Yeah, we built it to be able to handle a bigger boat. There is definitely room.
does that include fuel, passengers, safety gear, day gear, water....
but... let's do just a quick check of the main things...
Eh, I'm going to go with the wet weight of the boat on an actual scale taken from the sea trial run from the manufacturer, as opposed to adding up dry weights, other numbers, guessing at certain things and so forth. On their website, GW has a figure of just under 9,400 lbs for the 285 Freedom "including persons, fuel, water, gear, engines & accessories." So, you can likely subtract 300-400 lbs for "persons" in that equation, but how many gallons of fuel do they have on board? What kind of gear, accessories and so forth as well? How much does all of the gear weigh? The boat in question also doesn't have a bow pulpit or bottom paint, both of which are also going to add weight to the boat. As mentioned above several different times now, if GW only used say 50-60 gallons of fuel in their test and that's where they're getting their weight figure from, the OP's boat has a total fuel tank capacity of 214 gallons, or an extra 160-170 gallons of fuel, at 6 lbs per gallon. If we're saying 9k lbs for the boat without persons on board, those extra 160-170 gallons of fuel alone are going to be an extra 1k lbs of added weight, putting the boat at over 10k lbs. That likely also doesn't include coolers, ice, bait tanks for fishing, other fishing gear, etc... which is only going to increase the amount of total weight. If the OP is going out fishing, has a considerable amount of extra gear on board, food/ice/drinks and so forth, I could definitely see his boat potentially being over 10k+ lbs... maybe even closer to 10.5k lbs depending...?I didn't see where he said he was using a test boat's weight. Based on what he's written, it sounds like he did the normal thing and calculated the weight himself. I don't make a habit of checking other people's homework
6,500 boat
1,100 engines (est)
1,284 gas
----------
8,884 plus whatever else
Yeah the wet weight says it includes gas, engines, gear, and people. Don't know how many people, how much fuel, or what "gear" they had on board. Seems like this is a number that should be an industry standard, and none of this "gear and people" stuff. Fill the fuel and water tank and then weigh it. No extra gear or people. Knowing the specific weight is kind of important for those of us with lifts.
Yes, I did that and then saw the 9300 number and figured the actual number is somewhere in between. Plus, I'm pretty sure this is how Grady came up with the 9300 number. I doubt they loaded it up and then actually weighed it. I don't bring hundreds of pounds of gear with me on a day trip. Usually just a cooler and a bag of towels. And I don't load up a bunch of people while its on the lift. And if I have to, I can manage the fuel weight situation by not filling the tank completely. 100 gallons is plenty for about 90% of the boating I do.I didn't see where he said he was using a test boat's weight. Based on what he's written, it sounds like he did the normal thing and calculated the weight himself. I don't make a habit of checking other people's homework
6,500 boat
1,100 engines (est)
1,284 gas
----------
8,884 plus whatever else
Yeah, I figure if its rated for 10K, it's probably just fine up to 11-12K.I don't have the exact answer... but I 100% agree with your line of thinking. Totally safe for that weight. And you likely won't even be at 9,400 all the time. But it's not like the lift is going to magically break at 10,100lbs. I have some friends with lifts and they're right at the max or even a bit over - and been that way for years. You're good - get 'er done!
