1997 osprey 245

[pete]

cool ad...



enjoy  


http://cgi.ebay.com/1997-AQUASPORT-245- ... 519707b55d

[seabob4]

Pete,
A beautiful girl from my past.  Thank you.  I rigged all 8 of the dual stations built, the last a Merc pre-rig that went to Japan...

[pete]

thats cool bob,they sure are pretty!I wonder if any are still around?

[seabob4]

Pete,
Back in '99, I tore apart the first, removed all the electronics and the upper station, and they sold it a scratch and dent sale over in Ft. Pierce...

There's a guy here who has one (I think), and one guy on THT.  Other than that, I have no clue...

The OMC version was relatively straight-forward.  The Merc was a PITA, as I had to piece-meal it together.  Neither shifted worth a damn from the upper station with the Morse S controls.  She really needed electronics, but at that time, Mathers MicroCommanders was about all that were available, $5K a control head X 4, just not worth justifying the cost...

[slvrlng]

Same day different sun angle?

[pete]

Bob,was that the stock hard top with the rear "ladder legs' added?would be great to be able to get on the top even to spot fish!

[Capt. Bob]

97 Catalog shows both a Bimini and T-Top as options but does not list a "hard top".





Hard tops were listed as options on the Explorer models. I'd bet it was a "one of a kind" strictly for the "dual station" setup.
Pretty slick no matter what.

[seabob4]

The top on the dual station was a standard top with the "ring" extended aft and the ladder legs added.  G.G. Schmitt was our top builder.  We also made a new mold for the glass top to match the larger frame, and it was cored with 1" end-grain Balsa.  The standard glass top had no coring in it.

She was an awesome fishing boat!  I really wish we would have built more, but it was damn near impossible to shift from the upper station, throttle wasn't too bad.  The problem was twofold.  One, because the upper station folded down, the amount of bends in the cables added up to something like 720 degrees, when no more than 360 is recommended by Morse (33C Supreme cables).  The second problem was the cables were installed in series, where the upper went to the lower, than from the lower aft to the motors.  Rigging them in parallel aft to transfer boxes probably would have helped alot, but I guess Curt Jarson and Todd Biddison's hearts really weren't in it...

Matt Baily, Brian Buck, and myself got to play with the first one in the Palmetto Kiwanis Tournament for a weekend, I caught the first fish to count towards a weigh-in ever caught be a WC employee (5 lb spanish mac).  We were running brand new at the time 150 Fichts (Jesse's favorite motors!), and in 2 days 15-20 miles out, trolling, and WOT runs in the bay, we didn't even use a half a tank of fuel.  The tourney was run out of Leverocks on Manatee Ave out be Palma Sola, we were slipped in the company slips behind the Holiday Inn on Tamiami by the airport...

The boat in the ad was the prototype, built by engineering.  I believe if you zoom in you can see one of the upper station rigging tubes pulled out from the rigging port.  Also note the position of the throttle levers.  Wide open, yet the boat is at trolling speed.  Tells me the upper station controls were disconnected...

[pete]

I guess that design was a little ahead of its time,with todays electronic controls it would have worked great.

[Capt. Bob]

The top on the dual station was a standard top with the "ring" extended aft and the ladder legs added.  G.G. Schmitt was our top builder.  We also made a new mold for the glass top to match the larger frame, and it was cored with 1" end-grain Balsa.  The standard glass top had no coring in it.

Do you remember selling many without the duel station or was that style hardtop basically used just for the two station setup?

I agree with Pete. It would be great just to get on top (for vision) while someone piloted below.

[seabob4]

The top on the dual station was a standard top with the "ring" extended aft and the ladder legs added.  G.G. Schmitt was our top builder.  We also made a new mold for the glass top to match the larger frame, and it was cored with 1" end-grain Balsa.  The standard glass top had no coring in it.

Do you remember selling many without the duel station or was that style hardtop basically used just for the two station setup?

I agree with Pete. It would be great just to get on top (for vision) while someone piloted below.

Bob, Pete,
In effect, that was basically what it was, seeing as the controls didn't work up there...

The top was not offered to the general public sans controls, in other words, as a crow's nest, but I'm sure if someone wanted to pay for it, they probably would have done.  I will say, the ability to spot bait pods, schools, weedlines, etc. was awesome from up there. A couple of years after we stopped offering the option, Teleflex came out with their KE-4 electronic controls, which would have been perfect for her, and would have come in at about 1/3 the cost of the Mathers...but as I said before, I don't think managements heart was in it...

[Circle Hooked]

Bob the new fly by wire stuff opens up all kinds of options for rigging i bet.

[seabob4]

Bob the new fly by wire stuff opens up all kinds of options for rigging i bet.

Scott,
Hell yes it does!  Teleflex's i6300 is a relatively easy install, not cheap (around $5-6K for twins, another K for an upper station), but beats the hell out $20K!

Look at Merc, Zuke, and Etec.  Control 4 engines with a single twin binnacle...

[Circle Hooked]

Isn't Yamaha going that way to,i think they did on the 350's when they came out.

[seabob4]

Isn't Yamaha going that way to,i think they did on the 350's when they came out.

Yep, Yam's do the same.  It all basically a NMEA 2K network, just some different stuff being sent across the bus, some provide this much data, some don't...

In reality, it's almost limitless in how many engines you can control...