1989 24 Aronow Project "Half Speed"

**DonG** · 06-15-2015, 11:52 AM

Hello All-

So this is a rather long story but it has a happy ending. A few years ago my wife and I purchased a 1989 24 Aronow cat from a friend. The idea was to rig it with a diesel and run it around Cape Coral. So we removed the 280's on the boat and rigged it with the single diesel outboard. the boat was ready for its sea trial. With all the weight of the diesel we could not get the boat to plane. We fought with it for a few months before we took the power off and put it on a deck boat that runs great.

Now, we had a bare hull. we tried to sell the hull for about 6 months. We had a few people try and buy it but always canceled at the last minute and left us waiting. We got sick of dealing with tire kickers so we took it off the market. At the same time my wife starting think about getting a boat for her to run around with her sister and nephew. We discussed fishing boats, jet boats, ect but we always kept looking over at the Aronow and thinking it would be a cool project.

After a few weeks of kicking it around we decided to start the project. What she wanted was a boat easy to drive, enough room for family, loud stereo, and had too look cool and different. She really liked the idea of a California style deck boat but with outboard power.

So after a year of building the boat, my wife and I finally finished her boat that we have officially named "Half Speed". The name half speed came about when I asked her how fast she wanted the boat to run, Her reply was "half as fast as the Doug Wright".

We did alot of work to the boat:
Made a walk thru to the front
Large Front deck area
Stairs in the back to step up to the rear deck
Sun pads to lounge in the front
Rigged with a 225 Opti
LED's everywhere
Large Stereo (Still in progress)
Custom Wrap by Kinetic Animation

We would like to thank Ryan Beckley of Kinetic Animation for helping us with this project. His team did a great job designing/ installing the wrap and I would recommend him to anyone.

Attached are some before, during and After pictures of the boat.

Thanks for reading
Don and Amanda

**DonG** · 06-15-2015, 11:54 AM

More pictures of during the build

**DonG** · 06-15-2015, 11:58 AM

And the pictures from this weekend!

**dogeatdog** · 06-15-2015, 02:49 PM

Looks great! How does she run?

**DonG** · 06-15-2015, 07:05 PM

It runs well for what it is, with the 225 opti and a 22 bravo it ran just under 60mph. Perfect for Amanda to run around here.

**tony97gt** · 06-19-2015, 01:40 AM

Don, when I saw that boat in person while I was picking up the 280's it looked like hell. You've turned it around completely and it looks great now. Glad to see it worked out, enjoy it. The 280's were a blessing for my Skater.

**Greg G** · 06-19-2015, 05:42 AM

Man, that thing is very different and very cool. An open bow cat, with OB power, and an Aronow bloodline. Can't be more than a handful of those in the country.

**DonG** · 06-19-2015, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Greg G

Man, that thing is very different and very cool. An open bow cat, with OB power, and an Aronow bloodline. Can't be more than a handful of those in the country.

Yep, and it was owned by Al Copeland. A lot of history in a small boat.

**DonG** · 06-19-2015, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by tony97gt

Don, when I saw that boat in person while I was picking up the 280's it looked like hell. You've turned it around completely and it looks great now. Glad to see it worked out, enjoy it. The 280's were a blessing for my Skater.

Hi Tony, yeah the boat had seen its better days when we purchased it. Now, it will be a fun boat that has been updated to todays graphics.

**HydroSkreamin** · 06-20-2015, 10:45 AM

Very nice job on having a vision and following through. I can see you planned this quite carefully, and it turned out really nice. At one point in time, I had considered this for my 23 Daytona, but couldn't come to grips with cutting up a decent deck. If my deck was trashed, I certainly would have made it look something like yours. Nice work!

One more thing, how do those seats work for you, do they have enough padding? Thanks.

**DonG** · 06-21-2015, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by HydroSkreamin

One more thing, how do those seats work for you, do they have enough padding? Thanks.

Actually they are very comfortable, they are mounted low in the boat to keep the back of the seats at the proper height. We place a throw cushion on the bottom and gives some additional padding and the perfect driver height.