should I get a cheapish s/h zodiac projet 350 for tender?

[vas]

hello all,

following my searches for the perfect tender (yeah I know doesn't exist, or if it does I cannot afford it!) I've setup some discussions regarding size and type and in my mind I've been going round in circles.

Have seen a number of s/h tenders (all ribs) I very much liked the walkerbay but sadly nothing on sale at the size I want and also saw two ali hulled aquamars which were rather nice at a price I can afford. They were 2007 year (looks like before production moved from NZ to CH) in v.good nick and on both same type of electrolysis at the aft by the tubes. Not v. happy, but can live with that. Electrolysis seems to have been repaired/welded and touched up with paint in both ribs.

Now, searching last week I came across a few Zodiac Projet 350 things mostly with the yamaha two cylinder two stroke engine (80something hp), the more expensive ones with the Rotax four stroke one. Surprisingly not a single williams or avon. Am I right in thinking that the Avon and Zodiac of that era are identical?

Saw one which was a wreck (literally) restored by a guy, had done engine, replaced the impeller housing, did all sorts of things to it, had it running without any fancy metallic sounds of the impeller touching the housing, but tubes although intact were v.dirty and inside was plain dirt. I'll have another look in 10days when I'm back in Athens mainly to see how good this thing can be made to look like. He claims he'll have it look as new, clean with polished hull, restored and clean tubes etc.

There's another one in much better condition (at least from the pics but haven't seen it in real life) and much cheaper price 2500euro for a 2007 model which I'll go and test drive next time I'm in Athens.

Facts:
MiToS was originally fitted with two DD and no idea what gearboxes. The change to IVECOs and Twindisk boxes means that it's at least 1000 lighter and it shows at stern compared to other Mysteres.
On the other hand, I've added 120kg by swapping passerelles, an extra 100kg bathing platform whereas my other mods probably have no ill effects on weight distribution.
So, balance wise, adding a 300kg tender at the stern is unsurprisingly NOT going to affect balance, just improve it and restore it to a great extend.
Passarelle is rated to 400kg, so no probs there either.
Bathing platform is strong enough had a number of teens jumping up and down plus on a few occasions 90kg idiots jumping straight to the platform from the pontoon (not happy about it!), fitting two most likely sliding chocks underneath for the keel to rest say 200mm aft of the bathing platform end is no problem at al.
Really like the layout with reasonably balanced weight (engine in the middle under the steering console) petrol tank under the mid seat which is in front of the console, comfy seating for all. OK not massive storage but tbh don't care!
Also bear in mind that on the s/h market down here a decent 10yo rib with a 15hp engine (tiller steering) will be around 2K, the jetrib is going to be 2.5K. If I get one of the aquamars and go through the hassle of fabricating a rear seat, buy the remote tiller kit and remote control stuff and design and built a console I'll easily reach 3K in total.

So, can you give me please real and serious reasons NOT to get a jet tender!

• I mean, having a noisy 2T engine, is not a real problem
• Breaking down all the time, I very much doubt it, but I'm pretty confident I can sort it and can clean it often to make sure housing is clean and engine flushed. A two stroke that fails all the time is something I cannot comprehend, am I wrong?
• steering at slow speeds is crap, I'm sure I can live with it.
• lifting up and down should be straight forward with the passerelle.

Main use will be mooring in a bay and using it to go the land with various kit you carry for a few hours out, explore surrounding bays, kids skiing (surprisingly both started been interested on that) and generally fooling around. All that it can do without issues.
However, going to the beach you cannot pull it up the sand or pebbles, but easy enough to use a small umbrella anchor and keep it put in 2 or 1m water in front of you...

Only problem I can see is using it in the evening (as in dressed) to go for a walk, dinner whatever. Up till now I'd drag it up the beach and push it back in on my return. I don't want to even think of doing it with 300kg. Some places wont even have a place to tie the dinghy for a few hours. Cannot leave it bobbing about with the anchor in the shallows and no way to get out and back in without getting wet (well I can think of tiny windlass and remote controlling it, but it's getting silly)
So what do the Med experts think/do in such cases?
TBH, wont be many such cases, but there will be some embarrassing situations were I'll have to tell the wife that no, we cannot meet our land friends in their house tonight...

cheers

V.

 

[MapisM]

Passarelle is rated to 400kg, so no probs there either.

