| Pages:
1
2 |
Paulina
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3810
Registered: 8-31-2002
Location: BCN
Member Is Offline
|
|
Pangamadness,
I'd love to read the print on your Paceno flier. Ours is the 22' version. I'd like to know more about it.
Thanks.
P<*)))>{
\"Well behaved women rarely make history.\" Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
|
|
|
pangamadness
Nomad
Posts: 378
Registered: 9-22-2003
Member Is Offline
Mood: Under H20
|
|
Mr Chuck boat
I will keep trying with the other one
|
|
|
Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
|
|
Pangas...an Ugly Duckling, yes..but a helluva boat.
A comparison?
Here is a US made version of the panga....from Panga Marine.
They took a very good design..possibly ARCA.. and made it better. Reverse chines keeps your crew dry, a really good and deep
forefoot gives a much smoother ride, while the 22-degree deadrise and well-engineered lift stakes make these panga hulls very efficient...which cuts
your fuel cost while broadening your day's range.
Comes in models from 18' -28'.
The one in the photo below came with the I/O diesel and has unbelievable range and economy. A 26' model with a sterndrive (I/O) 1.7L Mercruiser
diesel - over 36 MPH with a fuel burn rate of only 6 gallons per hour. Cruising at 20 MPH fuel consumption is only 4.5 gallon per hour...perfect for
Baja where fuel economy is a must. Unlike most other pangas, this boat has 100% wood-free contruction.
Unfortunately, the news is that Panga Marine is now suffering from the current recession and may have to close it's doors. No bailout pork for these
guys. Too bad..and a great loss for the Snook Foundation, of which Panga Marine is a huge contributor.
edit note: seems I forgot how to post a photo..at least temporarily.
[Edited on 3-2-2009 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
|
|
|
Pescador
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3587
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by pangamadness
My Panga came from La Paz in 1980. I still have the origanal paper work. Just cant figure out how to make it big when I post it?
[Edited on 2-27-2009 by pangamadness] |
I sent you a U2u. if you send me the picture via e-mail, I will resize it and post for you
|
|
|
Paulina
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3810
Registered: 8-31-2002
Location: BCN
Member Is Offline
|
|
Pescador, Mr. Chuck was a big help to us when we refinished our panga. We could always count on him to give us the correct info we needed. What became
of him?
Pompano, Do you know the cost of the panga in your photo?
Thanks,
P<*)))>{
\"Well behaved women rarely make history.\" Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
|
|
|
Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Paulina
Pompano, Do you know the cost of the panga in your photo?
Thanks,
P<*)))>{ |
Pualina, the 26 ft diesel Panga's 2007 sticker price with SS T-top, tandem axle trailer, and 48 Gallon Bait Tank was $39,995. But, like all luxury
products, that price is always highly negotiable...and especially in today's buyer's market.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
|
|
|
desertcpl
Super Nomad
Posts: 2396
Registered: 10-26-2008
Location: yuma,az
Member Is Offline
|
|
panga
i bought a 22' panga about 1982 in san diego,, thru Blue Porpoise marine,, had it sportarised,, with a yamaha ,, I think it was then a 115hp,,, what
fun I had with it,, what a boat also,, spent many hours on it,, just loved it
|
|
|
Pescador
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3587
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Paulina, I have not heard from Mr. Chuck for a long time. He used to post on the old Baja Amigos site a lot and on Baja net. but not much here, I
think I remember some kind of disagreement in the early days, which is too bad, he was always very well informed and was a storehouse of good
information
Pompano, the diesel was a good idea but in the Sea of Cortez, an inboard-outboard has never been a good long term option. I have had much more
intelligent people than I explain that it has to do with the salinity of the water. In Alaska, where I spend quite a bit of time, they are very
popular, but the salinity is much less there and they do hold up with good maintence. I think it is related to the rubber seals, water cooling
systems, and leaving the unit in the water a lot of the time.
|
|
|
Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
|
|
Pescador, yes, indeed. You are correct that I/O's are subject to salt damage..but mostly from boaters who either leave thier boats in the salt for
long periods..or never practice good rinsing/flushing techiques after each use. My first I/O in Baja lasted 20 years throughout several other boat
additions. Now as for straight inline shafts my diesel Pompano was built in 1971 and is still going strong in the Cortez.
