Tech
Story and photos by DinaRella
Innovation in technology continues to forge forward in the performance boating world thanks to Marine Design Corporation (MDC) and Hardin Marine. Fresh off a successful showing in Tampa at the marine industry trade-only event IBEX, the next stop was the 2024 Fort...
Story by DinaRella / Photos from Seakeeper
What is it?
Recently introduced following five years of R&D, Seakeeper Ride minimizes the motion of the ocean while underway with net results of up to 70% reduction in pitch and roll. The product is suitable for stepped and non-stepped V-bottoms up to...
Mercury Marine is garnering wide spread acclaim for the development and production of its new 600 horsepower Verado outboard. Mercury announced it was named a 2022 Consumer Electronics Show Innovation Award honoree for its 600-hp monster engine. The company was recognized in the vehicle and...
Like it or not, electric propulsion appears here to stay. The automobile industry is falling all over itself to carve out an ever-growing piece of this pie. As many of you have probably heard, Elon Musk recently received a purchase order for 100,000 vehicles from rental giant Hertz. That should...
According to the RDP faithful, the panacea for all things related to boating problems is the propeller. “Have you tried a different prop” will assuredly make everything better is the comforting advice offered up daily by ‘helpful’ inmates of this popular boating forum.
Recently, a new thread...
The Future Success of Electric Boats Hinges on Battery Technology
About a week ago I posted an article on RDP about electric outboard motors and how they plan on entering the mainstream of recreational boating. We all know about how things have changed in the automotive industry in the last ten...
About a month ago I wrote an article for RDP reporting on Mercury's plan to introduce electric outboards to the mainstream recreational boating market in the next couple of years. Nothing has changed. Mercury is still pursuing that goal, but they are not alone. There are other electric outboard...
Was there any doubt? You knew it had to be coming, but so soon? And Brunswick Corporation confirmed it…..electric power and some form of autonomous driving assist system for boats is closer than most of us think, in fact, it’s probably no more than two years into the future. If accurate, this...
It’s getting to be that time of year again…..when coves and certain shoreline areas get coated with that unmistakable ‘green slime’. Unfortunately, you never know for sure when the ‘green goop’ is going to appear or how bad it will get. So far this year, algae blooms have not been as evident as...
Although they’ve been around for decades, the U.S. Coast Guard is mandating that all powerboats, less than 26-feet in length, must now (as of April 1, 2021) be equipped with an emergency engine ignition cut-off switch with a lanyard attached to the driver. The new U.S. Coast Guard requirement...
How to Gather the Data You Need to Make Rational and Fact-Based Decisions About Performance.
One of the most frequent threads appearing on RDP come from boaters questioning whether they are getting maximum performance from their boat. And the two most common mistakes boaters make are...
Livorsi’s Raw Water Flow Gauge Might Just Be the Added Protection Your Engine Needs
For most boaters, the engine is the single most expensive component of every boat. And, if you’re a high performance type, the size of that investment escalates exponentially in direct proportion to the amount...
In a quandary about how many bladed propeller might work best on your boat? Maybe this will help.
For many years now, boaters have debated the question of 5-blade propellers versus 4-blade versus 3-blades. The traditional argument is that 5-blade props are slower than 4-blade props, and...
Sooner or later it happens to all of us, even the most careful of experienced boaters – the prop gets dinged. Sometimes it’s a little more than a ding, yet all of the blades are still there, more or less. Your boat dealer, local mechanic, and the local boatyard likely will all tell you the same...
Story and photos be DinaRella / Additional images from PBS & G. Bebee
When it comes to commanding one's pleasure craft, boat owners are like today's twisted teenagers... convinced they know it all! Nevertheless, whether it's understanding the rules and tools, or tactics of accurate operation...
Nothing Beats A Gelcoat Restoration Project to Make An Older Boat Look Brand New!
You’ve just taken delivery of your new boat. On the way to the water for the very first time you can’t help but glance every few seconds in the rear-view mirror to admire the gleaming magnificence of that...
For the Boat That Doesn't Quite Have Everything.....An Easy and Inexpensive Install You Can Do At Home.
What self-respecting boat doesn’t have drink holders now days? Not many, that’s for sure. If fact, drink holders have multiplied so fast in recent years that they often times out-number...
CMI’s Fusion Performance Headers Take the Work Out of Stock Cast-Iron MerCruiser Exhaust Swaps
Who hasn’t admired the stunning engine compartment of a genuine high performance boat. And one of the most eye-catching bling-features is always the gleaming polished stainless steel tubular-style...
Anticipating More Horsepower Under the Engine Hatch Isn’t a One-Dimensional Decision. There Are Consequences. Matching Motors and Drives Is a Critical Part of Any Make-Over Game Plan.
This is the kind of dilemma a lot of us would like to have. Imagine this; you’re the owner of a beautiful...
Making Your Flatty Drive Like a Mercedes….It’s All In The Pedal!
It’s long been said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’ Nobody will argue with that, especially Denis Porter who hung out with his two flatbottoms at Lake San Antonio in central California.
Denis lived his life as one of...
The Best Way To Avoid Fuel Issues Is to Invest in Top Notch Filtration
Fuel filters are always a big deal for all powerboats. Dirty gas, bad gas, stale gas, old gas, water in the gas, etc., etc., the list of potential fuel related problems for boaters is endless. And in almost every case, it’s...