Wow, you've got a helluva passerelle. I suppose that was also replaced, right?
I'm just wondering if the transom, on top of the passerelle as such, is adequate.
By having 300+Kg hanging at the tip of a fully extended passerelle, you are putting a HUGE load wherever the piston and hinge are attached...

 

[vas]

Wow, you've got a helluva passerelle. I suppose that was also replaced, right?
I'm just wondering if the transom, on top of the passerelle as such, is adequate.
By having 300+Kg hanging at the tip of a fully extended passerelle, you are putting a HUGE load wherever the piston and hinge are attached...

yep, MiToS had a light alloy bezensoni manual non folding passerelle, this is a heavy duty ALMAR.
Mind dinghy mount is on the the main section, telescopic part does nothing there and there's a third ram to tilt a ladder under the main section to shift the tender and avoid the platform.
Top of the transom is STRONG, a layered epoxied together curved beam of 80X20mm iroko strips, a 20mm ply bolted and glued on top and another 25mm iroko beam epoxied and bolted down. All that meeting the sides and joined to the frames coming from the transom (which is 20mm ply) Had a three guys jumping up and down at the telescopic part of the passerelle, all's fine.
The ram mount on the transom is at the aft deck level (on purpose!) so the whole deck works as a disk distributing the forces generated
30mm solid steel hinges on the ram, should be fine...

P, I'm pretty sure it will be OK, now looking frwd on your opinion on the actual questions

cheers

V.

 

[MapisM]

P, I'm pretty sure it will be OK, now looking frwd on your opinion on the actual questions

Well V, there are two reasons why I also discussed the jetrib option with swmbo (who liked it, in principle), but eventually agreed to rule it out:
1) I've yet to meet someone who owned a jetrib for a while and didn't have some sort of headache, sooner or later.
2) We wanted to leave a decent space on the platform, without needing to throw the thing in the water.
As a result, we will stay within 3m, even if the boat could take something much larger
So, 'fiuaskme, you can see why I would not take the route you are considering.
But that's pretty much an each to their own thing - I understand that your needs are different.

From a technical viewpoint, I can't fault your train of thought.
Actually, I don't think that 300kg fully astern are going to "restore" the weight distribution, because that's very far from the boat CoG, compared to the weight reduction of the engines.
The acid test is with trim tabs: is there any cruising condition/speed when the boat attitude improves by lowering them?
If yes (as I would guess), it means that the boat did NOT become too much stern light, after the engines replacement.
Anyhow, compared to the original design, the engines replacement surely gives you some room to play with.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of the 350 in place.
That will probably be the new forum record in terms of tender/mothership size ratio, beating also Hurricane and his Novu... :encouragement:

 

[jfm]

Vas, if the jetrib floats your boat then get it. It's one of those items you perhaps have to get out of your system by owning it for a few years. I had a couple as you know and initially loved them, before "growing up". The thing is noisy, and unless the engine is good it is smokey. The engine is very simple - 2T, carburettor, little oil injector into the fuel line, and not even a water pump for the (raw) cooling. Zillions were made for jetskis so there are lots of internet resources.

The boat goes fast and does exciting turns if you apply fast full lock at WOT (wear the kill cord). It is a pig to steer at low speed, but it is possible. As guest transport it is far less than perfect but as a fast toy it is good. It is useless in waves because it slams and loses power as it flies off a wave. Although the engine is simple the access isn't great. It can look ok esp if you tart it up with teak decks. You must flush the impeller each time or it seizes quickly. There is a plug in engine flusher too, but you must have the engine running so as not to fill the exhaust ports. The engine can run dry because there is no pump/no impeller for cooling water.

On the few occasions I have wanted to anchor a tender off a beach without actually beaching it, and wearing clothes that I don't want to get wet, I attach a pulley or big ring to the anchor on 1/2m of rope, then use a 20m long loop of rope threaded through the pulley to wind the boat back out to sea, and later to pull it back to the beach. Then use another anchor or tree/rock on the beach to tie the loop too. See what I mean? Is very easy. The anchor needs to be better than an umbrella to resist the pull of the rope as you haul the tender in/out. I use a small Delta, about 10kg I think. The umbrella would be ok for the beach end of things, maybe with a rock placed on it

 

[vas]

Well V, there are two reasons why I also discussed the jetrib option with swmbo (who liked it, in principle), but eventually agreed to rule it out:
1) I've yet to meet someone who owned a jetrib for a while and didn't have some sort of headache, sooner or later.
2) We wanted to leave a decent space on the platform, without needing to throw the thing in the water.
As a result, we will stay within 3m, even if the boat could take something much larger
So, 'fiuaskme, you can see why I would not take the route you are considering.
But that's pretty much an each to their own thing - I understand that your needs are different.

