My personal Mothership....
 

Picked me up a new toy for the offshore stuff I want to do. I'm not giving up my yak by no means...Do any of you have boats that you cart your kayak around on? If so, how are you strapping it to the boat without screwing things up? I'm considering a yakima / thule type rack system for the hard-top but I'm not sure if it would take the pounding of the sea. Any suggestions?

http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb1a354f.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...psb3780ad8.jpg

NICE....

So how long would it take to get to Catalina in that thing? I'm thinking 4 or 5 people, Yaks on top, everybody pitches in for gas, bait and beer!

Haha...fishes 4-6 comfortably...24mph cruising speed...Catalina in just over an hour

broke?
 

i can come up with my share . lets go fishing .

2 yaks maybe 3.

Nice boat.

I'm thinking Mini-X's on the bow.

Cool mothership! Personally, I would be more concerned with having a radar on that boat considering you'll be fishing and cruising So Cal waters. Getting caught in the fog going to and from Catalina can get hairy!. With radar you'll also be able to travel at night with more confidence. Just stick your kayak between gunnel and cabin(use towels for padding). It will be fine!. If it doesn't fit get a mini-x.......

Very nice,I've always liked those Stripers.If your ever in San Diego and you need a boat ho give me a call :D.

Dude,

You just made 127 new friends! :D


Hi, my name is Matt, can I be your friend?

Nice! No but if I owned one I would tote around yaks for sure!

I plan to add a radar at some point...in the meantime I have to use it in fair weather with only a GPS.

haha...thanks, will do.

I thought we were already friends Matt...WTF?

That's definitely the plan

Custom top.
 

Seriously, contact Jim Day, send him a PM. He is a professional metal sculpture-er, with a graduate degree in it. The guy can fabricate anything. He can build you a folding top that will fold out to hold that yaks, rods, and radar; and then fold in half when your not carrying the yaks, while still carrying rods and radar. I mean fold down to the size of what you have now. His prices are more than reasonable, as you get way more than you pay for.

Let me know when you want to buddy boat to the island! Never taken the PA over, but thought about it a lot. I have a little OK scrambler I load up on the bow and usually put SUP's on the sides. Enjoy the new mother ship!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.... I build shit.

Here's the deal. I don't know enough about the Yak/thule system to say if it's any good for marine use but in general racks made for cars are usually too thin, not rigid enough, the wrong type of alloy and eventually sometimes quickly break up and fail.

Aluminum work hardens very quickly, and the stronger the alloy the faster it hardens. What that means as if it bends or flexes it's gets harder and more brittle. With boats especially small ones you have all kinds of motion not found on a truck or car. Pounding swaying rolling through swell all put stress on a rack and if it bends or flexes it work hardens and cracks.

I've built a lot of racks for big boats like this 56 Ocean:
http://images03.olx.com/ui/14/84/56/...-79a9a618.jpeg
That boat will cruise at 20 knots through six foot seas but it will still roll around a lot, and that inflatable on the rack on the bow weighs about half as much as your boat. In other words the rack is subjected to a ton of stress, and that is on a big solid boat that doesn't bounce around like your boat will in rough conditions.

No matter what kind of racks I build, inflatable, jet ski, Kayak, I always use the same stuff. 6061 T6 Aluminum with a minimum of 1/8 wall thickness. You can weld the shit out of it, it's solid and if the rack is built correctly it won't flex or crack.

Bottom line is there are no maybes. It's not a car it's a boat, and if your rack is not bullet proof it will fail.

Jim

Radar is great but far more necessary on a larger boat. I've probably got over a thousand hours offshore running in the dark on skiffs under 25 feet without radar, and have only had a few instances where fog was a real issue. Twice heading out for Mexico out of Shelter Island, and once fishing PV. I actually have radar for my skiff but almost never use it. For me I'm more worried about things radar can't pick up in a skiff: like logs, pallets, semi submerged junk, kayakers etc....

Radar tends to give people overconfidence in my honest opinion. I once was fishing with a guy on his 25 skippy flybridge with radar and we got fogged out. While running in at a good twenty knots (crazy IMO) he almost ran right over some kayakers fishing right outside the harbor. He wasn't even paying attention just watching the screen and though he could see the breakwall he never saw them until I yelled at him when I saw them.

I'm with you on kayak storage. That boat has tuna written all over it. I'd be more worried about setting it up for offshore use then anything else.

A while back we did a three kayak trip aboard my buddies 23CC. This is how we stored the yaks.

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8964/sbimorning.jpg

Two X-13s on one side and a bigger Kevler Kayak on the other with no problems.

I actually built a custom aluminum tower and seat post for that boat but it's set up for finding tuna not carrying kayaks:

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7976/26692483gu9.jpg

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/3484/47240461vh9.jpg
If I was him I'd concentrate on fish areas like the 302 and 9 with that skiff this summer season then figure out what he needs to change next winter.

Jim

Finally made a trip over to Catalina with the yaks.....
Mounted my 138lb Hobie Pro Angler on the hard top and a Malibu Stealth 14 across the transom...worked great, didn't budge an inch in pretty big seas.
I built the 'rack' out of 3/4" PVC and two $3 pool noodles from Walmart...Total cost...about $12
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...ps08ba72c1.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9d280d1a.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...ps33dec765.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1bf03cf3.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...pseb8fecba.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...ps61398103.jpg
http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/...pscfffdb4a.jpg