Unknown outboard powered sportfish

Thats an Xcelerator 45 made by Joel Kauffman and was launched last year.

You'll have Tuna Tartare trying to land the fish on the back of the boat, along with no transom fish door...Put some diesel inboards in that thing, plus you'll have a safer more sea worthy vessel.

Probably more comfortable then a CC but I certainly would not want anything between an angler and a large fish.

Really depends what kind of fishing you are doing. For general reel in stuff shouldn’t be a problem to bring a fish alongside most times. But I don’t know how well it would work if you have to back down on a bigger billfish or tuna?

Striker..... Them's were the good ole days. Something about her attracted Marlin.


Captain Ron (me)

I do agree fishing can be tough on that rig. Outboards don't create as clean of a wake as diesels. Even with bow thruster, don't think it will spin around as much as a typical sportfish. Imo, it's like the worst part of both options. Regular diesel sportfish can maneuver very well, back down well, etc, but you can't walk around to the bow easilly. The main advantage of outboard CC's is the ability to walk around which this rig doesn't have.

As I have no experience with sportfish type yachts, I have a question. Would a sportfish yacht with dual Volvo IPS make sence?

There are only a few sportfish with IPS drives. Most don't like them on these boats due to maintenance issues, and the fact that when we are out in big seas, they don't perform as well in following seas. Not enough horsepower to get over the hump.

So, what is a good power to weight ratio of a perfect sportfish yacht?

Buddy in the boat business has told me they require a large amount of maintenance so that drove away my interest after reading a report of one who repowered his 38 Bertram and included them.

Depends how fast you want to go, lol. My boat weighs 94k pounds and I have twin 1950hp MTU's. Perfect for me, but burns a lot of fuel. Speed is important for me. Others want economy, so smaller engines, or lighter "wood" boats.

Your post reminded me when looking through a book Jimmy Buffett had written, my then girlfriend was reading, where he wrote about searching to buy the perfect airplane which he he eventually did. Not long after he talked about, crashing the perfect airplane and I thought if it was so perfect it would not have crashed. My previous spt. fish was 26,000. lbs. with 800 hp. Current one is 44,000 with 1640 hp. but as I believe most of us know there's a lot more to the so called perfect boat then power to weight ratio. Perhaps, "perfect to me," would be a better thought.

I was only asking for the power to weight ratio, because member wiredup wrote, an IPS sportfish would not have enough power to get over the hump. Meanwhile, I have found some sportfish yachts with IPS propulsion and I think, Spencer for example, is a pretty well kown boat builder for sportfish type boats in the US.

A 70 ft+ sportfish with tripple IPS 1350 with shaft extension under the low aft cockpit would do the job easily. The maintenance and maybe the quality problems, You have with VOLVO PENTA in the US of A is different story.

HTMO9

I would not personally walk from ANY vessel with those drives, I would RUN. Not long ago there was news and some YouTube video's of a 92 ft. Viking that washed up on a S. Florida beach after all power was lost. Evidently there was very little damage other then bent rudders. Imagine the extent of the damage, had there been drives sticking down several feet from the bottom.

Captain Ralph’s observations on fishability are spot on. Center consoles and walkaround expresses are great matches for outboards. With a large deck house and when the cockpit is all you have to fish from it changes the equation big time. Weight distribution is another factor - I’m guessing the designers on that sportie had to work really hard to offset the cg impact of having a big deckhouse and flybridge but no weight of big diesels in the bilge to balance it out.

The big attraction with outboards is how easy they are to swap out - which I grant is a huge advantage. But it’s also a liability these days - more and more outboards are being stolen off boats in the Bahamas in particular. A friends family member had low hour triple 350’s stolen off his boat recently in the abacos. Ouch.

Then there’s the issue of having gasoline on the boat vs diesel - flammability, carbon monoxide (less an issue with outboards usually), and storage issues.

As for IPS - seem like a solution in search of a problem. Slightly lower fuel burn more than offset by maintenance costs, complexity (things to break) and the other liabilities mentioned. Maneuverability? If you can’t dock a 45’ with properly sized and propped twin diesels you should hire a captain while you get some experience. I’ll admit bow thrusters are a nice luxury when someone is up front trying to grab the bowline off a piling. But “crutches” like joysticks and IPS are IMO getting people into operating way more boat than they are capable of operating safely.

It depends. Pod boats are 30% more fuel efficient give/take. The most direct comparison was the 40' Cabo. With 600HP zues it was faster than 800hp MAN/SHafts 33-34 knots versus 32 knots 80% load, and fuel burn was 45gph versus 62 gph. BIG difference if you're doing a lot of running. A lot more room in engine room for equipment or more interior room, smooth, no smoke/smell, vibration etc. Maneuverability in any direction is unparalleled by anything else. The downside was more maintenance.

But I've seen similar fuel consumption on many. A 52' Sunseeker manhattan cruises at 20 knots/52 gph with D11's. The 60' Predator 27 knots at 52 gph with D11's and pods. Granted ones a shorter FB, the other a longer express, weight should be similar.