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Boat Consulting Services

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Arrange for my help now         Boat technical areas we have knowledge in         Consulting Agreement for Marine Related Services

Stop being frustrated....Give me a call, if we can't help we will suggest available options that will work towards your solution

We provide boat consulting services to both pleasure and commercial boat owners in addition to other marine business related consulting. Please read the short story below as it describes how we work, what you need to do to engage my services and some of the vast experience we have to offer. Our reputation is known as a being fair and honest people who will really care about your concerns. We promise you will receive personalized attention and if it is within our capability we will solve your problem or tell you what to do next. Sometimes people ask us to advise them what to do with older boats, some want to know about modifications, others what to know how to they should tackle a tough repair. No matter what the issue, if we can help we will give you the benefit of many, many years in the business of designing and building boats. Our significant resources are made fully available to solve any problem.

Our areas of expertise

A story of assistance provided to a real person like you:

The morning sun was just coming up as I met the customer named John Franklin at the dock for the first time.  The boat was a Aqua Sport 246 Walk-Around with twin 150 Mercury outboards. The boat's name was "Dream Weaver" lettered on her two exposed transom wells either side of the engines.  As I walked up to the dock the owner John asked, "are you Jim Rohr",  "yes I am" I replied..."are you John". John acknowledged with a nod of his head under a brown wide brim straw hat. John was about 50 years old and did not look his age. I noticed he had that look of someone who had spent a good deal of time out in the sun.  John told me what he looked like on the phone but somehow a minds image and the reality of someone's looks never fully connect. His boat was less than two years old and looked so new I had to check the transom Hull Identification Numbers to make sure of the year she was actually built.

Looking back to our first phone conversation, I explained briefly some of my associates backgrounds and my career spanning some 20 years in the boat business on all kinds of boats from 15' boats to 90 foot mega yachts. I described areas I personally had worked such as designing and building expensive aluminum yachts in Europe, owning my own aluminum boat manufacturing company building everything from airboats, to thrill ride boats, to rugged large diesel commercial vessels. I went on to describe years of running a marine engine manufacturing company building 200 engines a month, acting head of manufacturing for a high volume fiberglass fishing boat builder building seven boats a day, service manager for the largest Wellcraft and Chris Craft dealership on the east coast. I had also been General Manager of the largest design and tooling company in the fiberglass boat business, and finally an executive for the largest shipbuilding firm in the United States. That in my lifetime we had solved hundreds if not thousands of technical boat problems and problems in the typical boat building company. That I was basically self taught under the leadership of real fathers in the boat industry like Jim Wynn (Designed first marine outdrive), Dudley Wittman (first fiberglass boat builder in Florida) and Kiko Vilion (Designer of perhaps hundreds of production fiberglass boats in his lifetime) and John Dane (an industry leader in medium ships at Halter Maine). You could say I was a full fledged "graduate with honors from the marine school of hard knocks". Whether wood, fiberglass, aluminum or steel, I had seen a host of problems and corrected most all of them...mostly because I was the one in charge and the person who had to find the answer or someone got real upset....usually a customer.  After a while, I decided you either loved what you did or you got out of doing it...there was no middle ground in the marine business.

I understood John's boat symptoms and also quickly realized how frustrated John was deep down about the whole situation with his boat. John explains, "Jim it never ran right from the first week my wife and I took delivery...do you think you can help?". I said I needed to ask a few questions but deep down I thought I could solve his problem once and for all, even if it was hull design, power or even a weight distribution problem. I explained that in order for me to work on his problem I would need him to print, fill out and return a Consulting Agreement that describes in part, my hourly fee and our business arrangement. I explained in our first phone conversation that JRA's charge for my time by the hour or day and that we would need to be paid at the end of each day's work. Usually our work rarely goes beyond a couple of hours but sometimes can last 2-3 days depending on the type and depth of the problem. I went on to say that John could say stop at any time if not satisfied with the direction we were going. John was satisfied with all the details. He told me he had discussed and shown his boat problem to several people he thought might help to no avail. There had been a lot of ideas from various people but no real corrective solutions. Both of us were hoping we could provide the last word on his problem.

When John was satisfied we knew my stuff, he began by telling me about the problems with his boat. "Jim we just do not know what it is" he starts in. "The darn boat runs fine going straight ahead then all of a sudden veers off to the side its leaning towards". He continues in more detail, this time with a hint of obvious deep rooted frustration. "All of a sudden the boat just falls over to one side and if we am not ready for it the boat turns severely to one side or the other depending on which way the wind is going or waves or I do not know what".  I attempted to steady his thinking and confirm, "it planes off fine John?"..."yes"....I ask more higher level questions, "and this boat has not been modified since it was delivered?"..."No the boat is the same...and the engines run like a top" he adds. This conversation goes on for about 5 minutes until we am satisfied the best thing we can do is take a look at the bottom, weight distribution, engine settings and give it a run so we can witness first hand the symptoms. John agrees to the plan and we look at my calendar. With some discussion we set a time, place and date to meet at the boat.

For the investigation I brought some hand tools and my trusty black engineering bag I carry with me when looking into boat related problems. It contains various measuring devices from reed tachometers to precision angle finders, a pocket microscope and even a roll of colored string to pull straight lines. I said, "John let's check her out on the trailer first to see what is going on with the hull and engine setup".  Thank goodness it was a roller trailer so we could see the entire length of the bottom. The hull looked straight and nothing was out of the ordinary. we explained we was looking for things like hooks or rockers or anything that would explain how the physical characteristics of the hull would cause the running characteristics he was experiencing. I explained to John each point we was looking for and what affect it would have on the hull if it was out of whack.

