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Thirty-six-plus years
ago, a man was searching for a boat on which he and his son could fish
blue water. The man, who did most of his fishing out of Florida, talked
to three custom boatbuilding brothers named Rybovich about constructing
his dreamboat. After some discussion the man commissioned a 53-footer
dubbed Castabar. The sportfisherman was launched in 1968, and father and
son enjoyed untold boating adventures onboard her.
The son, who wishes
to remain anonymous, inherited this nautical heirloom and used her often.
Now grown up and an experienced angler, he enjoyed Castabar’s build,
ride, and layout. But after four decades of faithful service, the boat
was tired, and the owner realized it was time for a change. Having liked
Castabar so much, he turned to custom builder Ryco Marine and Michael
Rybovich, son of the late Emil Rybovich, one of the three brothers who
built Castabar, to craft him a 65-footer.
“I knew Michael
Rybovich still possessed the same family traits that his dad and uncles
had,” the owner explained to me. One of those traits is building
a sturdy, cold-molded boat without excessive weight, and the new boat,
also called Castabar, is no exception. Her bottom is comprised of three
layers of 5/16-inch mahogany planks glued in opposing directions with
epoxy resin to add strength. Two layers of 18.5-ounce fiberglass cloth
encapsulate the exterior of the hull, adding rigidity and providing a
moisture barrier, atop which is 1/16-inch of solid epoxy, which was faired
out before being painted. The interior of the hull is also fiberglass-encapsulated,
which stiffens and strengthens the entire structure. Engine beds and stringers
are clear fir and mahogany, laminated into place; the engine beds are
skinned with one-inch AB marine fir plywood and 3/8-inch-thick aluminum
caps to support the boat’s 1,400-hp Caterpillar 3412 diesels.
As a result of her construction,
Castabar comes in at 67,000 pounds (dry), 15,000 to 20,000 pounds less
than comparably sized, conventionally laminated boats. Nevertheless, she’s
built to chase horizons, as I learned on test day. The 10- to 20-mph northwest
breeze cutting across Key Largo, Florida, didn’t whip up any seas
that could challenge her hull form, which has a bell shape forward that
modifies to a convex shape amidships, where deadrise is about 18 degrees.
In fact, she made mincemeat of the two- to three-foot chop. Spray rails
running her entire length prevented any of the squashed chop from riding
up the hull. Castabar was dry the whole day; not even a sneeze of spray
worked its way to the flying bridge. And she was stable, too, thanks to
aft sections that flatten to nine degrees at the transom.
Seeing how that design
translates into performance out of the water was almost as impressive
to me as learning about her build. Castabar’s Cats are coupled to
Twin Disc transmissions and 33x43 four-blade Veem wheels, all of which
helped propel her to a top average speed of 45.5 mph (2320 rpm) while
burning 138 gph. Castabar’s captain, Dominic Ullom, Jr., told me
that he usually runs the boat at about 1800 rpm, where she burns around
80 gph (can you say fuel miserly?) at 35 mph. It’s here that you
can best see how hull design, power, and weight savings come together.
Next page >
Part
2: She turned on a dime with nary a drop in rpm, another effect of Ryco’s efficient hull. > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
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