Peddle Boat with a Gas Motor!

what's happening guys I wanted to show you today my new Monaco DLX this is a pedal boat that I purchased for my rental fleet Pelican was actually one of the innovators of the pedal boat they've been making these types of vessels for a long long time right now I'm gonna try to pedal this thing by myself let's give it a shot [Music] like I said these boats have always had a cool factor in my mind and I just had to have one one of the really cool things about it is you can fit two adults and up to three kids or what is the specs on this thing five persons 695 pounds that's amazing because a lot of times people come with kids and right now I've got one tandem and then I have a roundabout that I can rent to more than one person but that was it for a long time so it was one of the main reasons why I got this is because it will handle multiple people the thing about this though is the boat was designed for calm Lakes or bodies of water where there isn't a lot of tidal movement and I'm living on a very big river if you're gonna come out here all day long and you wanted to go down there and see the trestle or go around the main loop here in the river or see the broken bridge or go to island and just spend the whole day out here this could be a heck of a lot of exercise so I think I'm going to have to do some slight modifications to this boat to make it a little more user-friendly [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well upon closer inspection I saw that this aluminum tube is crimped onto this cat so it would have to be destroyed this was the point of no return I did not intend to reassemble any of these parts the big paddle wheel probably could have come apart a little bit easier if I had unbolted it but I tend to be a little bit stubborn case in point [Music] things built for a lifetime or a few days in my presence [Music] these little leftover rudder parts here we're gonna make nice little caps maybe the same color and the right size to fill the hole where the pedals used to be a little superglue would hold them in place for now later on I would go in and waterproof them and secure them a little better but more about that in a minute for now I had another occasion to rise to cutting this thing off and it proved to be a lot of work [Music] but I knew it would be worth it with no need for a rudder handle I was going to have to plug that hole up so I cut a template head up some cardboard but I happen to have it laying around [Music] not to mention some more starboard I kind of love this place and I figured just plain black starboard wasn't gonna look good enough so I started working on an accent after all we're not animals [Music] okay that looks nicer of course you know how to make it look nice speaking of which back here I no longer need the second hatch but I think it would look better if it was there so let's cut this thing in half and make it fit it was too thick as it was and I only needed a portion of it wouldn't make fitting it a little bit easier but these two halves will kind of like welded together it was amazing how sturdy this little piece of plastic was once I had that fit everything was made so it was time to glue things together I [Music] couldn't think of anything better than 52-hundred the first thing was the whole upfront I screwed it down so if it came nice and secure and then I covered the screws with this little accent piece and I finished it off with the Scottie mount then it was off to the back to glue down the transom i slathered on a lot of 5,200 and set this thing on the most sturdy part of the boat then I glued on the gussets the outside ones first those got a bunch of screws both on the side and the back then I screwed the whole assembly to the boat I used a whole bunch of screws too and did not want this thing to go anywhere and then I covered those screws on the inside with the second custom a minimal number of screws held them in place and all the screws that were on the back I covered up with five layers of starboard four thick and one thin little by little this was becoming a Signature Series boat for me get it clamping everything together and then a few big screws to hold the whole assembly down tight and structurally it was just about done there's just a few things left [Music] this metal transom cover and the white decorative pieces that would hide the cut ends of all the starboard layers so not only was it structurally done and now it was also looking good to the spared no detail I bet the designers at Pelican would be happy to see that even took the time to cover the little area where the rub rail comes together hmm I even paid attention to the other details like what if I needed to saddle this boat and you didn't paddle hold him and what if I fish from this boat I would need a rod holder I happen to have some left over from a previous project and then of course if I was gonna be fishing I was gonna need a place to put my stuff I couldn't just have it popping around all over the place here with the roundabout shop we had some of these tackle webs I think they're called laying around so I changed the size a little bit and then screw them to the boat one on either side up front and this way I would have plenty of room for stuff like a plane applause that's much nicer comfort would be nice too but this throw bowl wasn't gonna look that house so I'll cut it apart and they use the foam inside to make some pictures I've done this before you just need a backer and the poem and some material to cover it with wrap it all up nice and the next thing you know you've got yourself a fishing screw that to the seat back and this was gonna be a lot more comfortable than the hardback plastic seats after all I tend to spend a lot of time on the water yeah that's better that was time to think about a battery if I was gonna have one of these on the boat I've need a place for it the second half of that patch cover that I cut apart might actually do I had to make the hole bigger the first hole was there because I had to cut the thing apart because like I said it was welded together then I went over here and I got some star board and proceeded to make a box for it this part was rather easy and fun but it took a lot of test fitting and I had to dig deep into the starboard stash [Applause] [Music] battery cover was starting to come together so far it fit pretty good and I needed a place to put the wires then I needed a cover for it and some little gussets to strengthen everything up after all I could imagine crawling over this thing to get to the back seats these little nylon hinges would make wiring the battery easy and to make it easy on the eyes and on anybody crawling on top of it I figured I'd add another cushion [Music] the next thing in my little bank of tricks I got some screws and attached what Pelican likes to call rocket launchers these little pieces of plastic turn that indent into a rod holder this way if you're sitting up front you have a place to put your bottom wheel as I continued turning this Pelican boat into my own I decided I was going to need a place for cameras that's roller I have to document this stuff with the transom in place and no handle I needed two straps instead of one I had straps laying around I sewed them together and as they say in Brooklyn bada-bing and oh yeah before I forget the places where the pedals went through needed to be plugged up and waterproofed by putting a lot of 5,200 in there the grabbed those caps that I superglued in earlier I