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Vic Smith

On Mon, 18 May 2009 20:15:32 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2009 19:20:57 -0400, DK
wrote:

They are great boats for flat water. Don't even think about taking one
into unprotected areas..... they were never designed for it.

They are a great shallow water boat.

I agree. I have seen one (16') upside down in the Estero River from a
boat wake and my friend was on another one (24') coming out of St
James City in the sound that flipped because he got on the side of a
swell.
They seem to do OK until they don't, then it gets bad all of a sudden.

Damn. That's scary! Like Firestones on a '98 Explorer!

In both cases they were sideways to the sea, taking water over the
beam. I suppose the flat bottom and the low gunwale was the problem.
I just came up on the 16 footer in the river and they didn't really
have a good idea exactly what happened.
The other guy who was in the 24 was paying attention and saw t coming.
They were in the rollers you get when an outgoing tide hits a wind
coming onto shore. The captain tried to turn around in this mess, got
up on the side of a wave and another one came over the rail.
I am not sure any other boat would have done any better in such a bone
head stunt but this one sure was unforgiving and went right over.
This was at night and they were all pretty lucky to get away alive.
Fortunately it was close to shore, they could almost walk home. They
managed to drag the boat up on a sand bar and wait for someone to come
get them. A neighbor saw them go over and came out to get them.
a little while later they had it swinging on davits and the engine
survived the dunk.

I don't think there's anything inherently unsafe about the sea
handling ability of the CS. But it's an open, flat bottom skiff, so
you have to know it's limitations.
They make a DLV model with a different hull shape than the DLX Tom
posted. Supposed to pound less.

--Vic