Looks fantastic. Can I ask were you got the mast head light ? Or was it already on the dog house
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lumitec contour series 2nm led. Mine is one meter to meet the CG separation parameters I think there is also one that's 20". It locks into a groove in the stow and deployed positions.
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I'll add that the plastic cover for the base on that light seems flimsy, and the length of the light at 39" will require some kind of rubber holder with a strap to keep it from smacking into the roof while traveling. I mounted it reversed because I didn't want the base in the way of the radar and the base also had a built in shim which I reversed so it wasn't sticking up higher.
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Speaking of radar trying to figure out a device that will push low branches up and over the dome , rather that tearing if off! I have a few ideas and with it being so close to the dome it shouldnt create a return on the radar .

My idea is to mount a piece of pvc Board 2in wide mounted with a bracket to my Top angled to rest on tbe top of the dome. In hope the branch or wire rides up and over 🙏
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How bout a clamp on antenna/ rod holder/ flag bracket with a removable dowel.... I Dun No....:huh:

Is it that high???? mine had no problem with obstructions from Warwick to Cumberland...

Not that’s it’s high , many side streets in my town dont get a lot of big truck traffic or TLC from the town
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I just cut down about 12 branches in the yard for the same reason
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I trim my neighborhood each year from standing in the boat....

HAHAHA

All the big wire is done except battery connections waiting on batteries (shortage of AGMs just like transducers) waiting on 2 40 amp battery fuses too for the charger. Hooked up the lines to the helm and cylinder, hopefully a boat mechanic friend can come over and give me a hand to bleed them. Bolted down the radar and silicones up the thru holes.

I think this weekend I'll rig up some battery bank to turn the motor over and do a preliminary system check. Will try and take a video.
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Hooked up the engine battery. Made my harness connections, put the kill switch tab in, key in, got the beep alarm, turned the key... Nothing. Repeated that five times. What did I screw up?

Sat in silence for 30 seconds before I realized the neutral relay wasn't in because the shifter isn't in yet. Held that down and VRRROOMMMM! So good to hear that sound!
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Just painted some of the old topside fixtures like the kill switch nut, and the key switch nut, and the throttle housing. I had used a Moeller flat black spray already but it doesn't match the panel at all. Ended up getting a qt of total boat flat black 1 part paint, will see how that goes. If it sucks all of the plugs I make won't need epoxy for a while but will all be black haha
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Hydraulic steering is all set.
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Attachment 67843

Had to put the helm wheel on to fill/bleed the lines. My friend Kyle who was a boat mechanic for a while helped me do this task. I wish I knew the exact hard port to hard starboard before, but now its 4.25 turns with the hydraulic steering in and the entire install was super easy, and SeaStars' support prior to purchase was excellent. One note on the recommended spacers for my engine was that I used one more thin 1/16" SS washer which took out almost all of the play at the cylinder attachment to the outboard. The remaining play is all in the SeaStar bearings. Another side note is that if your throttle cables still have a length description on them buy that length for the hydraulic steering lines so you can run them tandem with the throttle/shift cables in a single rigging tube. Ill post a pic of that later.

3 steps back
After getting the steering in and having the engine fire no problem and everything else working I found myself working towards getting this thing in the water. In doing so I would be shortcutting a ton of things I want to do right. Anyhow, I was proceeding down this side-tracked road and tightened down a gauge brace I set with an epoxied anchor and it popped because I put way too much on it. Sounded like a gunshot. When that popped the "get this in the water game" ended.

Took everything out again, upper and lower panels, steering wheel, gauges, cut wires on battery monitor. Took the lower panel over to my massive mess of a fold out workbench in the garage, popped the gauge out, dremeled off the epoxy, dremeled out a mushroom shape at the bottom of my hole and reset it with 3m 5200. also added a bead around the gauge as well so this time I'll just snug up the mount hardware and it'll never move. 3 more days to full cure strength.

In the mean time, if you look at the attach pic, you can see the old mounting hole at the lower right of the pic. I'm going to fill that and the other no-use holes with a plastic based 2 part filler putty. sand and paint. I do like the color of the total boat paint I purchased but it did take about 7 days for it to cure and the finish sucked. Wish I could spray it all with an airbrush.... maybe.

Anyone here use velcro over screw snaps for seat cushions
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both have their plus's and minus snaps are neater when the cushions are out and should hold up and not blow out at Highway speed Trust me I know all about stuff disappearing from the boat at 65 MPH I use velcro sticky sided velcro for Knife holder or area i dont want to drill and the surface area allows for it to support some weight

I almost lost two bean bag chairs the first trip while trailering to the ramp despite doubling up on ratchet straps they were literally airborne, thank god they were looped around rod holders hahaha. Now they go under a cargo net lesson learned.

