I met the owner of the Tunanator, Randy Carpenter,
about 3 years ago under an unusual set of circumstances. He had gotten himself
into a predicament late on a Sunday afternoon while trying to take his boat
through the Channel Islands Harbor to his home in Mandalay Bay..he needed
to pass under a bridge. The tide was high this day and Randy, in a hurry
to get home, decided that using a saw on his mast was the solution to arriving
on time to his dinner date that evening. The following Monday, Randy showed
up at my shop with the top five feet of his mast in back of his truck along
with all the antennas dangling.
He mentioned that someone told him I could make most
anything and showed me a drawing of what he'd like to have fabricated for
his boat - - a hydraulically controlled lay-down mast capable of holding
a variety of antennas, lights, and a satellite TV/communications dome. To
make a long story short, 2 months and $7,000.00 later we became pretty good
friends.
Over the next year or so, I learned quite a bit about his 60 ft Elliot that
was built in Southern California in 1970. It was powered with twin Cummins
903's (450hp V8's) w/ remote V-drive power-trains. This boat was in pristine
condition and, since new, was always kept that way. There had been many
upgrades over the years but a modern power-train wasn't one of them. Randy
loved the boat but was not happy with the 9-10 knot cruise. We started discussing
what type of performance we could get with some modern higher hp diesels
and how we could work around the existing engine room dimensions. Although
the engine room was clean, it was quite difficult to work in due to the
layout of the present engines, generators, etc. The 903's were quite large
for their power and the boat had two large 15kW Northern Light generators
between the main engines making for difficult maintenance for anyone but
the skinniest of people.
After much research into the existing performance, propellers, etc. on his
boat, I determined that the best choice would be a set of Cummins QSM's
(635hp), a pair of remote-mounted Twin Disc 5114RV remote V-drives, and
a pair of 21kW Onan generators. After a thorough redesign of the engine
room layout, we were able to accomplish this repower and make the engine
room bright, spacious, and much simpler to maintain. |