From a technical viewpoint, I can't fault your train of thought.
Actually, I don't think that 300kg fully astern are going to "restore" the weight distribution, because that's very far from the boat CoG, compared to the weight reduction of the engines.
The acid test is with trim tabs: is there any cruising condition/speed when the boat attitude improves by lowering them?
If yes (as I would guess), it means that the boat did NOT become too much stern light, after the engines replacement.
Anyhow, compared to the original design, the engines replacement surely gives you some room to play with.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of the 350 in place.
That will probably be the new forum record in terms of tender/mothership size ratio, beating also Hurricane and his Novu... :encouragement:

yep, we discussed the space in the platform issue before P. so your two reasons are not so much valid in my case.
Nah, Hurric Novu up the f/b is top

Vas, if the jetrib floats your boat then get it. It's one of those items you perhaps have to get out of your system by owning it for a few years. I had a couple as you know and initially loved them, before "growing up". The thing is noisy, and unless the engine is good it is smokey. The engine is very simple - 2T, carburettor, little oil injector into the fuel line, and not even a water pump for the (raw) cooling. Zillions were made for jetskis so there are lots of internet resources.

The boat goes fast and does exciting turns if you apply fast full lock at WOT (wear the kill cord). It is a pig to steer at low speed, but it is possible. As guest transport it is far less than perfect but as a fast toy it is good. It is useless in waves because it slams and loses power as it flies off a wave. Although the engine is simple the access isn't great. It can look ok esp if you tart it up with teak decks. You must flush the impeller each time or it seizes quickly. There is a plug in engine flusher too, but you must have the engine running so as not to fill the exhaust ports. The engine can run dry because there is no pump/no impeller for cooling water.

thanks J.,

I'm actually starting from the fact I hate tiller controlled ribs, fullstop!
I actually also dislike the plain hull you get with most of them, best you can get is a plain bow locker good enough for a small umbrella anchor with 20m of rope. Needless to say I wont pay half the money I paid for MiToS (originally!) for a decent walkerbay or Novu with a 30hp engine et al. However, 2.5K for a s/h jetrib sounds attractive

Having seen lots of different ribs, I'd very much like a purpose built rib (decent designwise and balancewise at least!) that has seats, engine and tank built in and NOT at the stern, etc.
So tbh I'm pretty much happy with the Zodiac design. If anything it's built like a tank, grp too thick for my liking.

For the record the one I'm most likely going to get (if it works out next week) is fitted with a four stroke rotax compared to the yamaha two stroke. Now, being also a 2007 model, I'm slightly confused if that's a repower or a factory fitted option. Four stroke with liquid cooled engine is imho a better option.

On the few occasions I have wanted to anchor a tender off a beach without actually beaching it, and wearing clothes that I don't want to get wet, I attach a pulley or big ring to the anchor on 1/2m of rope, then use a 20m long loop of rope threaded through the pulley to wind the boat back out to sea, and later to pull it back to the beach. Then use another anchor or tree/rock on the beach to tie the loop too. See what I mean? Is very easy. The anchor needs to be better than an umbrella to resist the pull of the rope as you haul the tender in/out. I use a small Delta, about 10kg I think. The umbrella would be ok for the beach end of things, maybe with a rock placed on it

thanks for the idea, I now recall seen it done by a friend on his permanent isle moorings just outside the house and it worked really well, so can definitely rig something like that.
Just bought a FX11 as a flat sea kedge when I cannot get to a nearby rock or tree, so could use that, bit of an overkill I know

I'll have to do some tests regarding mods necessary to the passarelle in order to easily slide in and out the jetrib. The up down is fine, the in out is slightly iffy with the size of the platform I built. Looks like I'm 300mm off centre, so one needs to pull (or push) the tender to launch or recover...

cheers

V.

 

[jfm]

I don't know the rotax engine well but there are zillions installed in jetskis so they must be ok. I have driven rotax-ed jetskis (Sea Doo) and the engines feel good.

