We're Building a Small Day Fishing Boat

shan

shan

Well-Known Member
Joined
14 Apr 2014
Messages
15,398
Location
East Algarve
Visit site
We recently sold our Mobo because we simply weren't using it enough: live too far away from it and work and weather never quite lining up. We had considered replacing it with Rodman 1250 but then having pondered it, we came to the conclusion that what we really want is a trailerable day boat for Portugal, to potter about the Ria Formosa and a Sailboat, when we retire, to potter about the Med. Having come to those conclusions, we set about finding a boat builder. Very fortunately, we found a boat builder a few miles away from us that was producing exactly what we wanted. We commissioned Levant Boats Levant 560 Sea Pro | Levantboats | Faro to build us a Levant 560 Sea Pro, with a few amendments of course. We have specified the bait well option, the A2 Console, the T4 T-Top, the S1 seat but with the S2 cushions, a seawater deck pump, Class 4 cat, currently deciding on chart plotters plus fish finder, down rigger and so forth and so on.

We have been invited to drop by whenever we like, which has been fantastic.

Current progress:

Levant 560 (1).jpegLevant 560 (2).jpeg
560 (2).jpeg

levant.jpg
 
Thank you. I will (or Mr Shan - seeing as he has his own YBW account) will update as progress is made.

The boatyard has been extremely accommodating. We are enjoying the experience.
 
shan said:
A Tohatsu 60hp.
Click to expand...
I see that anything up to 115hp can be fitted.

Is there a danger that 60hp might leave it slightly underpowered? I say that as I have a Jeanneau 4.7m in Spain which is both smaller and lighter which has a Yam 60, with more than 2 of us on board it’s a bit sluggish, I see that yours will weigh almost 40% more. No doubt the builder will have advised you, so apologies for offering an unsolicited opinion.
 
longjohnsilver said:
I see that anything up to 115hp can be fitted.

Is there a danger that 60hp might leave it slightly underpowered? I say that as I have a Jeanneau 4.7m in Spain which is both smaller and lighter which has a Yam 60, with more than 2 of us on board it’s a bit sluggish, I see that yours will weigh almost 40% more. No doubt the builder will have advised you, so apologies for offering an unsolicited opinion.
Click to expand...
We had considered it and spoken to him about it but as we are really only wanting to potter about at about 6 to 8 knots, it's not a major concern but there is still time to consider a larger outboard. We have not ruled it out. The info about the Jeanneau 4.7m is useful and certainly something to consider.
 
shan said:
I don't like the sound of "sluggish". Mr Shan and I are in a WhatsApp negotiation. ;)
Click to expand...
I do enjoy spending someone else’s money ? But seriously I would go larger If possible. I’m assuming a 4 stroke if pottering is a major use? 2 strokes aren’t so keen on slow running.
 
longjohnsilver said:
I do enjoy spending someone else’s money ? But seriously I would go larger If possible. I’m assuming a 4 stroke if pottering is a major use? 2 strokes aren’t so keen on slow running.
Click to expand...
Yes, 4 stroke. I have noticed you enjoying spending our money! ;)

Mr Shan is going to chat to Francisco today. We have to give him the details of the instrumentation we want to order, so a good opportunity to talk about the outboard.
 
DavidJ said:
What fun watching it being built.
Also very motivating for the guys doing the build so an excellent job will be done.
ps
You will forever praise yourself for going for the larger motor.
Click to expand...
It's really interesting. Also great fun seeing how the other boats they are building are coming along.
 
Thanks to LongJohnSilver spending our money :rolleyes: ;) , Francisco is very kindly arranging for us to test a Levant 560 (belonging to a friend of his) that has an 80hp 4 stroke on the back, so we can get a sense of what we want. It probably means upgrading to the 90hp as the price difference between the Tohatsu 75hp and 90hp is not much and the weight is the same.

Speaking of the weight increase - it means we will probably have to upgrade our tow vehicle. Thanks LongJohnSilver.:mad:

In terms of instrumentation, we have so far specced:

2 x GPSMap 923 displays

Panoptix livescope system

Garmin network expander

Garmin VHF radio + antenna & installation

NMEA network and data cable for the engine
 
shan said:
Now we just need to decide on an anchor.......... :unsure:
Click to expand...
In Spain I used to use a largish folding anchor, but it was not much use in the Sandy bottom where we usually anchor, so I bought a locally made danforth lookalike for about €30. Normally I’m not a great fan of danforths, but this has been excellent. But all depends on what type of seabed you’re going to be anchoring in. On our 48 footer back here we have a 40kilo delta which has never let us down, including a few proper gales.
Maybe a small fortress would be a good compromise.

Back to,outboards , I don’t think you’ll regret going larger. And getting a new car into the bargain must be good news. We’ll pop over to Portugal once everything's been sorted, you can both thank me in person ? And take us for a ride(y)
 
longjohnsilver said:
In Spain I used to use a largish folding anchor, but it was not much use in the Sandy bottom where we usually anchor, so I bought a locally made danforth lookalike for about €30. Normally I’m not a great fan of danforths, but this has been excellent. But all depends on what type of seabed you’re going to be anchoring in. On our 48 footer back here we have a 40kilo delta which has never let us down, including a few proper gales.
Maybe a small fortress would be a good compromise.

Back to,outboards , I don’t think you’ll regret going larger. And getting a new car into the bargain must be good news. We’ll pop over to Portugal once everything's been sorted, you can both thank me in person ? And take us for a ride(y)
Click to expand...
Oh, I assure you it will be an old banger, purely used for towing!

Happy to take you out in our little boat.... can't promise you will come back..... ;)

We had a Britany anchor with our last mobo, which seemed to work well in sandy bottoms; the Ria Formosa is mainly sandy bottomed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top