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So I bought a new Lowe 1448M about a year ago with the intent of building a small jet Jon. Between work, life, working on the house, mowing ten acres, etc, etc it’s taken a year to get started on this project. In the meantime the gears in the head have been turning and I think there is a reasonable design floating around in the cobwebs between my ears. I don’t claim be an expert by any means. If anyone is interested feel free to follow along. I’m a few weekends into the build and I’ll post updates as time allows.
I did a few test runs last year with the bare hull and three different outboards.
The first was a tiller F25 EFI Jet. It’s a 200 pound beast and boat was dangerously tail heavy. I managed to get in some test runs without crashing or sinking and it was apparent that the weight (batteries, fuel, etc.) needed to be as far forward as practical. That led me to some estimated center of bouyancy and center of balance calculations. It wasn’t working out so I tossed pods into the equation and it seemed feasible at that point.
The second outboard was a Suzuki 9.9 that’s been modified to a 20hp. That’s a great pairing with this 14’ bare hull. It’s still light agile and it would quickly launch out of the hole and top out at about 27 mph at wot. If I didn’t want a bow mount trolling motor and the batteries that go with it I would have just stopped right there. (Maybe later I’ll wish that I would have stopped there.) I’m interested to see how this motor performs with the fully rigged out boat. Unfortunately, this snappy little motor will likely spend most of its life as a kicker on my bigger boat. What a shame.
The third motor that I tried is a Suzuki 25 EFI. It was propped too low and things got busy with summer projects and I never came back to it but, it was still pushing the bare hull around at 27mph at 1800 to 2000 rpm short. Weight wise, this motor is around 175 pound so it’s between the heavy Merc and the 100 pound 9.9/20. The Zuki 25 is the only one of the three outboards that has power tilt/trim. Ideally, I want to be able to swap between the Zuki 25 and Merc Jet with minimal changes in balance and trim.
Anyway this intro is dragging too long so we’ll get into the build.
The plan is a lower deck and an upper casting deck that will cover the batteries, fuel, etc. All aluminum, no stinking wood on this boat!
That box and hard hat on the toolbox is a dummy passenger. I’ll probably fish this boat alone most of the time but, you never know.
The seat pedestal on the 2x4s is telescopic. It will extend to a comfortable seated position or squat down to out of the way or allow a passenger to ride up front at speed with a lower center of gravity. The. actual upper deck is about six inches lower than the temp seat placement.
I did a few test runs last year with the bare hull and three different outboards.
The first was a tiller F25 EFI Jet. It’s a 200 pound beast and boat was dangerously tail heavy. I managed to get in some test runs without crashing or sinking and it was apparent that the weight (batteries, fuel, etc.) needed to be as far forward as practical. That led me to some estimated center of bouyancy and center of balance calculations. It wasn’t working out so I tossed pods into the equation and it seemed feasible at that point.
The second outboard was a Suzuki 9.9 that’s been modified to a 20hp. That’s a great pairing with this 14’ bare hull. It’s still light agile and it would quickly launch out of the hole and top out at about 27 mph at wot. If I didn’t want a bow mount trolling motor and the batteries that go with it I would have just stopped right there. (Maybe later I’ll wish that I would have stopped there.) I’m interested to see how this motor performs with the fully rigged out boat. Unfortunately, this snappy little motor will likely spend most of its life as a kicker on my bigger boat. What a shame.
The third motor that I tried is a Suzuki 25 EFI. It was propped too low and things got busy with summer projects and I never came back to it but, it was still pushing the bare hull around at 27mph at 1800 to 2000 rpm short. Weight wise, this motor is around 175 pound so it’s between the heavy Merc and the 100 pound 9.9/20. The Zuki 25 is the only one of the three outboards that has power tilt/trim. Ideally, I want to be able to swap between the Zuki 25 and Merc Jet with minimal changes in balance and trim.
Anyway this intro is dragging too long so we’ll get into the build.
The plan is a lower deck and an upper casting deck that will cover the batteries, fuel, etc. All aluminum, no stinking wood on this boat!
That box and hard hat on the toolbox is a dummy passenger. I’ll probably fish this boat alone most of the time but, you never know.
The seat pedestal on the 2x4s is telescopic. It will extend to a comfortable seated position or squat down to out of the way or allow a passenger to ride up front at speed with a lower center of gravity. The. actual upper deck is about six inches lower than the temp seat placement.
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