I rather like the old fashioned simplicity of the Yamaha 83hp 2T though. So long as you can fiddle with a carb now and again, there is nothing to go wrong, except piston wear and smoke. I changed that boat for the new 4t weber engine avon jetrib, that I bought off a friend with 2.5 hours on the clock. Same engine as Williams, in those days. Crikey it was complex. Fresh water cooling to engine and intercooler. 4 valves per pot. Turbocharged and overhead cam. All sorts of sensors that didn't look very "marine" So tightly packed that you had to lift it out to fix anything. The hull cracked as with a lot of those early Avon 4T jet ribs and Avon gave me a whole new boat under warranty that I had delivered to EBY who sold it for me; I never even saw it. I sold the knackered one as a non functioning tender with my first sq58, so by 3.5 hours that jetrib was with its 3rd owner, and he had it fixed up. Anyway, I hope the Rotax engine is somewhat simpler than the early Weber.

 

[vas]

I don't know the rotax engine well but there are zillions installed in jetskis so they must be ok. I have driven rotax-ed jetskis (Sea Doo) and the engines feel good.

I rather like the old fashioned simplicity of the Yamaha 83hp 2T though. So long as you can fiddle with a carb now and again, there is nothing to go wrong, except piston wear and smoke. I changed that boat for the new 4t weber engine avon jetrib, that I bought off a friend with 2.5 hours on the clock. Same engine as Williams, in those days. Crikey it was complex. Fresh water cooling to engine and intercooler. 4 valves per pot. Turbocharged and overhead cam. All sorts of sensors that didn't look very "marine" So tightly packed that you had to lift it out to fix anything. The hull cracked as with a lot of those early Avon 4T jet ribs and Avon gave me a whole new boat under warranty that I had delivered to EBY who sold it for me; I never even saw it. I sold the knackered one as a non functioning tender with my first sq58, so by 3.5 hours that jetrib was with its 3rd owner, and he had it fixed up. Anyway, I hope the Rotax engine is somewhat simpler than the early Weber.

hm...

I was wrong the cheap one has a "low hours" weber 4T engine in it
You don't happen to have the service manual for that as well, do you?

A very annoying fact with Zodiacs is that there's v.little info anywhere, even product line, when they changed and what, drawings, anything!

we'll see what it looks like and I'll decide on the spot.

cheers

V.

 

[jfm]

The weber 4T is a complex beast. 105 hp from a thing not much bigger than your shoe. For the 2 months that I owned it, I looked at it and hoped it never went wrong, because it would be complex to fix and burn up my leisure time. I also thought it sounded pretty shoite

Sorry, I don't have the manual!

 

[vas]

The weber 4T is a complex beast. 105 hp from a thing not much bigger than your shoe. For the 2 months that I owned it, I looked at it and hoped it never went wrong, because it would be complex to fix and burn up my leisure time. I also thought it sounded pretty shoite

Sorry, I don't have the manual!

some people...

so, the 2T is noisy
and the 4T sounds crap
so if have to have a jetrib (don't ask why though!) the only option is to built a 2T turbodiesel with a straight through exhaust and make it sound like a DetroitDiesel

btw all these zodiacs are PVC (or anyway NOT Hypallon!) but even 10yo tubes look nice and clean.

cheers

V.

 

[MapisM]

so, the 2T is noisy
and the 4T sounds crap

V, just take it fwiw, but among those folks I mentioned before, who suffered jetrib headache at some stage, one went as far as throwing a whole 4T engine away (after several attempts to fix it) and replace it with a 2T.
Sorry, I can't remember the details, aside from the fact that the model involved was a Williams 325.
Anyway, eventually he sold it and went back to o/b, but he was much happier with the 2T engine, because (in his own words) at least it allowed him to find a buyer for the thing...

 

[jfm]

some people...

so, the 2T is noisy
and the 4T sounds crap
so if have to have a jetrib (don't ask why though!) the only option is to built a 2T turbodiesel with a straight through exhaust and make it sound like a DetroitDiesel

btw all these zodiacs are PVC (or anyway NOT Hypallon!) but even 10yo tubes look nice and clean.

cheers

V.

Tee he! As said above, if you fancy one then get it. You can sell it for 2.5k in a while, if you want. They are fun to play with, for a while. Full throttle, full lock!

My walker bay was pvc not hypalon and I thought it was fine. Couldn't tell the difference- it felt like normal rib hypalon.