I fished commercial herring and salmon in Bristol Bay quite a bit myself. Based out of Naknek. We operated 5 diesel drift-netters..32 ft max-length
in a limited entry of these boats for the Bay fishery. A whole different world up there...and a mite exciting at times.
Pangas are unique, aren't they?
[Edited on 3-2-2009 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
|
|
|
Paladin
Nomad
Posts: 164
Registered: 3-25-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
OK, I'm anal about the history of ARCA pangas..it helps fill the time not fishing. Anyway here is another article some of you folks might find
interesting.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Panga Dreams
by Neal Matthews
filed 26 Nov. 99
The killer whale rose from below, unseen. Shark fisherman Marco Bertine and his two crewmen felt the whale nudge the bottom of their 22-foot
[ital]panga[ital] skiff and push it sideways as they drifted on the Sea of Cortez near Cabo San Lucas. They spotted the knifeblade dorsal fin and
ducked down, plastering themselves to the bottom of the boat. They could see the Orca spy-hopping vertically in the water, trying to peer in at them
and their catch. "But he couldn't see over the side of the boat," says Bertine, who has the creased brown face and wiry build of a man who has spent
most of his 78 years fishing off Baja, Guaymas, and Puerto Vallarta. "If he'd seen us I think he would have capsized the [ital]panga[ital] and eaten
us for breakfast."
Salvation by freeboard. Chalk another one up to the Boat That Saved the Third World.
I've rendezvoused with Marco in the fishing village of Puerto Nuevo where he lives about 30 miles south of the border on Baja's Pacific coast in
order to trace the early history of the [ital]panga[ital]. The versatile flat-bottomed, narrow skiff was perfected in Baja in the late-1960's and has
since morphed into the most widely used boat throughout Latin America. [ital]Pangas[ital] have experienced an unending evolutionary development from
narrow 18-foot redwood sailing canoes to longer and more sport-friendly "super pangas" chartered by Americans for saltwater fly-fishing and marlin
trolling at Baja fishing resorts. A market for them has developed in the U.S, and at least five different Mexican panga makers are now competing to
sell boats north of the border, some of them offering features like radar arches, trim tabs, and inboard diesels, expanding the reach of the best
Mexican export since the Margarita .
Marco has owned 20 [ital]pangas[ital] in his fishing career, all but the most recent two made of wood. He has been saved by the boat's gritty
seaworthiness many times, he tells me. His [ital]pangas[ital] have been drug under by giant manta rays tangled in the anchor line, only to pop to the
surface like rubber duckies; he's been marooned on them in blinding fog at night, when people on shore beat 55-gallon drums to help guide him home.
One time Marco was about six miles off Puerto Nuevo when his [ital]panga[ital] was caught sideways between waves and the boat turned turtle. He was
trapped underneath it, able to breath in the space between two bench seats. Before he could decide what to do, another wave caught the boat and
righted it, and there he sat flooded to the gunnels. He bailed it out and fired up the Yamaha 40, and headed in.
I trade him my own panga-as-hero story, the one where I'm in Costa Rica and I break my arm in the forest, a good 20 miles across a bay and
downriver from the nearest help. They call the [ital]panga[ital] drivers down there "capitans," and now I know why. After tearing across the choppy
bay in a classic 22-foot, narrow-beam panga, we had to negotiate an angry-looking river bar on the Rio Sierpe. My capitan simply drove the panga into
the surf on a parallel angle between the waves. We sat there rocking for a few minutes, white water breaking on both beams, me wondering how to swim
with a shattered arm, the capitan calmly waiting for the right moment to make his move -- then he gunned it. We were lifted onto the back of a
ten-foot comber, and if we went over the falls I'm sure I'd have drowned. But as the wave exploded in front of us we wallowed gently down across its
broken back, and the panga's quickness got us out of there and into the river ahead of the next breaker. Marco smiles in appreciation.
