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Heresy and abomination: Bluejacket with a bracket?


cracked_ribs

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First things first: I own a large and well-equipped chunk of rural land with no electric lighting.  Consequently, I can supply torches and pitchforks as necessary if the thread goes that way and you all need help forming a mob to make me pay for this.

 

Anyway...this is probably an awful thing to suggest but I have been thinking about the Bluejacket a bit recently as a replacement for my commuter - I do 80-100 mile round trips in a pretty thirsty boat and while it's manageable, I'm not in love with $3/mile.

 

I also fish the thing a fair bit and aside from the fuel bill, my only real complaint is really the cluttered transom from the ancient I/O power.  There's a big doghouse and it's manageable but sometimes annoying.  I have this fantasy of a clean transom which isn't critical or anything but at the same time, it'd be nice.

I therefore wonder...would it be truly appalling to do an integrated swim grid and bracket?  I'm thinking of the swim grids of of some of the picnic boats, say...I mean you look at something like Devlin's Red Salmon 33 and it's got some real Hinckley-turned-workboat vibes to it, and it's got that integral step with the outboards on the back.

 

At any rate maybe that's an aesthetic nightmare; I'm not sure.  To be honest I would rather not see the outboard at all; the Bluejacket is a great looking launch and I don't know that the engineers at Yamaha et al can do anything to improve it.  But maybe if the motor was further away from the boat people would just think it was following it around trying to get a date?

Kidding aside has anyone considered a swim grid?  It would be genuinely handy for me, since I have to climb into the boat from another boat all the time, and the uncluttered interior would be an asset for the style of fishing we do here.

 

But I hardly want to abuse the lines of the boat; it's very attractive and I have no business interfering with that.

 

Thoughts?

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Remember Egbert cut a big hole in the side of his boat. So all things is possible, if you only believe. :lol: The most relevant point in your post to me would be this comment.  "Anyway...this is probably an awful thing to suggest but I have been thinking about the Bluejacket a bit recently as a replacement for my commuter - I do 80-100 mile round trips in a pretty thirsty boat and while it's manageable, I'm not in love with $3/mile."

 

Before you attempt to redesign the main platform of any sized Bluejacket, tell us more about this commute gig. Open ocean? River? Island hopping? Of course I am not going to speak for the designer here. But there are ways to accomplish your desires in the stock drawings, which has been discussed in the past  if we are only talking about doing so on a boat that's used for its intended design use.

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Bluejacket plans already include a plan for an integrated bracket/swim platform.  None has been built yet, so far as I know.  My preferred version is not a bracket, as such, but a hull extension almost identical to Sam's Red Salmon although 600 Verado horses charging along behind is kind of scary.  I think this may what you are looking for anyway. 

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   Have a look at the B and B Marissa.  The design won an award for fuel efficiency and (I think) it's small and nimble enough to handle some interesting weather.  If you're wiling to dress for the occasion you can save fuel by staying small and light.

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2 hours ago, Tom Lathrop said:

This is a sketch of what the hull extension/bracket would look like.  Details would vary depending on the application.

 

image.png.fe8d0750a7f3fb48185ffc1971979835.png

Nice looking set up. This also keeps some noise further away from the cockpit and cabin with the doors open when not using a motor cover.

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I had this whole reply typed out last night but I thought I'd better check it over before posting it because it was 1 am and I'd just gotten home from a birthday bash and I wasn't sure if I was explaining things very well.

 

But now it's mostly pointless since Tom has supplied the sketch of exactly what I was trying to explain.

 

I'll just include my commute post because I took twenty minutes to make it sound not drunk:

 

Nothing too strenuous...it's the Strait of Georgia, Vancouver to a small island on the inside of Vancouver Island.  We do it year-round in a 20' pilothouse with a really sharp entry and a 20-21 degree transom - it's a rough water machine but it's also smaller.  Totally manageable and I'm sure the Bluejacket could handle it, just a little slower.  But then there's plenty of times when I can't run at planing speed but the longer, semi-planing Bluejacket would probably still do 12-14 mph while burning a lot less fuel.  And running around inside the islands it would be amazing - those are all pretty protected waters.



