MM Brand: Gator Tail
Horsepower: 35-bone stock
Boat Brand: CAT-5 Composites
Boat Size: 17'-6" x 52" (approx)
Boat Layout: see pictures

Speeds | Shallow Water: 29.5
Speeds | Deep Water: 29

Total Boat Load With Gear Etc: Boat scale weight 565#, GTR scale 260#, Me-185#, dog-75#, small ice chest, 9 gallons of fuel, misc safety gear

Conditions Tested In: Ran Lake Pontchartrain at 29mph, same in canals, bays etc.. Ran one large duck pond and canal banks for shallow

Comments: This is custom built fiberglass boat with a kevlar outer skin. The hull and some parts are stock but the layout and flotation is custom. It has a lot of foam glassed in, glued in and poured in. It has a stepped hull so it tracks pretty well in deep water. I have not loaded it yet but will update those speeds in a month or so.

Forgot this picture. This is the kevlar skin.

Very Nice Rig Indeed !!!! Piroue rack is somethin' I wish I had alot of times. Do them folks that build that boathull gots a www. ?

Clean looking rig. Enjoy!

Nice looking rig!

Looks real good congrats

wonder how a total kevlar hull would work

got a buddy with a kevlar bass boat hull, fast,light and very expensive

Nice to see a hull with a mostly open floorplan
and floatation too.... At 565 the weight is very reasonable too...

Looks like a nice alternative... Is there much flex or is she
pretty rigid ???

Nice looking rig!

Dang nice rig fo sheaux!

Thanks guys, so far I like it a lot. Got a few problems to deal with, its back at the shop now. Nothing they can't fix I hope.

As far as "full kevlar" I think this is. I don't think that "kevlar" boats do anything more than the hull. This one is also vacume infused with resin not just slopped on. Cat 5 is pretty proud of these boats, if you know what I mean.

It is really light. The 565# is not an estimate, I picked it up with a crane and scale. It includes wiring, but no battery and fuel lines, fittings and water seperator but no tanks. PIrogue mounts installed and grab bar. Also includes dock lines used to lift it.

but no pictures of mud boats right now. They are reworking some pictures. The stock boat has a big box bench seat with a lot of storage.

Boat looks dam good hope you enjoy it.

I am liking that rig alot. Well laid out. That V in the front will help out in the open bays. I like that wrap around rubber guard you have on the top rails. I was wanting to do something like that on mine but couldn't figure something out without drilling into metal.

Very nice!

very nice set up u got der bro!

indeed you will enjoy

How much did that Cat 5 boat cost you bro ?

i like!!!!!

btw over the line, werent u goin round and round with carolina skiff? was that u? if so i been wondering how that turned out.

Dirty,
The CAT 5 is about 25-50% more than a Gator Tail boat, with all the same options. I did a bunch of custom work and these guys are friends so I don't want to give you bad information, but that is a good rough number I think.

Dragin',
yeah I am still going around and around with Carolina Skiff. I am going to update that thread but it looks like I am going back to court.

Is kevlar supposed to be tougher than aluminum?

Westwind,

Yes and No.

It won't dent like aluminum but you can beat up the fiberglass gel coat easier than aluminum. You can still put a hole in it but if you try hard enough you can put a hole in an aluminum boat too. By the pound it is much stiffer than aluminum. It does not corrode.

This boat is just fiberglass on steriods. Same construction process, same problems just tougher. Not a good chioce if you spend your days bouncing over cypress knees and I would not drive it up on the concrete launch, but I don't do either.

It also weighs 565#. Much lighter than aluminum with all the junk and flotation I put in this one. Also when you calculate flotation, the fiberglass/kevlar parts of the hull will almost float on their own, its the aluminum and metal parts you need foam for. So for floation the boat is much lighter than aluminum.

Pretty cool boat, Over.

A boat that big that only weighs 500# is awesome.

Thanks for the review and keep us all up to speed on how it is working out. ww.

Hey Line, Shawn Killeen is my cousin. How do you like the boat and, if you don't mind me asking, how much did he rip ... errrr, charge you for the hull?

The boy is a pain in the butt, but he do know his stuff with that composit glass stuff

I just got the boat back from them Friday. There were a few small problems they had to solve. I have a few runs in it and none with a load. So far I like it. I like how they handled the "custom" work I had them do.

As far as what I paid, call Shawn and see what kind of deal you can get but they are not cheap.

His two partners are pretty good with high tech glass also, but sometimes I think they are all a little too accustomed to dealing with government contracts. Individuals want things handled a little differently.

Overall a much better experience than my Carolina Skiff nightmare.

Nice lookin boat there Over. I am sure you will enjoy it!

Finally ran it loaded.

2 guys (185# & 225#)
70# dog
It now has a blind mounted
9 gallons of gas
Full boat of duck hunting junk & refreshments

26 mph deep water.

I posted these pics on the photo page, but here is the camo job & blind up.

got to say man u got a real nice right there!!! i had the privilege to see this on in person

Cat 5 is wrapping up two of these babies right now. One is a green hunting model and one is a white/lime green redfish & center console model. The green tiller steer one is ready to go. The redfish model is on hold because I just know someone is going to want to customize it up.

Here is a couple of photos of one of our redfish models.

thats some badass lil rigs. what are the dimensions of those hulls?

Nice

I want both of them

1st post for all the dimensions.

The blind is from Go-Devil.

I changed my boat over to steering and like it even more. Offset the console so I could get past it with the blind up instead of putting it center. This is the only pic I found with the console.

I love that boat. In all seriousness, not bashing, just a comment, based upon the weight of the hull and the step, I can't beleive she is not a little faster. I would have expected her to be significfantly quicker than the aluminum boats (which have pretty much zero thought put into hull dynamics)

that thing is slick man but like the above would think it would be a lil faster but still impressive

That boat is 53" on the bottom and 17'3" long. Glad you guys like it.

Clark-t:

Can you send me a table of offsets for that hull if its not proprietary?

Can you tell me how different it would be to glass a wooden boat with Kevlar instead of fiberglass cloth? Is Kevlar harder to wet out with epoxy? I presume its more difficult to sand? I'm thinking of coating the bottom of my wooden skiff with Kevlar so that's why I'm asking. Thanks.

dguidry,

I don't have a table of offsets for that boat that I could share.

I would strongly discourage you from hand laying kevlar. Kevlar has a low specific gravity and very poor wicking of resin. To make matters even worse, it is not transparent, so defects in the bond will not be easily visible. If you insist on doing it, make sure the kevlar is encapsulated top and bottom with e-glass mat, that will give you a better chance of getting a good bond. Finally, cut your kevlar short of any trim line. Once it is laid up, the stuff is awful to cut with a jigsaw or to grind, and any exposed kevlar must be sealed, as the kevlar wicks water very effectively. If you can find the fabric, I'd recommend Vectran as it is much more forgiving to laminate and it is as tough as Kevlar.

We avoid hand lamination whenever possible. All of our hulls are vacuum infused. One detail that saves a lot of time and labor is to end the kevlar short of the hatch edges or the hull edges, so we are trimming pure e-glass. Anywhere there is a through hull fitting we trim the kevlar prior to lamination, and replace it with e-glass. You can see how it's done pretty clearly on this Jet Ski deck. The yellow is kevlar, the white is e-glass.

Very cool rig! Thanks for sharing.