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Old Skewl Kool!

jallen355

jallen355

Well-known member
I jacked (w/permission) some pics of Benji Chapman's MX15 drag bote from over at BYUBOYZ forum. Seems another old ugle s.o.b, namely T-Rex took a likin' to Benji's 'Mate and was impressed that the other "old guy" could make a boat "that was not supposed to be competitive run with the Big Dogs from the rope". Here's some pics they posted from a race last weekend....

Now if T-Rex could make his Laser run like a 'Mate!! :banana:


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Very cool! did you tell him about the checkmate-boats.com web site??:banana:
 
creeljd said:
I am restoring an MX15 right now and the one on this post does not appear to be an MX-15. Based on the deck and transom it looks more likely to be a V-Mate I.
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It being a MX15 is more assumption on my part. Your probably closer to the truth. Here's a couple more pics:

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Hey guys, This is Michael Chapman (Benjie's Son), Dad's not much on posting on forums so I'll give ya'll some info on his boat. It's a 77' V-mate I, it originally came to us in 2007 and was Blue/Silver metalflake. The subfloor needed replacing but the transom was still solid, He replaced the floor section and added some stiff knee supports that tied the transom to the stringers for added strength, finished all the cosmetic damage on the hull and deck and then painted. The checkered patterns on the dash and on gunnels are decals. He closed all the holes in the dash and installed center steering, it's the old style teleflex double rack where you could run opposing cables. The bottom is stock just as the factory did it. It's on a 5" jackplate, propshaft centerline is 3/8" above the bottom. Runs an XR4 gearcase with a Bob's cone. Motor is a 2.4L steel bore oval port, that I put the behind the liner pipes in the block,(which I'll never do again because of the time involved), port mods, chest cut, 5 petal front half with Merc WH 20 carbs. The mid is a cut down 2.4 style offshore with single cylinder clamp bracket, 23 cc heads. Not sure the total HP or sure on what the rig weighs. 3 of us picked the bare boat up off the trailer. There's no foam or flotation anywhere in the boat. We have run this rig with a 24P Yamaha in the 1/4 mile ( ran 11.80 on a breakout pass) and a 22P Yamaha on 1000' track (ran 9.03 off the trailer, followed up by some breakouts in the 8.90's).

Dad cut his teeth on these types of hulls. The same bottom design could be found on the old West Wind 15 footers, which later became Pisces. He had several Pisces boats back in the day and course raced one with 2.0 liter on a champ mid with a speedmaster. I believe it would run about 110-112 on a straightaway. Surprisingy they were always excellent handling boats with a lot of HP. This one takes a set pretty quick and runs straight and level the hole pass. A lot of folks look at it say "there aint no way I would drive that thing", but once you see how it handles it's really a safe running boat. The boxplate on the back helps to straighten it out when it takes a set, we have had a 245hp carb 2.5 on it before with 21cc heads in it launched clean off the water on the holeshot with about 3 feet between the bottom and the water surface, The 2.4 seems to be a little more tame on the holeshot and all around the best motor, allthough it is highly modded. I think the boat would run in the low 11's with a little bottom mods but he is content to keep it in a river racer dial in class for now. We were a bit surprised of the numbers it ran at SITC last weekend, we knew it would be close but figured we would have to wrench on it and play with the set up to run the target number. For it to come off the trailer and lay down a 9.03 and secure is spot is the field on the first pass surprised alot of racer's at "Cove". Unfortunately it brokeout in rnd. 1 with 8.92. But that's how it goes in bracket racing. He was the only member of our team who made it in the top 16 of his class, The rest of us struggled all weekend to get our Quartermasters to run a good enough time inside the index. That is one tough race to run when the times are that tight.
If you have anymore ?'s feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them. StarCam action photos is supposed to have the "Smokin in the Cove" pics posted on Oct. 19 on there site, you can probably find some good pics of it running when they get the photos up.We have one from them where it's sitting perfect on the back of the boat.
Great site you have here for Checkmate owners. Keep up the good work.

Best Wishes,
Michael Chapman
Calhoun Marine,Elloree S.Carolina 803-897-3806
 
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Michael, Great post. Welcome to the site. Thanks for taking your time to come over here and let us in on the low down on your dad's boat.
 
jallen355 said:
Michael, Great post. Welcome to the site. Thanks for taking your time to come over here and let us in on the low down on your dad's boat.
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Your welcome Jamie, glad to help. I'll work on Dad and see if I can get him to make some comments. He'll probably see the thread and read it but he aint much on typing on a thread.
-Michael
 
Thanks for coming over from S&F, Michael. Your dad has a cool old school boat. I can't imagine the top end on that boat. Do you have any video? Or running shots?
 
We have not tried to topend run it. Only ran it on 1/4 mile and 1000' He did have a pass at 109 mph on the clocks. Some of the mph specs on our time slips at SITC could not have been correct, they were way off base, they said they corrected the problem and Sunday it ran 109, not sure if it was right or not. At the Augusta Southern Nationals in July it was knocking on 100 mph on the big end, keep in mind that we have a 125' margin from the rope to the starting line beam so you get some momentum before the timed run starts. Either way the boat should run close to those numbers on the big end, propped for top end would easily put in triple digits, it get's to a point where you don't want to find the "limit" if ya know what I mean, we are mainly concerned with what our boats will E.T. when it comes to racing off the ropes, MPH is just another number the computer spits out to make you wonder sometimes.

As far as running pics, my wife took a lot of pics of all of us running at SITC she didn't get as many of Dad going down the track but the "professional" photographers were there for StarCam and they will have all the SITC photos posted on Oct. 19th, they said due to their schedule that's the earliest they will post them. they had some good shots of the Checkmate running a full pass.
No video that we know of was taken, unless an individual got it on camera.
Here's the link to StarCam so you can keep checking, They usually post several pages of all classes from SITC.
http://www.star-cards.net/starcam.html

Thanks for all the comments an interest.
-Michael
 
That is one sharp boat. Old school meets new school. I'll bet there where a bunch of people shaking there head at that one. Rex has the same problem running the Chrysler motors.
Welcome to the site and thanks for the write up and pictures.
 
175checkmate said:
That is one sharp boat. Old school meets new school. I'll bet there where a bunch of people shaking there head at that one. Rex has the same problem running the Chrysler motors.
Welcome to the site and thanks for the write up and pictures.
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Yep, lot's of head shaking and asking "are ya'll sure this thing will run in the 9's"? And "this thing looks dangerous as hell".

After the first pass the comments were "we never would have bet on it but it sure will run the number". " that's amazing".

It even surprised all of us. Goes to show that it doesn't always take a fancy high dollar race boat to be competetive, it did better than our other boats which are far more complicated. It got ol' Rex fired up to bring the Laser with the "chizzler" next year. I can't wait for that. It will be one hell of a time you can bet.
-Michael
 
Awesome thread! Mike,thanks for your contribution. That is one beautiful boat!
It's neat that you still have this family activity.
 
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