 

I'm not looking to redesign the hull or anything, more thinking about, say, a 27 hull with the actual transom at bracket height and a full height bulkhead or stepped transom or whatever you want to call it one station forward, about where a 25.5 would have it, just to get a swim grid and a clean transom for fishing.

 

I'm just spitballing the idea because I'm struggling to picture it and I don't really trust my aesthetic sense on this.

 

This idea may be dumb or just ugly but I don't think it's structurally complicated.  I would think factory 27 plans would easily support the idea

 

That's when I gave up trying to present as lucid and went to bed.

 

I really appreciate the sketch; it addresses the issues exactly EXCEPT: I can't tell if it messes up the lines of the boat.  Is it not your preferred layout because you think it's ugly?  Does everyone think it's ugly?  I'm not good at this aspect of boats.

 

I guess the transom seats are torsion boxes?  Could it be built without the seats by putting a bulkhead ~10" forward of the transom and incorporating torsion boxes in between as battery boxes, maybe a transom baitwell, things like that?

 

Cheers and thanks for all the replies!  As it happens I have looked at the Marissa, not for the commute but just to leave up there as a runabout.  I've also been watching the OB26 build; it's on an Island about an hour south of me.  And I have just finished building a B&B Catspaw for use as a tender on the island but I got a little carried away so now it's more for sailing than hauling gear.

2018-07-31 19.01.51.jpg

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I must, because it's a tiny island, but I admit I'm drawing a blank.  I confess I generally treat my wife as an executive assistant and count on her to direct all my interpersonal dealings.

 

If I didn't have someone around to remind me about people, you'd probably catch me saying things like "sorry, you said your name is "Dad"?  You do look familiar.  What's your last name and where do I know you from?"

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I have two ways to get into the cockpit with my Bluejacket 25.5.  The transom has a small platform with boarding ladder or through the side door in the cockpit where I can hang also a ladder inside the door opening.  The side door is really handy at docks and also for use on land.

I like the cover over the motor, it does cut a bit of the noise down.  On the other hand you can't see which direction the engine points to.  I had to add a rudder angle indicator.  Also with a 25" shaft the cover would be too high.  The midsection tilts up when the motor is tilted up for transport.  A fellow Bluejacket builder/owner without a motor cover once stated  "I paid so much for that engine, I want to see it"

 

Egbert

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to bring old thread back from the dead but though someone interested in this topic might like seeing the way I went with the transom on my Bluejacket. I was originally thinking of having a door in middle but decided I could easily step over if I had good steps built on the cockpit side. I intend to make these steps fold forward for access to main fuel tank and bilge. The 90 gal fuel tank extends back into the lower transom.

WP_20190722_19_56_58_Pro.jpg

IMG_0903 (2).JPG

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The designer has been kind of laid up for the whole time that this thread has run on.  Age has taken the lead role in allowed activity for some of us. 

 

I do not think the hull extension "bracket" is in any way ugly or that it messes up the performing lines of a Bluejacket.  The BJ 27-271 underwater shape is essentially the same as the BJ25.5 with a extension motor mount.  I think the longer Bluejackets run a bit easier than the shorter ones but that is fairly common among the type as long as the L/B ratio does not get too great.  No problem here.  There are many ways to structurally incorporate the "bracket" with the hull.  I tend to like the method that transfers the cantilever load of the motor to the hull instead of just to the transom, which would require some strengthening of the transom area.  Therefore a hull extension seems better in several ways to a bracket.

 

With any hull extension, (opposite for a bracket) the boat will tend to run at a slightly lower trim angle than its sister with a transom mounted motor.  Good thing for performance I think.

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  • 2 years later...

"With any hull extension, (opposite for a bracket) the boat will tend to run at a slightly lower trim angle than its sister with a transom mounted motor.  Good thing for performance I think."

 

So, will a hull extension on a 27.1 turn it into a 28 footer, or thereabouts?  And would the same scenario result for the Bluejacket 28, meaning that a hull extension would cause it to run at a slightly lower trim angle?

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