his RipTide 457

[Mark Bowdidge]

Just thought I'd share a few pictures from James who lives in Winyah Bay, S Carolina, who built his RipTide 457 and was launched today. Whilst building, James decided to add a bit of traditional "flair' to his boat with its rounded coaming forward and slightly raised above side deck level. She looks great !!

Just a couple of build pictures to show his build.
As you can see, she's a strip Plank composite design.
Hope you like them
Regards
Mark
Bowdidge Marine Designs

[Mark Bowdidge]

This morning, James launched his boat.
He writes:

The Constance Mary (after my wife-- the minister of finance) is splashed!! I cannot be more
stoked-- super stable, tracks as true as an arrow, dry as a bone, and just as fast as I had
hoped. Made 38 miles per hour with just me aboard, and turning only 5500 rpm. With a little prop
and engine height tweaking I could probably make 40 @ 5750 or so. Really think I might not even bother
though-- it's plenty fast as is, as heavy as I built it. LOL The ride was excellent-- although the worst
waves we hit were our own wake. Just eats up small chop so you don't even notice it. Lots of pics, but our
videos don't load to photobucket somehow-- they are "quicktime video files" which aren't recognized. I'll
get it sorted out, or find a different camera for a future post.

All hooked up, ready to go--




At the launch--



And in the water--
















Unfortunately, most of our good "action shots" were on video from when I ran solo-- nothing airborne,
but I was more about putting the boat through its paces than not scaring my passengers! Just another
good reason to get back out there, I guess. LOL

[Woxbox]

Impressive work. The finish on it looks totally professional.

[Rich Jones]

A beautiful job! One question from a non-powerboat guy. What's the blue flexible tubing and 3" PVC pipe for?

[Mark Bowdidge]

They're called "chase tubes"and are used to carry electrical wiring/ instrument cabling/ hydraulic steerage and more throughout the boat. Its an easy and neat way to "feed" all the cabling around the boat without it dangling into the bilge or thru enclosed compartments and more. Simpy push teh wiring in one end and it comes out teh other where you want it. This not only pertains to power boats, you can do it in yachts/ sailers as well. With large boats (power and yachts) they typically use "racks", but for small boats, pvc pipe or pvc downpipe can be used. I actually prefer down pipe in the bilge area, as its rectangular and fit neatly up against the longitudinals. but each to they're own here and whatever works.

[Mark Bowdidge]

Impressive work. The finish on it looks totally professional.

Thanks Dave. James is pretty stoked. He's a first time boat builder !!
He wrote previously on our forum:

The stickers arrived, are in place, and look GREAT! Hopefully, you will see some new orders from this side of the pond. At the very least, you have an active salesman in me-- I'm forever talking you up, whether it be the forum, the designs, or especially
the unexpected, the personalized service and individual guidance! As I'm sure most people who have built would agree, YOU DON'T CHARGE ENOUGH.
The plans price was the single best investment of the entire boat, hands down.
Thank you for doing what you do!

Its great to read these types of comments

When he loads up his videos, I'll link them to here if your interested

[nedL]

Beautiful!

[W Grabow]

Another great design completed with superb craftsmanship.

[Tom Lathrop]

Good looking job and should be just right for the open bays in that area. One question. The forward chine has some S curve in it. Was that the result of the added flare changing the bottom/topsides join?

[Mark Bowdidge]

G'day Tom,
I designed it that way for a fine entry as I was chasing a deadrise of 60 degrees in the forefoot section, enabling the boat to "slice" thru heavy chop and providing a smooth ride for the passengers, without losing speed, being more efficient and, without losing volume forward.
Generally boats with such fine entries, tend to lose a lot of volume forward, reducing the buoyancy in the bow. I didn't want this, as we also carry an electric trolling motor/ batteries and more in the front compartments and, when standing on the deck flicking lures around when fishing, we don't want the boat trimming heavily down in the bow. So with all this in mind, we wanted the "full sections", but with a fine entry. Since we also do a lot of trolling for fish at speeds of around 4-6 kts ( 4.6 - 7 mph), a fine entry works cuts thru without all the wave slap and bobbing up and down.

We actually built the same design and when fishing or camping, we generally cruise at 24- 28 kts ( 28-32 mph) in heavy chop offshore and within the bay itself and, that bow section really works a treat. You can really feel the boat "slicing" thru, without getting wet or "slamming". Love it !!.