I bought 15lb hook and loop velcro and thought I'd do the leaning post cushion with that but I can see the material collecting crab guts, squid and whatever other bait in the material. Good call on the tool holder idea, I've wanted to add something to secure the boga and handheld vhf.

Project Update
 

Last week Thursday and Friday we had snow and rain. I was feeling a bit disconnected not getting in the boat for several days. Took the cover off Saturday morning and evidently where the canvas cover was touching the corners of the hardtop allowed water to come in and filled up my socket wrench kit and made enough of a mess that it took about an hour just to dry everything out. I got to sanding to prep for paint on the dash, grabbed an old poly resin in the basement I use for filling holes in plugs and put a circle of that on a piece of plastic. Went to knead the hardener and the toothpaste like tube exploded blue hardener all over me, the console, the deck. Cleaned that up, put the hardener in (way too much) mixed it and filled the holes I wanted to and it set up in about 3 min.

Attachment 67870
At this point I really didn't care if it was a bit bumpy, scuffed it up and taped it off for paint.

Attachment 67871
I opted for the quick dry Moller paint, and did 3 coats to the dash area and the upper keeper. It's a bit more grey than black but it serves its purpose of hiding the white drill holes that the panels don't cover.

Attachment 67872
36"x14" helm pad. I had this made from Mariners Warehouse down in FLA for a bit of OEM feel. I ordered it online, uploaded a Maritime logo and within minutes of the order going through the owner called me and suggested a different color combination because the logo would show better and he said it cleans up nice after fishing. The custom pad was about $5 cheaper than getting a seadek pad.

How thick/tall is that pad?

1" tall, the entire back is a 3m adhesive.

Saw some place guys throw a 10lb lead scuba weight the shot type in their bean bags chairs help if your underway and no one is in them

Finished my new combo machine and radar install...as usual more, work than i expected...
Cut out some donuts to raise it up a little...

Pics here,,, I think ;-)

New Electronics Install page

http://tacklethatworks.com

Nice job, yes it was more work than expected to install the radar. I had watched a YouTube install of the same unit but older and garmin changed the configuration of where that little cable retainer plate is located. IMO where it is located now is not as good as where it originally was at least for hiding the wires.

Oh well. I'm still waiting on my transducer. Getting tempted to buy the combo then just sell the unit it comes bundled with.... 🤔
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Had a conversation with a very good boat builder yesterday. (He added three feet to the transoms of a couple well known tuna boats the past two years.) Discussing my rewiring project after this season, he urged me to buy wire, buss bars, Ancor products, etc now as he sees a real shortage coming in these products coming from China. So I need to get my act together or have a couple folks suggest what they would have me buy...

Ross give these guys a look and see what they offer... bought a lot of my boat wiring supplies from them...website says made in America. You will need heavier gauge wire from batteries to motor and to pos and neg bussbars to distribute power to accesories through a fused switch panel using smaller gauge wire(blue seas makes some nice switch panels)..............https://www.genuinedealz.com/
I just checked and they are out of stock on some items....so good idea to start gathering supplies now if possible

Thanks RMarsh! Wow, I saw more sold out than available in the switches and tinned wire.... I might already be late to the party. At least my target date is for next season, so I have plenty of time. Just another red flag about how screwed we are....

Blue Seas....another source for marine electrical supplies ..
www.bluesea.com/ I got one of their switch panels similar to this one...
https://dh778tpvmt77t.cloudfront.net...ducts/4309.jpg

My agm batteries came in from impact battery. They had the lowest price (it actually was lower with free shipping than Defender's big "sale")

Also, garmin's GT56uhd-tm transducer I found from the bass tank in stock, called them to make sure. I had one on order since Jan where I got my electronics from and they still couldn't give me a date. Should be here this weekend
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Got the same ducer it’s longer than I expected , haven’t played with it a lot did find some tires using the side scan I hadn’t seen before , what’s your take on standard chirp or clear view my old striker had both but they were not any better than traditional view that I could tell
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Chirp is a range of frequencies which translates to better target separation. Traditional sonar is a single frequency so if you go over a school of bass for instance it would "see" the top and maybe some of the bottom of the school. It would "look" like two schools. With chirp you'll likely see that the school is actually completely thick with fish from top to bottom it'll show the individual fish for the most part.

I cannot wait to install the ducer so I can start figuring everything out.