made everything super watertight next up front where the paddle wheel used to be and decided to put some starboard and a mount this was a bull mount mount was provided by my friends at Scottie upon which I attached my custom DIY iPad holder I had a life proof case to my iPad so I wouldn't have to worry about it getting wet and this way I'd have something to listen to while I was out there next we're a few simple things like cleats so I could tie the boat up it's um non-skid so I wouldn't fall off at this point I couldn't picture needing much else there's nothing left but for me to put this in the water and give it a shot with the new propulsion [Applause] this time what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this trolling motor which has a remote box where you can steer and go forward and backwards right from here okay today I got my friend Richie he's gonna help me test out this boat okay all right I figured to do a proper test I should have at least two adults well I guess in the eyes of the law we're adults let's see what I can steer that yeah buddy all right forward mm-hmm that has five speeds forward Wow that's pretty cool and now we got all this legroom right in here look at that this is pretty cool this thing moves along pretty good average nice let's see if we can get a little music going here yes sir life is but a dream but I tell you what this might be fine for people who are gonna rent kayaks but for me personally I think I might want to do something a little more exciting I'm gonna head it back to the dock because I've got something in my brain as we headed back my mind was exploding with ideas I could picture fishing from this thing and going a little bit faster even though we were scooting along pretty good I had some delusions of grandeur well they were delusions at this point everybody else seemed like they were pretty excited about seeing me make this happen including my friend Todd what do you think Todd first thing to do is to get the electric motor off of the boat that included the nice cover and the battery next my Coleman 5-horse gas motor this wonderful little outboard is probably gonna push this boat a little bit quicker than that fifty five pound thrust rolling motor needless to say it was a little excited about seeing whether or not this would work all right we're off so far it's working just try to goose it a little bit all right I'm gonna sit right in the center that's actually pretty comfortable let's see if it works oh I gotta sit way up front [Applause] with the boat ballasted correctly it moved along the water pretty fast that's a lot faster than this boats meant to go let's head back and try to go into the Sun shall we [Music] and I still wasn't sure if I had it on plane or not when I finally did get it on plane it would move a little bit faster but not without some problems roll boy if the propellers coming up out of the water see I was worried about that that transom is a little too high in the shaft is too low that means that the fellows coming up out of the water and it's going to cavitate and slow down like that well I think that's something we can do about that too I headed back to the dock and I was just about done for the day Sun was getting low and I was pretty tired I would tackle this new problem tomorrow the next morning was rainy and cold and I decided to work on a bracket that would help lower the motor by about five inches it was kind of like a temporary fix just to see if it would work but it had to be very strong 5200 don't you open it but this thing fell apart I could potentially lose the motor so I built it plenty strong the star board helped keep the wood together so it was functional it didn't just look good [Applause] although you know even though it was temporary I had to add little accents like I said it's a curse held on these little blue accents with some high-strength 90 quite possibly my favorite glue then it was time to attach this thing to the boat for that I was going to use some very big bolts again I did not want this thing to come apart few extra screws and it would support my weight which is a lot more force than that little motor to probably produce next thing was to see if I can get my hand in there to tighten the tie downs or whatever they call them things it was tight but I managed also I was happy to see that the tiller handle cleared the original transom that I built let's do this one last obstacle you can see here the extension handle is hitting the Bimini straps in that current situation so I'm going to change this situation that was easy enough to fix by adding a couple pad eyes just over the seats okay one of the last things that I want to do is take this piece and put it on the bottom there and that will help divert the water from going up through there because I actually just did a test run and it was scooping water up and it was splashing over the motor so I'm going to drill this piece on and then we'll do a test all right that ought to work better finally it was time to see if I could consistently get this boat on a plane this is a pretty ridiculous setup she moves pretty good like this but barely up the spraddle open let's see what happens when I twist it a little bit Motors taking a little bit maybe if I sit forward better it felt like this boat was finally starting to get up on top of the water you can hear the pitch and the motor change you could feel it go a little bit faster well though it wasn't the most comfortable thing to drive it certainly was a lot of fun here on my portable GPS you can see I was hitting about 10 miles an hour it felt like I was doing 50 [Music] I'd call that a success [Music] now if I took this boat out by myself I'd be able to get around no matter what the tide was doing on this big river [Music] considering how well the 5-horse motor works on my bass Raider I'm not certain that I'm really going to use it on the Monica too often in the future but it has been an extremely interesting and fun build it was very surprising to learn how ballasting the boat with a little weight up front or in the back would make a difference on how it drives not to mention the fact that a few inches up or down with the motor made a big difference whether or not the propeller would come out of the water so I guess it's not only been fun but it's been very educational too I'm glad I was brave enough to tear into this boat and have a little fun with it although I must say it was kind of fun just with the paddles I might have to get myself another one of these and leave it stock well I gotta say it's a lot of fun but it's not really practical unless I filled the shift handle up with trim tabs on this boat so I might just call it quits for now hopefully you guys enjoy this type of footage and like I said this is going to have a at least an electric motor on it and I'll be renting it to folks at my place off injures here in Ruskin Florida hooked me up it's off intercom and if you like these types of videos then tell your friends and make sure you subscribe because this is almost certainly not gonna be the last stupid thing that I do thank you for watching everybody [Music]

Channel: zoffinger

Views: 1,168,028

Rating: 4.8026729 out of 5

Keywords: Monaco, fishing, saltwater, Florida, fish, how-to, zoffinger, Tampa, ocean, Coleman, outboard, trolling motor, peddle boat, Pelican

Id: JPvMLKMz9NM

Length: 34min 42sec (2082 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

Absolutely awesome video! Thumbs WAY up on all of the detailing too.