Old Skewl Kool!

[Reed]

Awesome boat a 15ft going 112.... nice ( shakes head mine is 16ft, a little more motor mabye and I can't break 65 yet ) I found I have a 2.1 ratio in my lower unit, grrrrr have to tune in my set-up lol

 

[M.Chapman]

Awesome thread! Mike,thanks for your contribution. That is one beautiful boat!
It's neat that you still have this family activity.

Yep, we enjoy the racing, it's been in our blood, I can remember as a chid (probably 5-7yrs old maybe) sitting on the floor in front of his drivers seat with my own helmet and lifevest on looking through the steering wheel and him running the 15 footers up to 100. It was like getting something injected into your veines or maybe somewhat like a "crackbaby". Now I have to do it to. Those little boats are fun and will run good and safe with a lot of HP. It's surprises a lot of people how well it handles.
-Michael

 

[M.Chapman]

Yep, we enjoy the racing, it's been in our blood, I can remember as a chid (probably 5-7yrs old maybe) sitting on the floor in front of his drivers seat with my own helmet and lifevest on looking through the steering wheel and him running the 15 footers up to 100. It was like getting something injected into your veines or maybe somewhat like a "crackbaby". Now I have to do it to. Those little boats are fun and will run good and safe with a lot of HP. It's surprises a lot of people how well it handles.
-Michael

For those of you who wanted to see some running pics of the V-mate hit this link and you'll see some, there are sevaral pages you may need to scroll through.
-Michael
http://www.star-cards.net/starcam.html

 

[illMATTic]

look at the "smokin in the cove" race. pages 12,14 you will see a pic.

 

[SCT]

I saw this pix of M chapman's dad over on S&F:

 

[six four]

what is the difference in the hull/pad on the v-mat like chapmans and the mx-15 close to the same yr?

 

[supergenius74]

wow, I always wondered what it would be like if i had put my bridgeport on my mx-15......cool

 

[Reed]

Awesome boat a 15ft going 112.... nice ( shakes head mine is 16ft, a little more motor mabye and I can't break 65 yet ) I found I have a 2.1 ratio in my lower unit, grrrrr have to tune in my set-up lol

I'm not sure on my gear ratio yet....have a few adjustments to make and I'll be closer to 75mph I hope this season since I moved to Columbia City I'll have to see if I can find Shane at the lake lol .

 

[M.Chapman]

Shandon,
Here are the inside and bottom pics you wanted.
-Michael

 

[SCT]

Michael, cool pixs........thanks for sharing!


What is the metal box piece on the bottom of the transom above the drain plug?

 

[zstevens]

What is the metal box piece on the bottom of the transom above the drain plug?[/quote]
isn't that a form of a hole shot plate ? to prevent the jack plate from scooping water

 

[supergenius74]

i wish i could see a video of this boat running, this is just like my old MX-15 and i always dreamed of putting my BP 2.4 on it and setting it up like this.

 

[M.Chapman]

The box plate serves double duty as a planing plate but it also "fools" the boat into thinking it has a step bottom. It helps stabilize it during the run. This boat handled good with a Big 4 3/4" coned gearcase but achieved best results with the XR 4 1/4" case with the plate on the transom.
We are setting up another one of these for a customer (with less HP) and we will first test without the plate. Not sure if it is actually needed but it can't hurt. When Dad ran these hulls back in the day they handled plenty of HP without these types of plates or LWP coned gearcases, they were limited to what they had at their disposal back then. Nowadays it just depends on how far you are gonna push them and with all the props we have available some of them may need a little extra help on the set ups. But it's pretty easy to get one to handle like a dream with big HP. I think Dad told Shandon on the phone that he could "eat a sandwich with one hand and drive with the other". I don't know that I would go that far but it's close to it.
-Michael

 

[six four]

The box plate serves double duty as a planing plate but it also "fools" the boat into thinking it has a step bottom. It helps stabilize it during the run. This boat handled good with a Big 4 3/4" coned gearcase but achieved best results with the XR 4 1/4" case with the plate on the transom.
We are setting up another one of these for a customer (with less HP) and we will first test without the plate. Not sure if it is actually needed but it can't hurt. When Dad ran these hulls back in the day they handled plenty of HP without these types of plates or LWP coned gearcases, they were limited to what they had at their disposal back then. Nowadays it just depends on how far you are gonna push them and with all the props we have available some of them may need a little extra help on the set ups. But it's pretty easy to get one to handle like a dream with big HP. I think Dad told Shandon on the phone that he could "eat a sandwich with one hand and drive with the other". I don't know that I would go that far but it's close to it.
-Michael

yeap thats what he said, I will probably take alot of seat time before I try to eat a samwich,lol.. Micheal, have ya'll ran the other customers boat yet to see what its gonna do? I got my deck off and the transom tore out. It was a peice of cake to tear apart compared to the powercats we build.
I'm getting closer so get ready for some phone calls,lol

 

[Reed]

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

I was curious about the ~ aluminum box~ under the jack plate, can a guy get the dimensions of that box?? I know it's a stabelizer to make the boat think it has a pad~ it would work nice on my Trimate II

 

[M.Chapman]

Sorry for not responding sooner, I don't get emails to notify me of a new post.

I'll get you fella's some measurements on the plate.

Dad ran the boat at Augusta this past weekend and it ran 2- 11.80's and a 11.70 et. Had to pedal it to stay in the 12's. We gonna throw some weight in it for this week in high point.

-Michael

 

[M.Chapman]

yeap thats what he said, I will probably take alot of seat time before I try to eat a samwich,lol.. Micheal, have ya'll ran the other customers boat yet to see what its gonna do? I got my deck off and the transom tore out. It was a peice of cake to tear apart compared to the powercats we build.
I'm getting closer so get ready for some phone calls,lol

Give me a shout whenever you get to that point and we'll give you anything you need.
-Michael

 

[M.Chapman]

Just thought I'd let all of you know that Dad's V-Mate won the second chance class for the 9sec. class at Smokin in the Cove this weekend. We finally got it slowed down enough to not breakout. In qualifying he ran 8.55, 8.80, 8.85, then dumped it near the end of the run in rnd 4 to only run a 9.34. Ended up 17th on the grid so ran the sec. chance race and went through the pack and got the win. We had 197.5 lbs. of lead in the thing to keep it in the 9's. It was on a rail all weekend. I think Shandon got some video of it this year, hopefully he'll get it posted.

-Michael

 

[briannelson2003]

just noticed your post. you are bout 30 minutes away from me. do you and your dad ever run lake murray? nice rig by the way. some good pointers on getting speed with a small hull.

 

[Vandalizer]

Congrats on the win!!