Weight Distribution

ScottM · #1 05-12-2002, 04:41 PM

I have a 1982 23' Sceptre that I am told was originally powered with twin 200's. It is now powered with a single '89 225 Evinrude. The fuel capacity is 144 gallons. With this current setup, the boat has a slight bow-down attitude while at rest, therefore any rain water has a tendency to flow towards the cabin area. Since the boat originally came with twins, would the weight distribution and/or fuel capacity have been different if she were originally rigged with a single OB to counteract the bow-down attitude? Does anyone have any suggestions for correcting the attitude short of putting twins back on? Would reducing the fuel capacity take care of this, since the tank would now be shorter and not be placing as much weight forward as it does now?

Thanks,
ScottM

capesams · #2 05-12-2002, 08:04 PM

Scott m

we have a lot of those here on the cape and most only have 200's or 225's on them. All are sitting in a slip or on the mooring. I have not seen or heard of any with this problem. How much junk do you store up forward? There are other's here that own that same style boat , I would have to say we'll have to wait abit to see if someone spots this and jumps in on the subject.

AlexT · #3 05-13-2002, 04:10 PM

As I was reading your post the hair on my neck was starting to stand on end. I may be paranoid (which can be a good trait when working on old boats), because I immediately wondered if you might have water in the hull up forward. Say it aint so.

JohnB · #4 05-13-2002, 05:08 PM

Scott ScottM,
Here is a picture of a my '89 at rest.
It's a big jpg
http://www.revcmpsys.com/fishing/picts/boat/1.JPG
Notice that it has a pretty big top on it too.
It sits with the nose slightly up. Is there a possibility that when your boat was
made, it had the gas tank installed more to the bow to compensate for the 2 motors?
When you went to the single motor, maybe it is out of balance.
The other possibility might be water in the bow (oh oh). Where are your batteries
mounted? Mine are in the back. Do you keep your anchor up front.
Let me know what you find out

ScottM · #5 05-13-2002, 07:11 PM

Steve,
We don't really store much up front - 1 18# anchor with maybe 250' of line, life jackets, and 6 medium tackle rods.

Alex,
No water up front. I have a bilge pump up there because of the bow-down attitude. The aft pump doesn't see any action while at rest.

JohnB,
I saw pictures of your boat in other discussion topics (very nice by the way) and noticed that your boat sits very level, even slightly low in the stern, just where I would want mine to be. My fuel tank goes as far forward as the cabin door and back about maybe 18" beyond the storage boxes that the helm and passenger seats are on. My feeling is that the tank is in fact set farther forward to compensate for the extra weight of 2 V-6 outboards. Both batteries are in the transom boxes.

Let's put it this way, the transom corners at the chine sit maybe 1" below water.

Scott · #6 05-13-2002, 07:44 PM

Hi Scott .... Its Scott [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Welcome
Do you just have one large tank??? Is there anyway you could slide it aft a little to change that balance point. I know in some of the older boats , mine included there are no bulkheads for the tank .... so in theory you could slide mine forward or aft. How much water pools...I mean If a 150 lb person jumps on the stern does that fix the problem??

Now you might have a live well or two in the way ..
Just a thought!!!

JohnB · #7 05-13-2002, 07:47 PM

Scott ScottM,
I just looked at where my gas tank is, and going to the back,
It is almost to the live well (maybe 3-3.5 feet back) from the
storage boxes. I believe your tank is mounted further forward
than mine. A good test of this theory would be to run most of
the gas out of the boat and see if the front end comes up.
The picture of my boat is with 1/4 tank of gas. When it is full,
it is just about level with no one in it.
Hope this helps,

capesams · #8 05-13-2002, 08:00 PM

SCott M:

I was just going through some more paper work that I have and it seems you are right about the tank being way forward due to the two out boards. like the other scott say's your going to have to slide the tank back aways to take care of the problem . In the other spec.s i'm looking at the tank starts behind the seats and go's to the well in the back. What I am finding out about seacraft is that alot of them were ordered because there were so many different options one could get. that the boat yards couldn't carry them all. this is why so many are so different from each other.

[ May 13, 2002, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: steve ]

ScottM · #9 05-13-2002, 08:01 PM

Scott - thanks for the suggestions. Just one large tank, 144 gallons. There is a transverse stringer behind the tank that prevents you from sliding it back without doing some fiberglass work. I figure the 225 Evinrude is 450(?) pounds, and a 200 not much different. When my father and I (150 and 175 lbs, respectively) stand in the stern, the boat sits proper.

JohnB - thanks for the idea. I guess I am looking for an "easy" way to correct this, but it seems to me that the easiest would be to either do some glass cutting and move the tank aft (I have about 2 feet between the tank an in-deck bait well) or get a smaller capacity tank to get that weight off the bow.

Briguy · #10 05-15-2002, 03:47 PM

Scott M,

I have the OPPOSITE problem you have. Since my '78 23 CC has 2 Suzuki 4 strokes, my stern sits a quite low. I am considering moving my tank FORWARD. I carry 150 gal's of fuel and am considering chopping 2 1/2 feet from the rear of my tank(it's 8 ft long)That would lower my capacity to about 105 gal's. Pleanty since I have the 4 stroke motors. I am curios of one thing. Could you do me a favor an measure the distance from the transom to the rear of your fuel tank for me. That would be a great help in estimating the success of my project. Thanks in advance!