Thoughts on 16 ft 1970 Crestliner Dane?

[amuller]

I bought this boat for my Homelite/Bearcat project.

It’s a heavy welded hull. Paperwork says it weights 800 pounds, which makes it about as heavy as a glass boat of the same size and really heavy for a 16 ft aluminum boat. There are few structural rivets in it except for around the transom and splash pan. It had a built-in tank in the bow. Tank is gone but fittings are still there.

The transom was damaged, and the design is odd, with just one wooden piece about 5 inches deep running across just below the cutout. I ended up putting a piece of 1/4" aluminum plate on the outside and it seems pretty solid.

I’m having some second thoughts about this hull, wondering it if’s too heavy to perform well with a 55 hp motor. It’s rated at 100 hp max and came with the 85 hp V4 shown in some of the pics. (For sure it’s too heavy to move around the yard by hand!)

Anybody have experience with these boats? Thoughts?

Alan

[fleetwin]

It might be heavy, but it looks like a solid/stable performer to me…
It will perform great with the 85hp also, nice job repairing the transom…

[outbdnut2]

It should perform well, but it depends on just what kind of performance you want. I’d stay with the 85, but I’m into fast planeing and speed. The 55 should work well with a low pitch prop, but don’t expect much over 25 to 30 MPH and less with more people in the boat. Fine for cruising – marginal for pulling an experienced skier. Thge 55 should use a lot less gas than the 85, but be sure you give it enough throttle to get it up on plane and set the trim pin so only 1/3 to 1/2 of the hull is in the water at max throttle. Running not fully planed is probably the #1 gas waster on any boat as the boat becomes a water plow. For faster planeing, put in another gas tank under the bow deck. For max speed, put the gas tank at the rear.
Dave

[amuller]

Thanks for the suggestions. I’m definitely going to try it with the 85 hp first, as that’s already rigged, and then with the 60 hp 3 cylinder, which drops into the same brackets and uses the same harness and controls. Then the Homelite 55. I’m not really sure how fast I want/need to go, only having had simple low powered boats before. My gut feeling is that the Homelite might be better matched to a lighter hull, but we shall see.

Alan

[Author]

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