IMCO SuperFuel Valve....Solving the Dual Tank Dilemma
If you own a boat with dual onboard fuel tanks, you understand the problem. How do you switch from one tank to the other? Most boats with more than one tank come standard equipped with a very basic manual 4-way brass selector valve which...
If You Want to Add a Little Pizazz to Your Boat, Here’s a Simple DIY Project Most Boaters Can Do in an Afternoon
What’s the point of owning a very cool high performance sportboat if nobody notices it? Sure, they’re exciting to drive, but isn’t at least half the fun having other boaters turn and...
So far we’ve posted articles about the importance of finding the correct X-dimension for optimum stern drive performance followed by general propshaft position savvy. In a way, it’s kind of like the ‘three bears’….too high is not good…..too low is also not good, and somewhere in the middle is...
Don’t Allow Worries About Salt Water Engine Corrosion Limit Your Boating Adventures!
It’s the end of another great day on the water. The boat is back on the trailer and ready to head for home. Just one more thing left to do…..give it a fresh water bath and flush if you’ve been ocean boating...
If you are a frequent visitor to riverdavesplace.com you most assuredly see the terms “cavitation”, “ventilation” and “blow-out” used by inmates when discussing and describing something that has to do with propellers and a lack of anticipated performance. Way too often, however, these terms are...
In an earlier RDP article, “Taking the Mystery Out of the X in X Dimension” it was discussed how that specific measurement was derived at before the rigger cuts a transom hole for the installation of a stern drive on a new boat. In the overwhelming majority of cases, boat manufacturers have...
Although many performance boaters assume that pure horsepower solves all problems, it doesn't. In most cases, what makes a great performing boat is a combination of proper set-up, balance, propeller selection, gear ratio, hull design and of course, horsepower. And within these critical factors...
(New Dual Down Shaft Lower Assembled)
Ask any marine repair shop involved in routinely servicing high performance boats,
engines and propulsion systems….“what’s the single most abused and broken
component encountered on a regular basis?” That’s easy, the standard Mercury Bravo
One...
Still figuring out the editing software for the Garmin, but this is a front view of 117 mph at the Billy B River Rockets event!
RD
To see the first article on this restoration please click the following link Rebuilding Forensic's Spectra 20 Part 1
Welcome to article two on the Spectra 20. In article one we water tested the Spectra leading us to discover that the engine had some potentially catastrophic problems. This led...
On a November morning back in 2013, I got a call from RD in regards to a project boat that needed some attention. RD wanted to have the jet rebuilt and some cosmetic upgrades done to the boat. Details were kept to minimum, but I did gather that the boat belonged to an RDP board member and...
This is the first segment of many more to come where Alexi from Boostpower will take us from the Basics of EFI, to Advanced Tuning! Stay Tuned Episode 2 will be broadcast in a few weeks! The first minute in and a half is Analog, but the video will switch to HD after that. (We had a...
Not that we will have a follow up Friday every week, but last weeks article "The Down Pedal" (Click that link to read) Got quite a bit of response, so we decided to dig a little deeper! Clyde Church was kind enough to send us some up close pictures of his system, and some more detailed...
If you are a modern day I/O boater you might not even know what a down pedal is in a boat. In V-Drives there is typically two pedals. A down pedal (or a switch on the dash or gunnel) and a gas pedal. V-Drives don't have "trim" like an I/O boat, so they have what is called "Cavitation Plates" on...
Last summer I started finding little traces of oil in the bilge of my boat. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when they would show up. Sometimes I would run the boat hard, and there was no oil and sometimes there would be. Sometimes I would just idle around the keys and...
The Mercury Racing 525 EFI is one of the most popular OEM engine packages for adding forced induction. As almost all of these engines are now out of warranty, we are seeing a lot of interests in refresh projects and supercharger installs. A Conquest TopCat II recently came in looking for...
We have known since the introduction of the Mercruiser "cross ram" style intake manifold, that it is very restrictive for performance applications. They make good torque at lower RPM's, but fall short in supplying enough air to feed the engine in the higher RPM range (4500 and up). When...
Watch as Tim from www.performanceboatcandy.com takes us step by step through how to cut / buff your boat. All videos are unedited so you can see the process first hand and refer back to them later!
Unfortunately it was a bit hard to see with a white deck, the poor lighting we had and...
I had a couple months ago been wondering where I had been losing drive oil. It would be ever so slightly down in the reservoir but never saw an obvious leak. Every time I head to the water weather it was yesterday or weeks I check all my oil levels.
OD1 and I were going to hit the Sag 2 weeks...
Log exhaust manifolds, the most common exhaust system found on jet boats and v-drives. These exhaust systems aren't known for producing any big dyno numbers, but their simple design is very effective and functional. The rugged construction of these manifolds generally produces a long life with...
If you missed Part 1 in the Bad Vibrations? series, you can view it here. Bad Vibrations? Part 1
In the first article we were on the hunt for a bad vibration in this boat. We removed the jet from the boat, disassembled the jet and concluded that the jet was worn out, but not causing the...
This week we will showcase a boat we built for one of our many great customers. This particular individual has been a customer for many years. The boat is a 24? Schiada. It started life with Mercury 500EFI, Imco stand-off box and a Bravo I. It was originally rigged by Schiada and is a very clean...
