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WBM
The propeller shafts are titanium, something Ramsey says had never been done before.
The team enlisted help from near — design work by Alex McCarley of Wilmington and composite components from
Washington — and far, as with engineers from Michigan and Maryland. Hull shapes were tank-tested in Amsterdam.
With so many facets of the project, the owner — a doctor, an engineer and an entrepreneur — needed someone close to the
action while the design and build took shape in Beaufort.
“So, we would have meetings on the telephone as he’s traveling, and I’m at Jarrett Bay,” Riggs says. “A day, two days, three days a
week I was up there, for almost four years.”
What’s so different about Jaruco?
Riggs shakes his head and laughs. “It’s the whole boat,” he says. “You know, other than paint and cushions. It has those.”
The boat is as much as 50,000 pounds lighter than the competition and runs more than 10 miles an hour faster, Ramsey says.
Every decision was carefully considered, and many ideas were scrapped, including a four-engine 96-foot design with custom gear-boxes
to run each pair of engines on a single shaft.
The stone and marble countertops have been honed down to a fraction of an inch and backed with honeycomb aluminum — to
save weight, of course. There are no window shades — at the touch of a switch, the exterior glass blacks out. There’s an AV room
with enough electronic gear to need its own cooling unit.
To allow access to the full-beam master stateroom and full-beam crew quarters, there’s a trick piece of cabinetry hiding a
stairwell so that crew can come and go without having to go outside and through the engine room.
Below the surface, every shape and contour was tested for how it affects the flow of water, resulting in waveform
rudders that account for the way water spins coming off the propellers, helping to reduce drag. The team has even
designed and tested a T-foil that provides lift under the bow, keeping her trimmed up as speeds increase.
To ensure the maneuverability to back down on a sailfish, she has V-drives, allowing a shallower shaft angle,
which gives the boat less draft and reduces the effect of the stern being pulled down in reverse.
When it comes down to it, it’s the weight, Riggs says. “That’s how we got the speed. Thirty-seven knots
cruising in a 90-foot boat with a tower that goes to the sky. There’s nothing that can touch it in this size.”
In her first tournament, the Los Suenos Triple Crown in Costa Rica, Jaruco made the podium. She’s
fished the Custom Shootout in the Bahamas and the Ernest Hemingway Tournament in Cuba, a
homecoming of sorts for the owner, whose family hails from the island country. The boat is named
for the small town his father called home.
In Magdalena Bay, Mexico, Riggs says, “We averaged 50 releases of striped marlins a day for
three days. 150 releases. Insane fishing.”
june 2019
COURTESY OF JARRETT BAY BOATWORKS