Knotlost

no issues except if you tighten down the rivits like they need to be they will tear though the vinyl, if not right away in a year or two they will. That may not matter much though because its not very noticable if the vinyl is glued down real good. You can get the larger headed rivets but they show more but hold great, but they will still tear though eventualy.

You get what you pay for when it comes to chargers. Most of the time you will need to anti up for a good charger in the marine environment. The new ones are programmable for different batteries, they have temp probes on some and very sophisticated charging patters that really keep your batteries nice, but none of that is cheap. To me its worth a lot of money for a good charger, it saves your batteries and that saves your trips out. No such thing as a free ride when it comes to chargers. Most mobile ones are not designed to do all you seem to want, you need one to install and leave in. If your looking for a complete charge from flat (not sure why) then 10amps will do it on small batteries. First start with size batteries, if your using the smaller or mid size batteries, and your not discharging them below a solid 12v then over night on a 6 to 8 amp will normally keep a good battery just fine. If your pulling them down farther then go to the 10 amp. Now only do this if your real tight on cash. Better to get a nice micro-processed 15 amp double bank smart charger and in a years time you will not regret it.

People can be real funny, even though it will not ever effect them, they will take great offense if you like a brand they don't. Try a few brands if you can, because what is of great value to you will not be of value to someone elce.. I like Scotty's but having said that anything that doesn't work is junk, and eventually they all will have problems. The freedom of choice makes us AMERICANS, only communist want everyone to be the same! I would like a cable that will never break and have no blow back, gather no fleas, never kink, tie easy, not fray, and attract fish.

The short answer is yes your idea will work, but the battery on the down line side will be much slower in charging once it the don-er battery reaches 80%. Nothing more than that, and if a meteor hits your boat it will probably damage the battery..... Yes there are always, no matter what you do, ways for things to go wrong. There are no perfect answers, but some are better. I invested in some good quality chargers (there are big leaps in components that go into a high end charger) that will charge in stepped manner, and they work OK. But just because you had one failure with one system doesn't mean that is a bad way of doing it. In every way there is to charge a battery there have been failures, they are not fool proof (the chargers), but there are some better than others out there. Harbor freight is bottom rung stuff, it works but don't trust it to far.. All batteries will charge at a slow rate, there are a lot of people that do not understand batteries giving advice. The changes occur when trying to fast charge and or maintain and or desufite the battery's, but all 12v will trickle charge don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise. A 2 amp trickle will not hurt any good batteries over night doing what you prescribe, anyone who believes so dose not understand whats going on.

Everyone has a different opinion as to what is "nice". This is one way that works well.. With that said I have found that one good coat, of an oil finnish ( like teak finish , but better is just a tong oil ) let dry really good, then give it coats of gloss spar urethane. I noticed that they now have other sheens of it (semi gloss, satin) but I'm not convinced they will work right, as for years and years only gloss worked good ,so I'm not willing to be a ginny pig. Give it coats of the spar urethane until the grain is all covered and sealed sanding with 320 between coats. Here is the nice part.. This will with time flake or chip with normal wear,when it dose weather. to repair it you can sand lightly the spots with 320 w/d and just touch it up with the spar and it will blend and come back extremely well.. You can go about 6 to 12 years with this method before you need to even it back out with a resanding.

Saltwater ruins things you can't see unless you take it apart so good choice on the fresh water one.

Tw 9000 on a 26 ft boat works great, but you need to give it lots of cable to draw from. ( heavy gauge).

It can be used on any boat, as its drive is right under the steering wheel. so yes it will work with cable steering so long as it turns easy.

The coast guard are pretty good at there advisors , as some times the wave hight isn't the problem it's how close the waves are to each other. They can predict that pretty good too! I went out once in the afternoon when there was an advisory that was starting at five PM it was predicting six footers which in my boat no big deal at all, so I was ok to fish till five anyway. When the storm got there the waves were not over six but they were about four feet apart! Whoohooo that was fun, but I was only out for about five minuts in it as I was getting off the lake already. Now I did not figure the problem 45 mph wind gusts would give me loading my boat on the trailer! It's been a while since I laughed that hard. If a boat the size of a 18 foot Starcraft had got caught in that storm it would have went to the bottom because the waves would have rolled right into the stern when the bow was up.

Your propeller is goverend by your rpm, with the right prop you can just reach redline "reasonably" . That said its a general rule if you can hit redline to fast your under propped if it takes forever to get to redline your over propped. So just wanting a bigger prop is wrong thinking, you want the most prop your motor/ rig will take as weight of boat and so on will effect the whole thing. If your boat takes off and gets up on plane in a reasonable amount of time (on a calm day with no wind) and you can open it up and get up to redline and have just a lttle more in her to go, then dont fix what isn't broke. Stick with the size and pitch of the prop you have. Your cruising throttle will be about 2k less than redline, and it should stay on plane easy there. I would start with mesuring the prop, which should be about 14 to 15 inches probably about 14.5 inches, you will probably need either a 17 pitch, for a starting point. Try to borrow one just for testing befor you buy one to figure out what size you need. It makes a huge difference on how your boat will work. Most prop shops will charge more than an aluminum prop will cost to fix one, but he can tell you what size you have and thats huge for starting out.

Thanks for sharing I will always follow the nocking arrow rule and learn the cheep way.

Some one put a Plug in that didn't go in there originally, it's a compartment drain that's normally left unplugged. You can plug it but it will keep water from draining out as well. I suppose someone could say it would help if there were a bad leak but that would be extremely conditional as most of the time it would keep water from reaching your bilge pump.

I too like the big game, 25# for down riggers with Floro leaders, fleas are no big problem with it. No break offs with it. Same for my brown reels but with 10 or 12# test and Floro.

Gr8 buck, glad you didn't quit!

I got rid of my ok as I didn't like there to limp , I got heartlands but not the rollers.. I love them way better in my opinion.

Way to go, remember this one for a long time...

Yup your absolutly right, but about 80% of the time it works, so its just a first step short cut. But its not difinitive thats for sure.