Cyco's build thread

[Cyco]

Jon no the tabs are all billet made.
Might of had a 'bit' of inspiration from the Dana hinge arrangement tho

The stiffners that run down the length of the tabs are issue 2 as the first ones I did put the rams near vertical and things just did not look right.

The new stiffners also have 2 extra holes for adjustment in stroke length.

[Cyco]

Originally Posted by Bad Boy 717

looking good lofty

Cheers Slim

And thanks for the use of Bad Boy at Lyme, will give you a blast behind this one some time.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Cyco

Jon no the tabs are all billet made.
Might of had a 'bit' of inspiration from the Dana hinge arrangement tho

The stiffners that run down the length of the tabs are issue 2 as the first ones I did put the rams near vertical and things just did not look right.

The new stiffners also have 2 extra holes for adjustment in stroke length.

Inspiration from previous work is the way most things evolve eh, nothing's ever really completely new. Certainly nothing I've ever made.

Blimey! so they're milled from like 75mm thick billet? or are the ribs/stiffeners machined separately, & bolted to the planes?

[Cyco]

Originally Posted by Jon Fuller

Inspiration from previous work is the way most things evolve eh, nothing's ever really completely new. Certainly nothing I've ever made.

Blimey! so they're milled from like 75mm thick billet? or are the ribs/stiffeners machined separately, & bolted to the planes?

Jon the tabs were machined from 1" thick machine plate alloy (can't remember the grade) you can buy them in at the correct size to save wastage.

The ribs / stiffeners are bolts on from the under side with M8 countersunk bolts.

[Cyco]

Just picked these up from the engraving shop, really really happy with the finish.

The pics don't reflect how good these things look as they are to shiney to get a decent pic of.

I will assemble and take some more later prior to putting in the boat.

Here is the four lever top plate and a couple of the levers.

[Bazza]

Cye, i have to say your attention to detail is staggering, i really hope it goes as well as it looks, it really is a beauty so far removed from the original offering.As for F2 Worlds its all there for the taking, should be one helluva race @ Hunny & AYC F2 and Juniors.
Barry

[Cyco]

Thanks Bazza

Lots of work has gone into this one, many bespoke parts to suit this hull.

It has been a fine balance over the last couple of weeks to go to the gym, eat, sleep, work on the boat design parts and manage the whole build and component delivery.

Many late nights.

Very happy with the layout and overall apperance of the inside of the boat but as i said previosly I am not 100% sold on the outside shape of the boat it is very hard to get a feel for it in the garage it is in, once outside or on the water I should be able to get a better idea.

It is huge inside these same seats inside a Phantom 20 touch on the shoulder supports, as you can see in the pics there is a center console between these and still room to walk around the drivers seat (outside edge) to be seated)

Parts are really starting to add up now tho!!! to give you an idea the engraving on my shifter was £100 (yes just the engraving) it was polished already. but these little bits make the differance when fitted.

I hope that my luck changes at Hunstanton regarding the boat performance!!
Lyme didn't quite go my way.

Still I was very very happy with my skiing, certainly after coming back from a broken achillies and heel bone.

I will be going for it at Hunny and AYC to try to make the team.
Hoppefully I have shown a committment to trying by completing (well almost) both races at Lyme even if things didn't go my way.

Cheers

[Toffy]

That boat looks great Cyco

[Cyco]

Well this is how the final push worked out from Thrusday to Sunday.

Thursday night all the polishing was picked up.

[Cyco]

Water pick-up and ski pole was fitted.

[Cyco]

All control cables fitted:
Trim tab indicators
Water pick-up
Bow and belly tank dumps.

Seats fitted.
Dash indicator fitted.
Ski pole fitted.
Battery tray fitted.
Trim Tab pumps filled with oil and checked operation.

We basically stayed up until 2.30am to make sure that the boat could go out on the water the following morning.

One thing that was noticed whilst operating the trim tabs was that the cables were bending when the tabs moved up & down.
So to allow us to use the boat the following morning we cabled tied the cables to the rams so they wern't used.

Next morning at 9.00 we picked up a trailer we had agreed to borrow (ours is not done yet).
Towed the boat and new trailer down to Weston Sea front and changed them over.
This was this first time the boat went in the water, no leaks....Phew!!
It was far to rough to take it out of the habour area so we just had a little blast around for about 15 mins.
All was well so we put it back onto the new trailer, made a few adjustment to ensure a good fit.

Then it was a rush back home to draw some clamps for the trim tab indcator cables (the fab shop shuts at 1.00pm on a Friday and by now it was 10.30am)

I completed the drawings and went to e-mail them to the fab shop who had agreed to rush them through, guess what e-mail not working.........Arhhhh!

Transfered to a memory stick then drove over to Burtys and sent e-mail from there (11.00am by now).

