Finally got some running time on my boat. Here is what I have.
14'x36" Breaster Jon Boat
6.5HP Copperhead stock
Hopkins MM Prop.


Sunny, low 90's, light winds.
Area was Northeast of Lake Verret in Brusly St. Vincent.
Me, my son, dog and other gear(including trolling motor) - 425lbs
Used my brother's Magellan Triton 200(I think that is the model)

Deep water speeds were steady at 11.4 mph. Got to the lake and with a light chop, hit 12.2mph a few times. I think I could get faster, seems the RPMs were high and the prop cavitating a bit. Will get that taken care of soon. Might add a MPH or two to deep water running.
Didn't get to run much in shallow water at speed, but I can say it handles muddy bottoms well. I was able to sneak in some shallow sloughs full of lillies, weeds and sunken tree branches and logs. Motor works well. Burned about 1 1/2 tank of gas.

It was fun to finally get out and ride a bit. I will update this once I get in shallower water and propwork done.

i dont know your experence with sd's, but that copperhead is a surface peircing motor. unlike the smalleer mini mb's and long tails. the mb minis advertise running sub surface like a long tail. with out knowing the rpm's and exactlly whay you mean by cavitation, ide say the motor was doing its thing. you may need to adjust your running trim, but it sounds like it was working well. ide expect a little more speed but you were loaded pretty heavy. that little boat is only going to move so much. great little boat hope yall have lots of good times in it.

H4Deer, I have no XP with SDs. This is the 1st. I tried adjusting trim and all and nothing really made that much a difference.
Idleing it would move 6-7mph. Throtteling up to 8-9mph, I could feel the prop slipping. Also could see the water just being boiled up but wasn't giving much more thrust forward. I did have a load in thte boat, and didn't expect to break any speed records. I've taken the prop to a local shop and told them exactly what was going on. They are adding a bit more cup.
Copperhead crew is great to work with and they offered to work the prop more, but not trusting the mail/shipping services to have it back by the weekend, I just took it to Baggy's here in Houma.
According to Gil, and the LCT site, the motor should rev out at 3850+/- 150. I haven't had a chance to run it alone to see what it has. The prop, as is, may work great with less weight. But, I'll have hunting gear and all in it more than not. So I'm gonna get the prop right.

i owned one of those copperheads maybe u can play with the trim transom height etc, i was running a 12/32 lowe in shallow water with dog and gear and getting a average of 19.5 were u fighting wind tide etc u should get more out of it unless your boat is not the right applaction for that motor? paul at phowler extreme has my old motor and is building a boat for that motor when he is done with that i will buy another motor and his boat he will work out all the bugs. food for thought all motors and boats don't go together. i was told last year when i had a 17' carolina skiff that the 35hp i bought would run and work great not even close sold that motor and got new boat and motors ask alot of Qs and keep the faith

i didnt know you were that deep into fixin the boat. you will prob get it worked out or at least learn whats the most it will give you.

good luck

That is really good we hit 16 in our 14 by 32 ol john boat with me and my dad and really we pick up speeds going across mud over in mississippi only problem is they will ticket you for going accross them flats for tearing them up so i try to stick to semi deep water

[quote="mississippiduckboy"]That is really good we hit 16 in our 14 by 32 ol john boat with me and my dad and really we pick up speeds going across mud over in mississippi only problem is they will ticket you for going accross them flats for tearing them up so i try to stick to semi deep water[/quote

WTF
where you at

South Mississippi on the louisiana mississippi line pretty much i went across a mud flat in my boat with a friend the first time i got it to get to the deep water on the other side as soon as i get there the guys tears me a new one for going across it saying i sould have gone out the marsh down the shoreline and back into the cut to get to my blind and next time he would ticket me i was sitting there in disbelief they could do that

It is all about load and the right boat with these cool little motors. We have tested ours ( Brians old motor) on a 1432 .060 hull and with one guy we can hit 22 mph in the right conditions. Add a second guy and you are at about 14-15 ish, add another 50-75 lbs and you are at 12 or so.

The lighter jon boats will run with these motors, only problem is if you are running anything over 15 mph with these light gauge hulls and hit a stump, post or anything hard and/or sharp, you better have plenty of duct tape and a good bilge pump, cause you will tear the boat apart (put a nice big hook in the used boat we started testing on the first run and we were trying to be careful).

We are working in a couple of prototype hulls here and should have them done by the end of the month to start testing. We are trying to find that fine line between hull thickness (overall weight and durablity), displacement (width and lenght) and performance with two people. Our testing with the lighter boat and adding different weights to it have us pointed in the right direction, we have a couple different designs worked up and hopefully we will have something we feel good about ready for production before winter, all depends on if the numbers we have worked out prove out on the water or not. Our hope is to have a durable hull with great planing characteristics that will run in the upper teens with one man and gear at least 12-14 with two average men and light gear. Not sure it will prove out that way, but we think we can get close with two or three prototype attempts.

We will keep guys posted on what we come up with and the results when we have them.

PW

Cmiller, you guys did a great job fixing up that boat!! I would love to hear more about how it performs.

Muddoctor, Do you really think a 1432 is faster than a 1236 for 2 people? I am planning on buying a Copperhead 10 before duck season this year unless I am really convinced the 6.5 is enough and I will probably get rid of my 1232 and was researching which 1236 to buy. I guess the Phowler's Copperhead boat won't be ready for duck season this year huh? I was kind of trying to avoid having another trailer to deal with and I don't think a 14 would fit in my truck, but I guess I could buy a trailer for a 14'er if I have to. My other consideration was that I was thinking the 1236 might be a little more stable. I missed quite a few teal last week due to a rocking boat (we still had our limit by 7am though).