Did anyone see the fiberglass surface drive hull at the LA Sportsman Show? My cousin and his buddy are building them. I thought it was a dead end of a project until I saw it in person. Sturdy as a motha! Pretty impressive. It was running in the low 30's with a stock MB 35 on the back.

Got any pics.............

I don't have any but I'll see if I can get some...

Just curious.

What would be the purpose of going with fiberglass?

I have seen what a stump does to the bottom of a fiberglass boat and it is not pretty....

Fiberglass just seems heavy and not as durable for a mm application...

jmo....

these are cell pics so the quality sucks.

more

and more

thats it

the bottom

they are 17x54 built like tanks
they have abused the hull you see in these pics and the bottom is flawless. might not be for running straight stumps but a lot of people down here run fiberglass mud boats and have no problems. just another option for a hull. the bottom is smooth as all hell and slides or lillies like a hot knife through butter

there is no way i would have a fiberglass mm hull, oyster shells would have a grand time putting beautiful gouges in that hull. most people that have fiberglass hulls are not running shallow water.

We run the fiberglass hulls in water just as shallow as I run my gatortrax. It just depends on the area. I wouldn't run fiberglass over oyster shells either but in other areas it is practical. I was sceptical when I first saw them but they are tanks and run much faster than aluminum hulls. To each his own.

The Hydroflat guys were at our Poker Run in Georgia. They had a MB7000 on the back of it. Running in the high 30's, think I heard 36 or 38 with one person. With 2 people in the boat, I believe the number I was hearing was 34.

They also had some pirogues with them.

Super nice guys. Their next stop was gonna be the Alabama round-up this weekend.

Alot of guys run Lake Seminole down here in fiberglass boats. Seminole is a flooded impoundment with 1000's of stumps. The bottom of the boat is reinforced with 3/4 plywood and you even have the option of adding polymer to the bottom of it for extra protection. The boat bottom is flat and slick and runs faster than aluminum.

The wood will rot between the fiberglass, it always does.

thay look bad ass though

There is a reason why boats are of composite materials now.

http://www.toughboats.com/video.cfm?ful ... aCRevLegal


Do that with your aluminum hull!!!!

thats a plastic boat.

I could see fiberglass boats working around here, we don't have any stumps or oysters.

And as far as the wood rotting, newer fiberglass boats are going wood free. they have composite or foam supports cased in fiberglass instead of wood.

Not saying it would be better than aluminum, just saying that here it would work.

A friend of mine has one, they are nice boats, easy to hide, too small for me. I wouldn't buy a glass boat with wood in it. There is a guy in Venice builds a real nice glass boat. The way that video was edited, I believe u could do that with a aluminum boat.

If the wood is encased in glass it isn't going to be bad...ever seen what those composites do with prolonged exposure to water? The bassboat market is giving everyone the false sense of all this composite stuff...ain't nothing wrong with wood as long as it isn't exposed.

*edit* 100% composite construction would make much more sense in this day and age

i talked to a guy who has one, I think his name was J Folse and it ran very good he had a hoyt stage 2 on it and it ran 34 with 2 people bumping the CDI rev limiter, he also said that these boats have no wood in them it is all composite.

I had a 1986 Boston Whaler for 20 years without any problems and I know it had wood in the transom. You just have to build them right.