Here's a photo of our RipTide's bow



See how with our Riptide, being that there is a lot of volume forward, that we even have an island lounge for when visitors or our grandchildren want to come out. It even makes a great seat when fishing





We actually have the same on another one of our designs, the Sportzmaster 19. The "S" is not so pronounced being that its a larger boat, but the same deadrise in the forward sections is the same and designed for the very same reasons

Here's a couple of pics from Russell in the Cocos Islands. They're a little speck of an island in the Indian ocean. So once again, it was about the chop within the lagoon and also once outside, the ability to troll efficiently. And no doubt, when all the kids and friends fly in, its time to rip across the lagoon to the other small island for a day out

Hope this helps

[richbeck]

Well done! Now you get to enjoy the boating part of the equation!

[Reynard38]

Nice design beautifully executed. He's not too far from our new place in Beaufort. Might see him at the show in Georgetown.

[Mark Bowdidge]

James finally got his boat registered today. Turns out he's been having a few drama's with the authorities regarding his boat and not believing he built it LOL. (A common comment I see here in this forum and others about our designs LOL)

He wrote previously:

Mark,
I may be the saddest builder on the forum tight now! My boat STILL has not been registered-- despite my posting the application in mid March.
After many increasingly nasty phone calls, DNR is coming to "inspect" tomorrow, which should yield my HIN enabling them to provide my rego. It seems that the person doing this sort of thing was promoted and left all work to the new hiree (as a welcoming present?) who has not been hired yet, so my app was sitting in someone's unused inbox. That same person is the one coming to inspect, so we'll see what attitude she has for me, and what I'm most curious to see-- exactly what she wants to look at.
All I can come up with is maybe they don't believe it's really homemade and that I'm trying to pass off a repainted factory boat for lower taxes!

Well today he wrote on the forum:

Well, DNR came yesterday evening and all is fine now. It seems that it WAS an issue with not looking "homemade". Her first comment was something like "well it certainly doesn't look homemade..." and then she was all about eyeballing the hull-- looking really closely at things like the reflection and fairness.
I assured her I could prove I had built it, telling her a bit about the construction methods, and offered to show her the plans and my thread pictures. Well, the plans did the trick.
She took some close up pics of Mark's info in the corners and some shots of the plan pages, and that was it.
Hull ID will be issued today.

As our builders say, just because you build it, doesn't mean it needs to look homemade.
LOVE IT.

[Stiletto]

Congratulations, I can see why they found it hard t believe that she was homebuilt!

[Tom Lathrop]

G'day Tom,
I designed it that way for a fine entry as I was chasing a deadrise of 60 degrees in the forefoot section, enabling the boat to "slice" thru heavy chop and providing a smooth ride for the passengers, without losing speed, being more efficient and, without losing volume forward.
Generally boats with such fine entries, tend to lose a lot of volume forward, reducing the buoyancy in the bow. I didn't want this, as we also carry an electric trolling motor/ batteries and more in the front compartments and, when standing on the deck flicking lures around when fishing, we don't want the boat trimming heavily down in the bow. So with all this in mind, we wanted the "full sections", but with a fine entry. Since we also do a lot of trolling for fish at speeds of around 4-6 kts ( 4.6 - 7 mph), a fine entry works cuts thru without all the wave slap and bobbing up and down.

We actually built the same design and when fishing or camping, we generally cruise at 24- 28 kts ( 28-32 mph) in heavy chop offshore and within the bay itself and, that bow section really works a treat. You can really feel the boat "slicing" thru, without getting wet or "slamming". Love it !!.

Here's a photo of our RipTide's bow



See how with our Riptide, being that there is a lot of volume forward, that we even have an island lounge for when visitors or our grandchildren want to come out. It even makes a great seat when fishing





We actually have the same on another one of our designs, the Sportzmaster 19. The "S" is not so pronounced being that its a larger boat, but the same deadrise in the forward sections is the same and designed for the very same reasons

Here's a couple of pics from Russell in the Cocos Islands. They're a little speck of an island in the Indian ocean. So once again, it was about the chop within the lagoon and also once outside, the ability to troll efficiently. And no doubt, when all the kids and friends fly in, its time to rip across the lagoon to the other small island for a day out

Hope this helps

I see mark. When designing a small cruiser rather than a fishing boat and trying to get a sharp entry over the forward part of the bottom a designer is hampered by the need of space for a comfortable V berth. These needs fight each other and some compromise must be made if the boat is to stay within the required length and weight. Since the boat is in the Winyah Bay area, will it be at the Woodenboat show in Georgetown this year?

[Mark Bowdidge]

G'day Tom,
In regards to boats with fine entries, if your going to have v berths or a master staterooms forward, then yes one has to carefully design the arrangement plan to fit. This means a lot of preliminary work. An example of this was a 55fter that I did whilst working at Tom Fexas Yacht Designs whereby I had to move the collision bulkhead further aft, which was very similiar to this other Fexas design as seen below (Note the fine entry). Overall it worked out quite well and something I'll be doing again in one of our new designs (a 30fter game boat) for a client.