We put the boat in tonight! I'm so excited. We left the dog home because I didn't know if the CTDeep put the docks in yet. We ran about 30 miles r/t from East Haddam north on the CT river to Portland, I wanted to get to middletown but a rain storm cut us off. The boat with the console had zero change in performance. I thought for sure id lose some top speed but we actually hit the fastest I've ever done, and the hole shot felt just as good.

I'll put up some pics when I get to the computer.
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"Hit my goal"
 

I knew April was aggressive for this project, thankfully we didn't have much rain. The move to get the console in the boat before I was done with wiring etc was good and bad. It was good because the console is in the boat before the construction year really takes off. It was also good because I got to spend the day with my Dad. It was bad because "now" all of my tools and power had to be relocated into the elements and away from my garage lighting. The project is not finished by any means but the important milestone of a sea trial (even if the sea was the CT river) was accomplished. What I learned was that the boat still hops out of the water onto plane out of the hole. Not only did we not lose top end speed, we actually hit 1mph faster than I ever ran it. Also... My eldest son James (6) asked the best question I ever heard, "So are we taking rods or what?" He's wise beyond his age.

At the launch, double ramp, I always try to launch with the wind pushing the boat into the dock, and take out opposite. I see a boat seemingly rushing across the river to the ramp and intermittently pausing. I said to my wife take the kids to the side so we get the correct side, I back up and see this person coming in behind me like I didn't exist but he yelled that he was breaking down. Ran and grabbed his boat before it was going to hit the concrete ramp. If it wasn't after 6pm and not my first put-in I'd have helped the guy get his boat on his trailer. Felt bad and also was curious of the failure but had to tell myself do what you are here to do. My son James said he wanted to help so I showed him how to switch lines, and he did it perfectly. He wanted to hold the lines too but I was unsure with a 10mph south wind and that console if it would pull him in so I had my wife hold & tie off the lines.
Attachment 67909
My little guy was fighting wearing his PFD but he was "okay" when I put mine on too.

backing up a bit in time
 

before our launch tonight:

Attachment 67910

I installed the batteries, set temporary screws in so the wouldn't bounce or move, and tightened down the wires. I did notice one good thing I did and one error. I installed (2) volt meters. One for the start battery and one for the house, both batteries are the same make and model group 27 AGM marine Northstars. They are 8-10 year batteries if maintained properly, a big upfront cost which made me throw up a bit but the down the road cost is way less than standard lead acid and a higher safety level at least I believe so. The onboard charger I purchased was the mini add a battery plus by blueseas which worked as advertised tonight because while we were running it was charging both batteries, and while the engine was off in the yard I could see some voltage drop on the house battery over the course of several hours while playing with lights and electronics.

Attachment 67911

terrible pic but the bottom is my start and top is the house battery voltage after our run, I had the house down to 12.3 or so before we started our first splash. Back to my hookups of the batteries to the volt meters, I hooked up the positive lead of the house battery after the switch and the start battery before. In other words there is a draw on the start battery all the time just because of the meter. So I need to change the location of that lead to the motor feed side of the main switch. In other words, when the main switch is off, so should the meter be off. I will need to disconnect & pull out the batteries anyways to get the transducer wire pulled and connected, so I'll do that all at the same time, and hopefully secure and connect my ethernet cable from the radar to the chartplotter in one shot.

pics
 

Attachment 67912

Attachment 67913

Attachment 67914

more
 

Attachment 67915

Attachment 67916

Attachment 67917

at home
 

my current phone takes terrible pics but you get the idea.

the spreaders are stupid bright, I may try to figure out a dimmer to tone down the rear spreaders. Or just leave it alone to communicate with the Aliens from "Close Encounters" do-do-do-do-doooo.

Attachment 67918

The lumitec arubas for courtesy lights I really liked because they have a translucent housing which will provide light in a fish box / cooler area without spilling light over the beams but providing light to move around the deck.
Attachment 67919
Attachment 67920

That's it for now. I'll get a video up once everything is truly complete.

Awesome build and even better happy kids.... great job

Looks great and I like how the blue lights aren’t to intense most blue I see on most boats are blinding. As for the spreader lights you can never be too bright . Or have to much light if and when you need it
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Thanks guys.

While I was out on the water I noticed when I was w.o.t. my hand accidentally pressed the SOS button located lower right on the tabbed Garmin main menu. Anyone mess around with theirs enough to know if it can be disabled, locked, removed or the menu bar relocated to the top of the screen?
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quick question those can cozies I was looking at them do they really not fall over ?