Scooter

[Utah Scooter]

This is the scooter (I'm assuming I'll be able to download the pictures). It's 4' at the bottom, 12' long and about 18" sides. It has a rotax 447 with a 2.58 gearbox and a 56" 4 blade prop. I love this little boat. I bought it 4 years ago and it would go about 12 mph with 2 guys in it. It had a tunnel hull and a v nose on it, so I put a solid sheet of 1/8 aluminum on it and hoped it would do better because I was adding about 100 pounds to it. Now it'll do 28-30 almost everywhere and It doesn't matter what you put in it. I went for a ride by myself with nothing in the boat and it went 29.2 mph on the gps. The next day I went out with me (175 lbs.) my father in law (225) and my sister in law (80) and 3 dozen floater decoys, guns, etc. It went 28.6 mph. I have been pretty impressed by the boat. I fought with the points ignition for 3 years and got towed in on average 4 times a year because of this. I finally bought a cdi ignition and put new pistons and rings in it this year and it is awesome. Kind of a nice feeling when you can go out and feel confident that you can get back. I now dare to go out by myself in this boat. Maybe someone down there has seen this boat before. Everything was put together in 86 I believe. On the rudders there used to be a sticker that said "shallow water craft" and it had a picture of the boat (minus the windshield - that was me too). Just thought you guys would enjoy hearing some info on it. Brand new at sea level it would put out 40 hp. I'm guessing with the years and the altitude not much more than 30 hp now. It gets me around great. The thing I love about this is when the big boats are stuck in the sand I can pull up right next to them, help them get unstuck and then jump in, fire it up and drive out of there. I absolutely love doing that.

I'll have to try to figure the picture thing out later.

[Papee]

Thanks for joining, just choose the browse button when you are replying and find your photo then add the photo and it will upload it. it.

[Utah Scooter]

Here goes. . . hopefully it shows up. . . .

[Utah Scooter]

here you go

[Papee]

Nice, I'm wondering why you guys chose to put the solid wind deflectors on rather than a see -through windshield such as lexan or something else?

[Utah Scooter]

That makes sense, but the aluminum is cheaper and easier to come by. I was heading out the other morning and a bunch of ducks got up right in front of me and slammed into the windshield. I don't know if anything else would hold up very well with the cold and the pounding on the ice. I have it set up so that when you sit on the seat your line of vision is right over the top of the windshield. It deflects the wind off you but you can still look over the top while sitting comfortably. That's my excuse.

I took out my brother (matapatos) on my boat one time and he started building his boat the next week. Of course it has a bigger motor and looks better than mine, but what do you do?

[Matapatos]

I understand where your bro is coming from! Your boat is a retty sweet ride and hard to top. Even with a lot bigger motor, his doesn't perform that much better than yours! Ha ha These minis are such a blast, we only have 3 or 4 here in UT, they aren't catching on very quick. Most guys here have built their own boats, we have a couple old boat builders here that have forgotten what most people know about airboats that launched boat building here a while ago. We're seeing more and more factory boats now, but the mini is still kind of a mystery. So with the tradition still strong, but getting weaker, of building your own boat from the ground up, the mini might take a little while longer. Have fun, good looking boat, UT Scooter!

[Papee]

Mini's are great. There are from 30 to 50 around here but only a few that plane out. I get waved down almost every time I go out asking what I am running. I was out yesterday and ran all over the river withing a 10 mile stretch and only burned 5 gals of gas. As you said, mine don't run much different with two people in.

[Matapatos]

I love my mini and I know my bro loves his. We can go up on the shale where the big boats won't go and we can do about anything we want to and go where we want to. I know that 2-strokes aren't the most popular motors now, but even a 4-stroke has plenty of power. I live up here in UT where we can get snowmobile motors for a very reasonable price and for us, they are the way to go. They have tons of power and torque. They are far more powerful and torquey than 4-wheelers and motorbikes. They don't weigh a lot either. Mine weighs in at 73 lbs for the block. My bro's is even lighter and for his application its perfect. His boat is light and his motor is light so he really does get up and scoot! I'd like to think that we have the mini figured out up here, but we still have a lot to learn. All I know, is that I'm 100% satisfied with how my boat performs!