Here's another one of our designs, a 27 fter which also has a very fine entry which I'm presently working on for another client.
Once again the arrangement plan forward needs to be very carefully worked out, but it can be done easily with a bit of thought and planning



In regards to the Riptide series, with our boat (the RipTide CX-457)which is a tillered steered version compared to James RipTide (which is XR-457 -a centre console version), here you can see an island lounge arrangement which we built in instead of the typical casting platform. In the centre section or storage section of the lounge, here we keep our deep cycle battery for our electric trolling motor whilst the outside compartments store items such as life jackets/ fire extinguisher/ flares and more. We built this in to cater for when we feel like just having a day out with our grandkids, but now that we're selling our house and moving to far North Queeensland where the fishing and 4wding is ballistic, we're thinking of changing it back.





Here's a video of the types of things we're planning with Bowdidge Marine Designs and our clients in the very near future, except with our boats in tow. We're going to organize various trips off the beaten track, with a bunch of our builders, dragging their boats along as well as we camp/ fish and more Northern Queensland/ The Northern Territory and the Kimberleys. It will be a blast !!
https://www.facebook.com/travis.mcel...7/?pnref=story

and all this...IN WOODEN BOATS



Here's a photo of our Jeep TJ that we're gearing up for the trips. (We're looking around for another TJ as well to tow the boat). Next I'm designing a lightweight foam core camper and its on ...FISHIN'/ CAMPIN' "N" 4WD HARDCORE !!!

Cant wait !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL



Will James be in the wooden boat show? I don't know Tom. I might mention it to him. It would be great if we could round up all our US builders to put their boats in the show. Crikey, they'd be Sea Strikes, Pro Tournaments, Run Riots, RipTides and more.
That would make for an interesting site LOL

[Mark Bowdidge]

Got some feedback last night from James in the US and his Riptide 457 (15fter)
He writes:

I absolutely LOVE this boat.

I've heard others on the forum speak of feeling "planted", and that's exactly the right word. I had quite a bit of experience in a similarly sized FG runabout with a 50 hp evinrude 2 stroke in my youth, so I have had a certain set of expectations about what this boat should be able to do. Well, my expectations have been wrong in every respect.


I expected a certain amount of "skitterishness' when at WOT, which is absolutely not there-- this boat tracks true and needs very little adjustment from the helm underway, really only when changing course.


I expected to have to slow down for most wakes or get pounded-- not so at all, bracing for impact almost always is followed by an entertaining "squish".


I expected lower top end speed, going from a relatively flat bottom aft to significant deadrise. Again wrong, as WOT speed was 30 mph but now is significantly higher, even with the bimini drag.


My limited experience with other boats seems to always lead to comparisons with larger boats-- most notably my father's 20' Bertram Bahia Mar, which had a similar ride feel, but always seemed underpowered, riding too deep in the water. Again, not so with the RipTide-- this boat gets up and goes!


And the last wrong expectation was stability at rest. I know you take special pride in this, with "walking the plank" and all, but I really was not prepared for how little this boat moves around when you step off a dock onto her decks-- again, like a bigger boat.


Thanks again for your exceptional design and your exceptional support-- it was a lucky day when I bought my plans!

Its great to get feed back like this

[Mark Bowdidge]

Got some feedback last night from James in the US and his Riptide 457 (15fter)
He writes:

I absolutely LOVE this boat.

I've heard others on the forum speak of feeling "planted", and that's exactly the right word. I had quite a bit of experience in a similarly sized FG runabout with a 50 hp evinrude 2 stroke in my youth, so I have had a certain set of expectations about what this boat should be able to do. Well, my expectations have been wrong in every respect.


I expected a certain amount of "skitterishness' when at WOT, which is absolutely not there-- this boat tracks true and needs very little adjustment from the helm underway, really only when changing course.


I expected to have to slow down for most wakes or get pounded-- not so at all, bracing for impact almost always is followed by an entertaining "squish".


I expected lower top end speed, going from a relatively flat bottom aft to significant deadrise. Again wrong, as WOT speed was 30 mph but now is significantly higher, even with the bimini drag.


My limited experience with other boats seems to always lead to comparisons with larger boats-- most notably my father's 20' Bertram Bahia Mar, which had a similar ride feel, but always seemed underpowered, riding too deep in the water. Again, not so with the RipTide-- this boat gets up and goes!


And the last wrong expectation was stability at rest. I know you take special pride in this, with "walking the plank" and all, but I really was not prepared for how little this boat moves around when you step off a dock onto her decks-- again, like a bigger boat.


Thanks again for your exceptional design and your exceptional support-- it was a lucky day when I bought my plans!

Its great to get feed back like this