1997 Super Sport - Red/Black AIR - Work in Progress ---Lots of Photos

[Brichter14]

After driving to Atlanta to walk away from a supersport I drove from IL to Minneapolis to pick up this beauty. It is a 1997 Super Sport with the Flight control tower and has perfect pass installed. No ballast. Which is perfect because factory ballast is a joke and I am going to put in my own system. I had been searching for about a month and two weeks earlier I sold my old Sea Ray 180br and I was without a boat for the beginning of July. That was a struggle. Anyways I found this boat on Onlyinboards about a day after it was posted. I called right away and asked a few questions about the boat. They had it listed for 19995 which I thought was a great starting price in order to get it in my range. We finally agreed to a price on the phone and I set off at 5 am to go get it.

I paid 18500 for this beauty.

[Brichter14]

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[Brichter14]

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[Brichter14]

Working on cleaning up that swim platform











Relocated the battery and put a storage thing next to driver seat

[Brichter14]

Reserved for updates!

[surroundsound64]

Cool! How many hours? Interesting teak work... Never seen anyone stain it but it looks great!

[Brichter14]

633 hours, that platform is not done, that was after the first coat. I just put on the second coat and im going to put on the clearcoat tomorrow. After reading about the annoyance of teak oil (having to re apply so often) i decided to stain it and clearcoat it. The boat is stored indoors so i shoudnt have a problem with it cracking or flaking. Nice thing about teak is you can always just sand it and try something else!

[s_kelley2000]

Very nice looking boat and you did GREAT on price especially considering the overall condition, perfect pass and FCT. Congratulations on a sweet wakeboarding machine and I am glad your second road trip yielded better results than your first one. Not sure what your ballast plans are but 750's fit on either side of the engine and leave you enough room for vests, ropes etc when they are full. The Fly High 600# back seat sack fits well in the ski locker in the floor. My 99 has the walk through bow instead of the playpen so I am not sure it will work for you but I use the integrated open bow sac under the seats and it probably fills to 400 lbs or so.

Where did you move the battery to? Up on the "shelf" behind the back seat?

Is that an O'brien Apex that I spied under the observers seat? Are you using it for surfing? That was my first board back in 93 or so.

I like that storage thing next to the driver and I might copy that. Did you just pick that up at an autoparts store? If you got it online please pass along the link.

[Brichter14]

The dealership offered me 20% off everything in the proshop so I bought 2 750s for the engine compartment. I'm just gonna use one for now and just put it in the seating area and manually fill it for the rest of the summer. Over the winter I'm going to put in an automatic aerator system with the two 750s and a 580 in the locker with lead in the bow.

Yeah that is an old obrien skurf board. We tried to surf with it but I don't think we had enough weight in the boat. It also is pretty long and skinny so I don't know how well it will work.

Sadly the console thing was bought for 5$ at a garage sale about 2 years ago. It sat in my garage this whole time cuz I couldn't think of anything to use it for. It was just an impulse purchase that ended up getting a use.


Heres some pics of the teak platform with second coat. Kinda wish I went with satin instead of gloss. Well see how it looks on the water.






and the throttle knob

[Pjoachim]

Did the platform get super slick with the stain and poly on it?

[Brichter14]

[QUOTE=s_kelley2000;209532]

Where did you move the battery to? Up on the "shelf" behind the back seat?

/QUOTE]


Yeah, it seemed like a decent spot. It's not the most "secure" spot. Any problems with this location? Also I put some neoprene on the hatch actuator to protect it from future bag expansion.


The teak with stain and clear coat that it had when I bought it was pretty slick, I'm sure what I'm doing to it now will be pretty slick too. I'm not sure what would remedy that without adding sea deck or something. Suggestions?

[5bison]

I really like this Boat… I bought a 98 air a year ago and I had to drive form ND to WA to pick it up… You’re boat was three hours from my house! I have the same tower as you. I hated how it sits on those grab handles when it is down, so I bought some foam pipe insulation form Home depot and cut two one foot chunks of it off to slip over the grab rails. I just through them in the glove box when I put the tower up. Looks like a good boat and a fair price.

[5bison]

IMHO you never clear a teak deck… I have had two boats that came with cleared decks and they both looked very bad. I had to strip them down to bare teak and start over. Now I just put new oil on mine every off season, it is no big deal. Hopefully your clear stays on and you don’t have any problems with it.

[5bison]

[QUOTE=Brichter14;209553]

Where did you move the battery to? Up on the "shelf" behind the back seat?

/QUOTE]


Yeah, it seemed like a decent spot. It's not the most "secure" spot. Any problems with this location? Also I put some neoprene on the hatch actuator to protect it from future bag expansion.


The teak with stain and clear coat that it had when I bought it was pretty slick, I'm sure what I'm doing to it now will be pretty slick too. I'm not sure what would remedy that without adding sea deck or something. Suggestions?

IMHO you never clear a teak deck… I have had two boats that came with cleared decks and they both looked very bad. I had to strip them down to bare teak and start over. Now I just put new oil on mine every off season, it is no big deal. Hopefully your clear stays on and you don’t have any problems with it.

[s_kelley2000]

I just noticed it in one of your pictures and that location for the battery should be fine. I believe it was the factory location in 99 but mine is up on that shelf with long side of the battery flush against the back seat and it is very stable. If yours is stable where it is then it should be fine but I have no problem getting the 750 very close to full with the battery in it's current location. Let me know if you want to see a pic of my battery setup with a bag in place. I like your idea of adding neoprene to the actuator but so far I have not had any problems with it rubbing against the sac.

There are some very good ballast plumbing threads on here that you should check out before you make a decision on how you want to do it. Reversible impeller pumps will end up being a little more expensive than aerators but it seems to be a much easier install and a more reliable system that doesn't require opening and closing valves to fill and drain. I am still filling all my sacs manually but I plan to plumb in an impeller system this winter.

I tried surfing that old O'brien once and from my experience it will be tough unless you have a massive wave. There really just isn't enough buoyancy for it to work I don't think.

Since you are planning just to use the 750s for wakeboarding this summer I might have a good solution for you. Fill the 750 in the main lounge like you planned and then place the other 750 in the bow so that it is running parallel to the windshield. On the maiden voyage when I first bought my boat the engine dividers were out and I didn't bother putting them back in because I knew I'd be going through everything in the engine in short order so I didn't want to stick any sacs in the rear compartment without dividers. I weighed it like above with some 500 lbs sacs and it produced a very nice wake. If you stick with just one 750 in the main lounged I would try to get it as far forward in the cabin as you can to help in planing and to add a little ramp to that steep wake.