He says the word [ital]panga[ital] is the feminine noun for [ital]pangon[ital[, the name for the 40-foot barges used to transfer tomatoes and
other go. "Eventually we all got 5 hp Johnsons, which carried us up and down Baja before the road was built." The [ital]pangeros[ital] didn't all
become wealthy, but their tough little boats ushered them into some of the richest fishing grounds on the planet.
Papa Panga
Malcolm "Mac" Shroyer digs through rolled-up boat schematics in a corner of his upstairs office at Marina de La Paz, in the capital city of the
southern state of Baja, and pulls out a yellowed scroll. He unrolls it on a drafting table, and we are faced with a historic document: The first
design for the modern fiberglass [ital]panga[ital], which Shroyer drew and manufactured in 1968. Eventually Shroyer's company made about 2500 of them
in La Paz. He says some of his boats were modified and used as "plugs" by other companies throughout Mexico to build pangas customized to locale.
Shroyer and his wife, Mary, had made their own fiberglass sloop in northern California in the early 60's and sailed it down to live in Baja.
"When I came along, the pangas were plywood with vertical sides at the stern, and the transom was a rectangle," he explains. "The Johnson 40 horse
power engine was just becoming available, and the narrow transom couldn't handle that."
Local fishermen needed a boat that would plane, in order to get to the fishing grounds ahead of the wind. But the boat also needed to carry
heavy loads, like 35 turtles or a ton of Thresher shark, and it had to be landable on a beach through the surf. So Shroyer set out to produce both a
planing and displacement hull-in-one. He widened the stern of the sailing canoe but still kept it as narrow as the waist, added a slight flare to the
bow, and tapered the hull from a deep-V at the bow to a virtually flat bottom at the stern. Most of the early models, made in the late-60's and
early-70's, were 22-feet-long, six-and-half feet wide, and weighed about 1200 pounds. In a load-test, Shroyer and his Mexican craftsmen filled one
with 3000 pounds of sandbags, until the gunnels were about 3 inches above the water.
Yamaha was also trying to sell its new 40-horse motor in Baja, but there weren't enough local boats that could handle them. So a few Japanese
longboats were brought over, and they influenced the development of the [ital]panga[ital] as well. In the early 1970's Shroyer was awarded a contract
from the Mexican government to make [ital]pangas[ital], which were then offered to Mexican fishermen with fishing gear and a 40 hp engine. Later, the
[ital]pangas[ital] started carrying 55 hp motors, which became the classic [ital]cinco-cinco caballos[ital] found on the boats throughout the 1980's.
"The problem with [ital]pangas[ital] from a business standpoint is, they last forever," says Shroyer. "You sell a guy one, and you'll never see him
again because he'll never need another boat. When water comes shooting up through the keel, that's how they know it's their last run, so they beach
it, turn it over, and re-fiberglass it themselves."
[ital]Pangas[ital] became equal opportunity workhorses. I know of a smuggler who sealed 40 pounds of cocaine inside the fiberglass bench seats
of one in Costa Rica, then gunkholed for two weeks all the way up the west coast to San Diego Bay. And [ital]pangas[ital] are the preferred go-fast
boats of marijuana smugglers who mount 200 horsepower engines on reinforced transoms and shoot across the Sea of Cortez from the Mexican mainland at
night to unload their booty into trucks for the trip north toward the border. The smugglers know the stakes: If their [ital]pangas[ital] are spotted
by Mexican soldiers in helicopters on anti-drug patrols, they won't be stopped and searched; they'll just be blasted to bits by aerial machine gun
fire.
Shroyer's company went under in 1982, victim of the peso devaluation, and it was taken over by Mexicans. Some of his designs are still being
used by ARCA, one of the main panga makers in La Paz. One of his best fiberglass men, Lupe Diaz, went on to start his own company making pangas that
became legendary on the East Cape of Baja. And a new "super-super" panga, based on Shroyer's design, is being made by California Marine in La Paz with
added bow flare, a diesel inboard, and a stern drive.
