Any one who has looked at a Reefrunner built since about 1994 will have noticed the two access hatches in the walkway between the seats. As supplied from the factory, this is a large area with a divider. A solid fibreglass moulding. Most people use this to store fenders, etc. Bit of a waste of that space, really, as it is 1.5 metres long, wide and deep. One of the first things I did was to rip the divider out--it is not structural, just a piece of synthetic board with two screws each side. Feeling around under there, it felt like it wasn't sealed, ie, fill it up with slurry and it would slop over into the space below deck. So I have used various fish bags with varying success--I eventually settled on a medium Madfish bag, which fitted perfectly once in, but needed to be fed in through a small hole, and you had to remove most of the fish before you could lift it out. Standard setup below.
I decided to give the job to a boatbuilder, and, as the panel is easily removable, just dropped it off to him. The space below that panel is huge, and is actually fully sealed to the deck. At least 250 litres capacity. There are two drains as supplied--the one you can see now has a permanently installed plug, with the other drain at the rear, out of sight in the pic.
Very nice and a much better setup. Just a question of insulation. I did something similar to my Allison but found that the slurry didn't last due to the thin side walls. In the process of insulating it now.
Mate, was up the Wallis lakes (NSW) area , Forster, last week for health reasons, and on the water saw a reefrunner yammy v8 and it was a sweet looking boat, sounded awesome and across the water , very impressive,
Would be a happy owner every day of the week.
Muz
Only about 6mm thick glass, no insulation. I could insulate the sides, but not the bottom or ends. So I'll just stick with the fish bag in the hole--that will hold well overnight . Now to fill it up with Rubies and Goldband when we go to Exmouth in November.
They are a great thing if you have the space under the deck, Gazza. Always been a fan. I actually made one under the deck of my UB 19 Yamaha 'banana boat" back in the nineties--there was an unused space under the deck behind the console, covered by a screwed-down panel. ( Fuel tank was under deck in front of the console. ) it wasn't easy, as the space extended back behind the opening, but I managed to get the whole thing insulated and flo-coated, really useful and held ice well.
If you are working in a space below deck , I'd do what I do when making an icebox--cut all the insulation pieces to size, then glass them both sides, laying flat, just leaving a small strip around each edge. Then, when you put it all together, you really only have the tabbing to do around the joins. This means most of your work is done in the horizontal plane, rather than having to work large areas in the vertical.
Yeah Ran i have a small area maybe 50cm wide, 65cm long but my keel stringer is running thru the middle i dont mind cutting it down say 20cm i could fit a few legal kingys in there if i made the foam walls slim it would only need to hold ice for 15-20 hours max
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