In June of 2022, we had a very unfortunate incident in the Florida Keys with our J16 Carolina Skiff. The boat was taking on water and it turns out it was because of a busted, rotten transom. The transom was giving and bending upon acceleration which was causing major performance issues and finally on this outing we began to see water intrusion because of the cracked transom.

Upon discovery of this problem, we decided not only to rebuild the transom but to completely transform the rear end of the boat building a new fiberglass rear deck with rod holders and cup holders as well as building on a polling platform. The platform we got is a little large for a J16 Carolina Skiff and I was concerned that with all of the upgrades we gave to the boat that the added weight would cause more performance issues or even cause the boat to be unusable.

After almost 18 months of labor and effort to get the boat where we wanted it to be, this day would mark the first voyage on the water to test out the upgrades we made to the boat. How would it perform? Would it be too heavy? Is the weight of the boat going to be balanced correctly? Will Lorenzo be able to stand on the polling platform? How fast will the boat go - will the added weight cause a decrease in speed? All of these questions and more will be answered in this video.

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