While we were out of the water, I looked at the engines for things like installation height, connections, tie bar connections and the ability of the engines to trim out correctly. Everything looked OK "visually". Then we measured the toe and heel distance on the Cavitation plate for a comparison of the engines alignment. Something was wrong...it measured a 3/4" difference, hardly noticeable by eye across the length of the long lower unit length on a 150 size engine, but it was there just the same. Now if the engines were "toed in" (front of engines closer than rear of engines) it would be normal for a deep-V hull, but these engines were "toed out" meaning the engines were both driving away from center line if looking forward from transom to bow. I showed John the problem, starting with the difference in measurements, and explained that on a deep-V hull this condition was not acceptable. "This could be the cause of running problem you are having" I said. John looked surprised and asked, "how come the manufacturer and the dealer did not see this". I explained that it was set this way by whomever set up the engines and installed the tie bar. That usually the delivering Dealer makes the final checks on the manufacturer if the engines were installed by the manufacturer. Someone obviously missed this one and it would not be noticeable on a visual check. "John...can we launch her and go out for a spin, I would like to see the running problem first hand". John says " sure let's go, can we make corrections in the water?". we answered, "John it will be difficult but we can make changes and dial her in one way or the other.

We made about 500 yards when all of a sudden the boat veered sharply to port. we was not fully ready for it as we had began to relax my hand on the steering a bit after making some distance without a problem. we steered starboard correcting for the list and backed off the throttles smoothly. As the boat now idled we thought to myself "now we had witnessed the problem in both directions". we was anxious to solve John's problem and wanted to make a correction, "John, we am going to dial out the toe out condition as best we can here in the water and see if what we talked about is really the problem. we am going to come to a stop". As the boat came to a slow stop, we turned off the motors and both John and we stepped towards the transom. Taking a tape measure, we measured the distance between the engines again...31 1/2". we found the clevis on the tie rod and loosened up the jam nut with a wrench to make an adjustment. This tie rod had only one end that would adjust so the adjusting end had to be removed from the port engine tiller. Working out some quick math we figured we needed to take out roughly half the difference we measured earlier to become zero and add about 1/2" more for the toe in we thought this deadrise needed. Once the adjustment was complete we reassembled the tie rod to the engine and tightened the jam nut tight. We were ready to go again.

we wanted John to drive this time so he could feel the difference and also so we could observe the boats new motions after the correction. John took over the helm, puts the engines in gear and selected a new course this time wind to starboard. He powers up and boat comes on plane again. This time the course tracking seemed different. Trying to overcome the noise and wind John explains, "The boat is less sensitive to wind...steering needs less input to maintain a straight line...in fact we am making no correction and look how it is running". John goes on again trying to overcome the noise and wind from running at full speed, "the bow is higher and we can steer evenly back and forth...no problem". After a few minutes John brings the boat to a stop. "Jim we cannot believe it...it has never run like this before. we think you got it". John is visually excited and is wearing a big grin from ear to ear. "How is it that people have looked at my boat and suggested nothing but symptom cures...one said to add ballast in the back...one said add trim tabs which we did at some expense. The trim tabs seemed to help a bit but the problem would still happen just less often...we think you got it." Our obvious success called for a cold drink. John produced a small cooler with beer, coke and ice. we thanked him for the coke as my mouth was dry. The sun was climbing in the sky and no longer was the morning coolness present. Obviously the sun was beginning to take charge of the days temperature.

John was still smiling as we loaded the boat on the trailer. John called his wife on his cell phone and informed her the boat was finally fixed. He attempted to explain the reason why but we could tell from his repeated explanations she was interested, but obviously could not understand the details from what he was saying. After all, without the visual image it would be hard for anyone to understand the situation. Engines, tie rods, measurements, toe in, toe out, all the different terms...she was just happy he was happy and that was good enough explanation for her.

As our time together came to a close, John thanked me and wrote me his personal check. As we said our final goodbyes, we let John know he was free to call me if he needed help. He said we would be the first one he calls. After a few weeks we called to confirm his boat was still working correctly. It was working fine. John said he really enjoyed the boat like never before because he could finally relax at the helm and not worry about the boat veering off to one side. The problem was solved.

Over the next two years John referred me to two more of his friends and to a man he met on the dock looking for help. Once while helping another customer in the same area we saw Dream Weaver again...she was on plane and seemed straight and true.

Dealing with John's problem showed me again how if little things building a boat are done improperly, they can translate into potentially unsafe situations and frustration for the owner of the vessel. John had spent years struggling with a problem that took only a few hours to find and correct.  

The above is believed to be a true and accurate account of the events that transpired based on the recollection of the writer. Some events and situations have been minimized or omitted completely to improve readership. The name of the boat owner is fictitious. Conversations held are a representation of the actual words used and should not be a interpreted as a complete written account of the event. JRA makes no claim or representation express or implied that the above actions or results would be applicable to any other situation, problem or person. Each problem and results are unique. JRA makes no claim that the results of this owner expressed herein would be typical for any other problem, situation or person. It is up to the individual to draw their own conclusions relative to opportunities or performance of JRA.

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