23 IB - How Many Drips for Stuffing Box? How do you Adjust?

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by Capt Terry

As Bushwacker has remarked before, Bob Reiland (rest his soul) probably made over 25 trips between WPB and the Bahamas in his "Unoho" 21' SeaCraft with an I/O which he bought from Carl at the Miami boat show. He always moved people, coolers or whatever around to maintain trim. I was on a couple trips with him, but on another boat.

Bob actually made a couple trips a year to the Bahamas, so I think his actual count was closer to 50! On one of the last trips I made with him, we went to the Abaco's via Lucaya on the south side of Grand Bahama and thru the cut in the island that comes out up near Mangrove Cay. One member of our flotilla broke down about half way across the Gulf Stream, so Bob started towing him. He asked me to run on ahead to Freeport and give him a bearing on the fuel tanks there (this was in the late '70's before GPS, so our navigation was via compass and dead reckoning, which gets a little complicated when you stop for 20 minutes in the middle of the Gulf Stream!). I did that and just anchored up in 20' of water to wait for him to catch up. He ran low on fuel so another member of our flotilla took over the tow, and he then ran fast to catch up to me. When we arrived at the Lucaya marina fuel dock he was complaining about how rough that run was in the 3' square waves, but I said I didn't think it was that bad, as I just put the tabs down and was running along very comfortably sitting down at about 12-14 kts! Bob must have been impressed because he eventually added trim tabs to the Unohu!

My only comment is that folks who say a 18-20' SeaCraft doesn't need trim tabs have never run one with trim tabs! It's the best money you can spend on a boat . . . Tabs make the boat think it's about 3' longer!