Simmons Sea Skiff "Cast Away" Launched

**DDan** · 07-20-2011, 11:53 AM

I've finally gotten my Simmons Sea Skiff 18 in the water! I'ts been about a 4 year odyssey, working on it off and on.

Briefly, this a boat developed in North Carolina in the '50s. It's known to be very sea worthy for a small boat. Mine is 17'3" and I've had a 30 hp Tohatsu 4 stroke installed. The motor sits in a motorwell in front of the transom. Jim Rockfish built the same boat, reporting his progress on this forum. Plans were drawn by the late Dave Carnell from an old boat and are available at very reasonable cost from the Cape Fear Museum in Wilmington, NC.

Here's launching day last month at Blue Marsh Lake north of Reading PA:

Sea trials are continuing. I had trouble getting it to plane, so added some 5 degree aluminum wedges under the motor mount to tuck in the motor a bit more - now it gets going very easily. (The plans call for a 10 deg angle of the engine mount/front of the motorwell. I'm told modern standard is 12.5 - 15 deg - so now I have 15 deg.) It wants to porpoise a bit at higher power - probably need to make some further adjustments. This is my first power boat, so I have a lot to learn - such as proper trimming of the engine while underway. I am also getting some splash into the boat from the motorwell, which I'd like to minimize eventually.

But all in all, I am thrilled. It seems to go quite fast with very modest power. We encountered some significant wakes down on the Sassafras, which it handled really well. I think it will do well in rough water.

I am fitting it out for fly fishing, so I have stuff like pop-up cleats to minimze line snagging.

I'll post some more detailed photos and photos of the latter stages of contruction shortly. I documented the earlier stages of construction on this forum, but I am unable to find them - they may have been deleted.