The Fab shop managed to get them done and dropped off to my house be 1.45pm.

From there I drove them to the fab shop who polished them whilst I waited.

2.30pm I left the polishing shop and drove back to the boat and drilled and tapped the new shiney clamps.

Now this is where I became really really Pi**ed off.
I went to fit the clamps only to find that in my rush to draw them I had made a mistake and drawn them at 50mm centers instead of the 65mm that was on the sketch in front of me from the night before (to tired).
All that effort for nothing

Day over for Friday.

[Cyco]

Got up at 9.00 to take the boat out for some more water time only to find the water was rough as! the wind was blowing hard, so no go.

Ok I thought Stickers (race numbers and crew names) need doing so booked those in for 11.00am.

I also made a call to another fab shop I use smaller one closer to home, to see if he could mod the clamps.

10.00am arrived at fab shop with boat and proceeded to mod' the clamps to suit.

We basically cut the clamps (see pic) and added 16.3mm back in (15mm + 1.3 blade 'thk')

He also welded the ski pole to the top oval mount as I was concerned about any movement would cause the gelcoat to crack.

As he had no 10mm stainless steel he used 2 pieces of 5mm welded together.

I left him to it and towed the boat over to the sticker guy who is only 1/2 a mile up the road, it took 2 hours there to get everything done (sorry no pics yet)

Back to the fab shop to pick up what I can only describe as an amazing job
I really though that this would be a temporary fix for the weekend but I could not tell that they had been cut and welded, the guy had also polished them back to a mirror finish.(again sorry no pics as yet)

[Cyco]

Well got the boat back late afternoon and fitted the tab clamps with the help of Burty.
Also gave the boat it's first wash and basically got everything ready for it's first race the following day.

8.00pm we finished, just enough time to get my ski kit ready eat some food and have an early night to try and catch up on some sleep.

Up at 4.45am Sunday Morning with the long drive of Hunstanton in front of us.

Myself JBD and Burty travelled up together with Burty doing all the driving.
I managed to sleep all the way from Weston to hunstanton

[Cyco]

Here is the clamp as it came off the laser.

[Cyco]

The boat was well received at Hunstanton with a lot of people saying they had seen it on boatmad!

After briefing Burty took it out for a drive to see what speed was available?
Simon Dowling (my observer) then joined him.

They were out for around 10-15mins going up and down the bay and the speed looked ok.

All the other boats then launched and it was time for the race start.
The boat came back to pick me up from shore, this is when Burty informed me that it was not quick enough

He was only seeing 70mph at 5100rpm.......Bollocks
The water was quite flat so we would have no chance of staying with the front runners.

Race starts; the flags drop and the boat struggles to pull me out of the water.
As we go down the first straight I notice to the side of me that a Formula 3 boat (James Bartlett) is staying with us, not good I think to myself.

We keep the boat going as fast as we can for the whole race (65mph) through the rough leg as well just to try and hang on the the other F2 boats, as the race runs on about 30 mins in the other skiiers start to fade and we are passing people, there were a few fallers here and there but we still keep pushing on, I think we got to 48 mins in 5th place when i could start seeing the other boats in 3rd and 4th position they were exisiting the corners just as we were approaching them, great I think finally we are starting to catch them.
Another lap and we are at 50mins (approx) then without warning the boat stopped
Now for the other boats that went passed and heard me I appologise, I was extremely mad and pissed off and the air was blue for quite a few minutes.
By the time the safety boat had reached me I had finished fizzing in the water.

All that work all that time spent to be let down (again) in such an important race I could not believe it.

The boat (apart from the engine) had no issues, everything worked as it should and stayed together.
Feedback from the crew was that it drove very well and was great in the corners, for me it provided a great wake on the rougher leg and the pull was constant just to slow.

Boat is now at race marine to see what the problem was.

I had a conversation with Nick Barsch on the way home as he helped to set the other one up.
Tonight we are trying a 24" pitch raker instead of the 26" it was supplied with, we also have a 23" 4 blade Trophy to try.
The engine will also go up a hole to see what difference that makes.
One thing at a time tho so we know which worked best.

Fingers crossed as we really do need the speed for next weekend.
I will post some more pics of the boat later and we have tested it.

[Burty]

one i found from the weekend

[freedom]

does loom good on the water
jus semms alota boat in the water in that pic though..... for robs driving anyway

[Cyco]

Chris yes a few people mentioned that to me afterwards.
Could be a number of reasons: engine to low, wrong prop, tabs down etc!

Actually for a ski race boat running flat like that is perfect as it will produce a nice flat wake which means that I can ski faster.

All we need is some more boat speed which I am hoping we get tonight

[Cyco]

Originally Posted by Burty

one i found from the weekend

Has Tim got any more from the race?

[Burty]

dunno, i got that one from Jake's album on facebook