PWC hull design?

[burnddice]

Hey, I'm a new member and new to fiberglass hulls and am interested in building a 6-7.5ft. PWC. I am in need of advice on what type of material i should use (fiberglass, carbon fiber, or kevlar?) and also how to make a hull durable enough to take the beating of a PWC. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

[wet-foot]

start by customizing a used PWC, they can be had for 2K or less. You can play with all types of material to see which work for you. I'm no pro but can get things done one way or another and the one thing I won't change is using epoxy resin. If your boat building venture doesn't pan out you can use the epoxy on a million other things plus there's no shelf life. By the way that 2K used jetski will cost you over 10K if you tried to build one from scratch. Good luck flaming dice ........ enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

[burnddice]

Thanks a lot, I think I'll try that.

[marshmat]

PWCs are by nature mass-produced craft. Getting such a small hull to be stable with over 100 hp and able to plane properly with the incredibly high bottom loading they have is no easy feat; a lot of research goes into a hull and then 5,000 of those hulls are built with different engines and topside configurations. Key parts of their jetpumps are actually moulded integrally with the hull. Trying to duplicate one from scratch will be expensive and take several attempts.

You can easily find a damaged or worn-out one for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on condition. People tend to crash them a lot, put holes in the deck, and break the drivetrains, so if you're handy and enjoy a good project, it can be economical to fix up an existing unit.

In terms of fibreglass work, which most fixer-uppers will need a bit of, the most versatile place to start is a roll of 10 oz E-glass woven cloth and a few jugs of marine epoxy. It's possible to do just about any fibreglass repair work with this stuff, not only in the boat but also in your car, refrigerator, attic.....

Best of luck :)

[burnddice]

O.K. thank-you for your advice

[wet-foot]

yeah I use 10 oz cloth and 6 oz for tight bends. Once you've nailed down a few repairs it will be time to learn vacuum bagging. What's really important is to start a project and get the thing on the water, we ain't talking 2020 either!!!!!