G3 duck boats

[carolinadrifter]

Thoughts on the G3 1548 dk duck boat with a 25 horse Yamaha 2 stroke?

[adk]

are you looking at the one on boattrader.com in maryland?
The one i found has a 25 hp 4 stroke for 8,000 ish

Kinda pricy for an aluminum boat if you ask me, but ive never been on one. They look pretty cool though.

[carolinadrifter]

No I found one new at edisto marine in cottageville right around that price.

[duckplucker]

G3 makes a pretty good boat, most folks I know really like theirs. About the only thing I don't like about their boats is that the hull isn't a full weld on the bottom, just a tack every few inches. G3 isn't the only company that does this though, most all do other than War Eagle, Triton , Sea Ark & Alumacraft. Aside from that I think G3 is a fine boat. G3 is owned by Yamaha, that said the Yamaha name says alot about their product.

[Sparkleberry Runner]

They slide real bad

[saltynut]

G3 makes a pretty good boat, most folks I know really like theirs. About the only thing I don't like about their boats is that the hull isn't a full weld on the bottom, just a tack every few inches. G3 isn't the only company that does this though, most all do other than War Eagle, Triton , Sea Ark & Alumacraft. Aside from that I think G3 is a fine boat. G3 is owned by Yamaha, that said the Yamaha name says alot about their product.

Could you go into a little more detail on the tack welding process they use? Seems like if the bottom wasn't welded up completely it would leak.

[duckplucker]

Look under a War Eagle, Triton, Dura Craft, Sea Ark you'll see. These boats are welded completely on their under side, while others G3, Polar Craft, etc have a
"tack" weld on the same seam every few inches. I'm talking about the seam going down the middle of the boat on the underside. The higher priced all welded boats have a full weld on this seam, the others have a tack weld about 1.5 inches long every few inches.

[saltynut]

So what holds the remainder of the seam together and keeps the water out?

[dixiedeerslaya]

what seals it between these tack welds? i have a seark and its a tough sum bitch....

[KYChessie]

I'm sure they are welded solid in the seam on the inside.

The tack welds are on the keel strip on the bottom of the boat where the two hull sheets meet.

I would personally rather have that keel welded solid to insure against popping any skip welds on impact but I have never heard of anyone busting a keel loose.

I didn't care for the way the G3's internal decking and floors were riveted in and all of the plastic pieces (on the 17' side console boat). The ones that I looked at seemed to have less attention to detail than some of the other boats.

Just my $.02. I wound up buying a Triton.

[Nab]

First, we sell them at the shop - very good boats - they just don't have the name recognition yet as some other boats.
As far as the welding goes, there can be cases where too much welding can leave no room for stress and you end up with cracked welds - an ex. would be the side braces on Duracrafts and War Eagle - the DC's(at least they used to be and still probably are) - are just welded at the top and the WE's are welded top to bottom - you see a good many of the WE's with cracked welds there since there is no room to disipate the stress and they really don't need to be welded top to bottom.
Bottom line is that a weld is not always a needed or good thing.

[saltynut]

Thanks for clearing that up Nab.

[KYChessie]

Wow, that must mean that a riveted boat is the cat's ass...

There's a lot more to mechanical stresses and weld failure than solid vs. skip weld.

It's done because it's cheaper in design and manufacture.

[Hambone17311]

The only thing i know is my 1544 G3 is way better than the 1542 DCraft I had and the slide is not bad on the Simi V boat. Very good boat in my book, they are tough as hell in the swamp.

[Nab]

KY - I agree some welding or the lack of is done to cut costs, but it is also not done because it isn't needed and will just break anyways.
Duracraft made some of the toughest jon boats on the market and their side braces we're only welded at the top andd not down the sides.
As far as the G3's go I haven't looked at every weld and everywhere they are welded, but they are holding up well in the swamp - the proof is in the puddin' - they will hold up to anything an outboard can throw at them.
And yes, there are some riveted boats out there that I would put against the best welded boats! There is nothing wrong with a good riveted boat - there are many out there with many miles and yrs on them.

[DuckorBust]

I have a G3 and it's the best boat I've ever owned hands down. There is no wood anywhere and it's tough as nails. I would say go for it if you are looking to buy one.