You can put as much HP to a Cmate as you want (usually rated for more than the competitiors) w/o breaking it it, and I'll take the same size Cmate as any competitor you want to bring and we'll race across Lake erie and back and see which one breaks first!!:eek: When I was selling them and customers would want me to compare strength/quality to other brands (including Baja which had a huge competeing dealer to us), I'd always respond the same. Was looking for a twin O/B 25' when I bought my Sonic but could'nt find one. Used to be a couple of guys around w/V-6's on these things that were running 85 - 90. That was always my favorite era of the O/B's though because they did'nt have **** for interiors and were the lightest/fastest boats they ever built! 5 MPH difference with at least 20 extra HP's. My Stream on the other hand ran 75 w/a 150 Merc V-6 before I gutted it. We figured with the thin head gaskets and some testing we probably could have gotten 70 out of it with that motor. Bought and installed a '80 (I think) 140 flow that had been up-dated to the thick, low compression head gaskets.īoat would launch hard w/a 24" Raker, run dead on 60, and make you think you could blow it over!! I've got pictures of my Stream that is 8 yrs newer and did'nt fare quite so well if anyone doubts the difference? Not bad for sitting out side its entire freaking life!! This boat was 100% balsa core and structurally perfect. Made this one from plywood, glassed it and painted it to match the boat. It had the original windshield on it which was about 5' tall and looked like it was from a 1969 25' Starcraft!! I took it off and cut it up and re-assembled it about 10 times before giving up and **** canning it. The seats were toast and I threw them in a dumpster on my way home with the boat. This boat sat outside uncovered for it's entire life until I bought it!! The picture bellow is of a 1969 16' Mate that I bought and re-habbed several years ago. Looks like Shannon really rolled out the red carpet for you, sorry I had to miss it!! JW, now I'm jealous!! While you were doing that I was digging through bone yards for van parts. I always thought it would be fun to pick through there field of old molds, buy one, up date the bottom, lighten it up by a few hundred pounds and go play!! When I sold them back in the 80's you could still custom order a hull with light lay up, blue printed bottom, Kevlar construction. Construction wise, I can tell you first hand there is no comparrison!! One really is a family performance boat and one is a light weight race boat. Have read many times about the comparrisons between Cmates and Streams etc. They also went bankrupt and were bought/bailed out and now owned by Mercruiser/Brunswick.Īlso good point about runnning in chop. That was kind of what I was reffering to when I said Cmate did'nt fall into the design of the week club.īaja did. Howie also made a good point at Baja passing them in the market place. For the first several years of Baja production, their boats were identical to (in design) several model year older Cmates.īaja actually went into business originally building fiberglass storage containers for Cmate then struck a deal with Bill Combs (owner of Cmate) for his out dated molds.ĭragonWolfe, I went through my entire collection of pictures for you and only found one of that rig. They "legally" leased the molds from Cmate to build boats from. Howie, here is a good place for discussion on splashing. Hope this helps, and if you need to know more, let me know. I am 43 yrs old and have passed the factory alnmost every weekend every Summer on my way to Lake Erie the entire time.Įven back to when the were running factory OPC tunnel boats. The boat was 100% balsa core.Īll I did was paint it and replace the interior. I restored, re-rigged a '69 16' that sat out side un covered every day of its life untill I bought it. Box stock boats too, not one off light lay ups. There is a dealer about an hour from the factory, that has been a dealer since the early 70's used to make the O/B's fly but has changed with the times to I/O's.Īny how, he has taken one of every model 22' or bigger and made 100 MPH boats out of them. They will take as many HP's as you can afford. I know there are a lot of detracters on this board, but mostly because thet don't know what the hell they're talking about! Some of them are definately dated, but still a killer, bullet proof boat and a lot for the money. Never got caught up in the design of the week like a lot of builders. I give Combs a lot of credit for sticking to his guns. Used to hold a bunch of OPC endurance records as well as some OffShore. Went to I/O's in around mid 70's after plating with jets too. Spent the first 15 or so years concentrating almost entirely on O/B's. Started and still owned by the original owner, Bill Combs.
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