I’ve always been into boats and I enjoyed ski racing for a few seasons at the age of 12 and 13 before mum and dad decided that standing on a plank of wood doing over 80 mph on the water was a bit dangerous for a 13 year old.
This is actually my second boat. My first was a 1965 Seacraft which is a smaller and older version of Fleetwood. I found it at a boat insurance salvage yard. It was in very bad shape as the previous owner hit a tree or something with it. The very front was smashed up, half the left hand side was torn out, there were a heap of holes in the bottom and the engine moved forward on impact and cracked the deck and bent all the mounts. Other than that it was fine. So I bought it for about $1500 and set about rebuilding it. Over a month or so I rebuilt the engine which was a Holden 202. It was a good engine as it had a Yella Terra head and twin Stromberg carbies.
There was a lot of work in rebuilding the hull and patching holes, I actually cut part of the side and bottom out and got the wood to fix it and towed it to Mildura one Easter.
I spent three days straight on it there and had it in a local paint shop on the fourth day being sprayed. I had a huge amount of fun with that boat and it ended costing very little.
After a while I decided it was time to trade up and I ordered a brand new Syndicate hull at the end of 2000. I went to see Peter Adcock (Packie) the boat builder not long after to see how they were made. We had a long chat and I asked if he could make my hull slightly different to normal. I wanted mine a foot longer with the deck longer also and a few changes at the back. It was a bit of work for him to modify his plans and jigs but he agreed.
Over Christmas 2000 I was in Mildura and I phoned Packie for a few measurements of the boat to build the trailer. At that point he hadn’t even started the hull but with the racing season it was the only time I could get the trailer done. With nothing more than about 10 measurements I drew up a plan and built the trailer. I made it out of 100 X 50 gal and made the all of the guards and skirts out of stainless.
At the same time I started sourcing parts like the V-drive gearbox and steering wheel and pedals and stuff. I also had Shane Wilson a good friend that built my Formula Holden race engines from Mt Gambier getting things ready to build the engine.
At about mid – late 2001 the bare hull was ready to be picked up. It had been coated with resin but was not yet cleared or sign written as I wanted to fabricate and fit everything before getting the clear coats done. This was a very nerve wracking day as it was the first time the trailer saw the boat and I started wondering weather the boat would actually fit on the trailer. Everything was fine and I had a grin from ear to ear all the way home with the boat behind.
I had planned to have it fitted out and on the way to the sign writers before Christmas but I ended up with it in the garage for almost a year. I wasn’t happy with almost all of the running gear available so I decided to fabricate everything myself. This included engine mounts, engine brackets, dry sump oil pump mount and drive, gearbox mounts, entire exhaust system, exhaust flanges, cav plate, rudder mounts, steering quadrant, engine scoop and many other components.
The exhaust system took me three months alone to make on weekends and on nights between races and commitments, and the rudder brackets and steering quadrant took about five hours to design and after being laser cut out of stainless took a weekend to make. The fuel tanks took a whole day to design as I needed them as big as possible and still be able to fit them in the awkward position under the floor and against the transom.
During August 02 I met Shane in Adelaide to dyno the engine. Up until then I had been fitting the boat out using a bare block and a set of heads. I spent 2 days there with Shane and Bill Hansen who runs the dyno as we had to do a few things to finish the engine. It was great fun to see the engine fire up for the very first time on the dyno but my favorite part was standing in the dyno cell with the engine sitting on 6500 rpm with the pipes glowing red.
When I got back home to Melbourne I dropped the engine in and started making the braided lines for the water fuel and oil systems. After that I stripped the boat down and took it to get sign written and cleared. While this was going on all of the components I made got polished and while the boat was gone I did some modifications to the engine like swapping the wet sump with my new dry sump setup and fitting a few marine bits like the carbie wedge to get the carbie to sit level.
After the hull was painted I started fitting everything for good which was the most satisfying part of the project. After all of the engine stuff was done like the fuel water and oil systems I got stuck into gluing the carpet on the floor and fitting the seats.
I think it was around October-November 02 that I started the engine in the boat for the very first time. Everything went ok and I ran it on the trailer on and off for around half an hour to set the oil and fuel pressures and make sure there were no leaks. However after a very short run on the water I ran into a few problems with traces of water in the oil.
Even though I only had the boat in the water for a short time and there were a few problems it was still a very happy day.
After that I pulled the engine back out and stripped it right back to a bare block and got a few modifications done and as it had already been built and run I rebuilt it myself at home the second time which I really enjoyed doing. I also turned the extractors upside down and injected the water for cooling further down at the collectors which worked much better.
I had the first proper run in the boat in Mildura in late December 02 and it was absolutely awesome. That’s where the current pictures on the site were taken.
I took it out two or three times over Christmas and it was doing 75mph. I had the rev limiter set at 6500 and when I gave it a bit it would go straight to 6500 and sit on the hard cut on the limiter. I didn’t really want to rev it much harder than that so I pulled the gearbox out and got the ratios changed from 23% step up to 33%. With 33% it was pulling 80mph at 6000 rpm which I was very happy with.
Up until the photo shoot I did with it this June I hadn’t really done much with it. At the shoot I decided to move the limiter from 6500rpm to 7000rpm even though it was only revving to 6000 as I thought that with the taller ratios it might just be touching the soft cut on the limiter and being held at 6000. Sure enough when I got on the water and warmed it up I did a run and it pulled 6500 which was around 85-87mph. I ran out of time to try it with the limiter off all together but it feels like it’s got the grunt to rev to 6700 or 6800 which will be around 90mph.
There is still a lot of little things Id like to do on it but from when I started the project till it was running on the water it took me over two years. During that period there were a lot of times when I felt like throwing a shifter across the garage but over all it was a lot of fun and gave me a great amount of satisfaction finishing it off and driving it up the river full noise.
For more Photo's of the Fleetwood Build Click Here