I visited the California Marine factory and got a joyride on one of it's new [ital]pangas[ital], a 28-footer with a 225 hp Johnson. It had a
radar arch, a fighting chair behind the center console bench, and trim tabs. I'd been on a lot of [ital]pangas[ital] for diving, fishing, and shelling
off both coasts of Baja, but it was a stretch to call this tricked-out, $38,500 beauty a [ital]panga[ital]. She was heavy-duty, like all
[ital]pangas[ital], having been made with eight layers of fiberglass so the hull was 3/8 inch thick. But is a [ital]panga[ital] with a pulpit, a live
well, and a full complement of marine electronics still a [ital]panga[ital]?
Speed Saves
"Shark fishermen on the west coast are only interested in two things, other than sharks," says Amado Perez, who makes [ital]pangas[ital] just
south of Ensenada. "They want to smoke weed, and they want to go fast." So Perez has perfected a speedy, no-frills [ital]panga[ital] that zooms the
sharkers out 60 or 70 miles between the time the afternoon winds die down and the sun sets. They stay out all night, getting themselves and their
boats loaded, then return to shore in the morning before the wind kicks up.
Perez's other job is dirt buggy racer in the Baja 1000, so he knows something about speed over rough surfaces. He's a former commercial
fishermen who used three different [ital]pangas[ital] to design a plug for his own model, which is available in lengths of 20, 26, and 33 feet,
powered either by outboards or Volvo Pentas or Mercruiser sterndrives. His company, Amato Boats, has been making [ital]pangas[ital] for 22 years, and
he's become friends with many of the Americans who order his boats then drive the 75 miles below the border to hang around his shop and watch them
take shape.
For speed, Perez narrowed the transom of his 26-footer to 6' 8", while the waist remains 7' 4". He added some flare and upsweep to the bow, and
removed all chines, strakes, and even the subtle keel from the bottom of the boat. "For speed," he says, patting the stern of the [ital]panga[ital] I
tested in San Diego. He guarantees the hull for five years. "But nobody ever brings them back."
That speed came in handy three years ago in San Ignacio Lagoon, the protected gray whale nursery on Baja's Pacific coast. The Amato
[ital]pangas[ital] have become popular with whale watch skippers who take passengers out onto the lagoon for up-close whale encounters. One morning a
new skipper in an Amato boat full of tourists kept trying to get too close to a whale mother and her calf, even though the tourists kept telling him
not to. Finally, the whale mother had seen enough and she capsized the [ital]panga[ital], spilling everyone into the water.
Here's where it becomes so Baja. The mother whale knew exactly who the culprit was. Ignoring the sputtering tourists, she picked out the
skipper who'd harassed her and gave chase. "She rammed him, and broke two of his ribs," says Amato. Another Amato [ital]panga[ital] roared in from
half a mile away to help, driving off the angry whale and saving all the people in the water. The overturned [ital]panga[ital] was towed to shore,
righted, had another outboard mounted, and was back out whale watching again the same day.#
Sidebar
So You Want to Buy a Panga
Two choices: Buy it in Mexico yourself and make your own arrangements to trailer it across the border, or let a broker handle the purchase. In
San Diego, Steve Davis of Von's Master Marine (619-223-1154) can handle the whole process for you. The main questions involve where you buy the
engine, in Mexico or the U.S., and who does the final rigging and finish work. Davis recommends buying the engine and having it installed in the U.S.,
for warranty reasons. As for finish work, it varies depending on which panga maker you go with. Lupe Diaz has the best reputation for attention to
cosmetic detail.
If you decide to do the deal yourself, bear in mind that you'll have to pay between $80 and $150 in import duties to get it across the border,
plus state sales tax in California, Arizona, or Texas. That's an argument for just bringing up the bare hull without the engine, as valuation will be
lower.
The [ital]panga[ital] makers of Mexico:
California Marine, La Paz; telephone 01152 112 55184; www.calmarineboats.com
ARCA Boats, La Paz; telephone 01152 112 20876
Diaz Boats, Los Barriles; telephone 01152 114 10044
Amato Boats, Ensenada; telephone 01152 617 75915
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
