2.5 260 powered Ski Racing boat - Build photos

[Point Five]

Hey everyone,

Thought I'd share my project from my part of the world (New Zealand) that I've been chipping away at over the past 18 months and are only a few odds and ends away from being back on the water. Here's a little background on the boat:

Model: Cyclone RX1950 Lightweight
Length: 19.5ft
Designer: Bill Van der Vegte
Built by: Bill Van der Vegte
Year: 2000

I bought the hull and trailer as is where is and I soon went about breathing life into the rig. I could see the potential in the rig and as far as I was concerned it had 'good bones' it just needed a 'good skin' to be a real head turner at my local ramp. Good points being, everything below the waterline seemed to be really straight with only one strake needing attention. The areas that I (with a serious amount of help) needed to tackle were:

1. Trailer paint was shot
2. Trailer lights were knackered
3. Trailer wheels needed a serious spruce up
4. Trailer floor needed replacing (opted to go for carpeted plywood panels)
5. Needed a new custom full road cover (roads and weather are harsh here in NZ)
6. Gel coat on hull was faded badly in areas (transom and top of bow)
7. Needed an engine - found a 2.5 260 for $4,500 NZD
8. Conversion from 20" to 15" midsection
9. Needed Gauges, loom, rigging etc

As you can see the boat has had quite the turnaround (in my eyes anyway!!) and I'm absolutely stoked to turn the sketches and doodles that were ladened through my university books into reality!

Throughout my travels and talking to various people I managed to track down the original owner of my boat and as coincidence would have it, the engine package (Mercury 2.5 260) I had selected would in fact return the boat to its original Ski Racing configuration with some minor improvements, namely a 15" midsection in favour of the 20" item.

There's a hundred other stories (alot of ups and downs) I could share about this little red boat but I'll leave that for another time!

Any questions, just give me a holla!

Cheers, Alex

[Point Five]

Few more images back in her racing days (early 2000's)

Attachment 339950Attachment 339951

[Scream And Fly]

Absolutely love it, and thank you for sharing.
These kinds of threads are my very favorite. If you have more photos, please post them!

Thank you!
Greg

[tux974]

Very nice build and resto, love the color also!....
With that trailer I see no problem crateling the boat.....

[Point Five]

Wheel paint colour is called Tiger Gold which is from the Holden car manufacturer although we added a little more pearl and and base coat of silver to brighten it up slightly.




First time the 15" mid was fitted It was a long, painful and expensive process to do this because in our part of the world as 15" swivel brackets are extremely rare to find on their own (NZ only has a population of 4million). I ended up not eating for a month and ordering a brand new item direct from Mercury.



Lifting the boat off the trailer to be stored in the Pier 21 dry stack in order to restore & paint the trailer. I worked all hours of the night to get the boat ready for paint, painted and the boat back on the trailer as it was costing me a fortune to store it in the dry stack. 14 days later the boat was back on the trailer!




New full custom road cover along with clip on guard protectors to prevent those niggly stone chips - no way I was going to let that fresh paint be undone!

[patchesII]

I do love the trailers ya'll have in Aus. and NZ

[oldschoolltv]

Nice!!!!

[Superbender]

Love it,keep the pics coming

[outasite]

Awesome! And the poster on the wall ain't to shabby neather

[dumbnfun2]

That's awsome u guys are nuts ...... We're all like yeah my boat goes 100.... Y'all are like ... Yeah but we fkn ski behind it too .... love it .... Can't watch those vids enough very cool project ....

[MODVP22]

that is sharp!

[MiamiStvEuro]

Sweet ! Enjoy and be safe.

[Point Five]

First time the gold wheels got test fitted against the red. Such an awesome feeling having the picture in your head become a reality!



I love finding out the history of boats and their parts, particularly when its your own boat. Long story short, I managed to figure out the lineage of my powerhead and the first transom it spun blades on was this 32ft triple rig offshore racing boat here in NZ.



My midsection was originally owned by a good friend of mine. He had a very quick Tennessee Hull (basically an Allison for the southern hemisphere) and unfortunately blew the boat over (lives to tell the tale) near on 115 mph at Lake Karipiro. The midsection actually sat on the bottom of the lake for 4 months before it was recovered. Seen below on his second boat - Australian Bullet 1850



Going to the 15" has obvious advantages but also created a few hurdles, we were getting a bit tight for space when the engine would be trimmed out and didn't want to rely on having to raise the engine on the jacking plate to alleviate this. We also had to put a bit of thinking around how to rout the trim hoses, but soon figured it all out without having to cut the transom to free up space.

[Bodhi]

So cool!!!

[Point Five]

Some low res pics






And some raw clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a53RS1IMBJo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufDM9BFXEkU