Been out in a bit of rough and though I had to pedal back a bit I was surprised how well it handled the chop. The guy up front was dry and me behind the wheel howeverf my mate on the jump seat on front of the CC got the odd splash. It has two venturas either side which push any  excess straight out under power. Had some owsome trips with heaps of snapper. There you go, just a bit about my boat. $13K for boat,motor and trailer(demo) - new in NZ about I think $16k 

 

 

When I was reading the description all I got was the sound track to Machete and images of half naked people shooting and stabbing each other.  Guess there's a reason they called them panga's and not machetes!

They are all over the caribbean and central america which is testament to how durable they are.

Isn't machete the same in english and spanish and panga just means boat?

(any spanish speakers here? my mexican slang isnt always the best)

 

My previous boat for the  last 5 years was a Senator RH620 which I used out of Napier, stable platform, crap traveller. Had a stabi before that, same.

 

I moved to Raro for 18 months work in April, and have done a couple of charters, but am seriously looking for my own CC. (went out on a kiwikraft with Capt Moko last week, much narrower than senator or stabi but incredibly better in the rough). Good thing about here is 200m of water not far from the reef.

 

Still trying to work out what to get, but requirements are

-2-3 people

-easy launch

-some form of bimni/hardtop (must be removable for shipping)

-5-6m

<30k all setup

 

Any suggestions

 

cheers.

 

This is a good useful boat in the same culture as the Panga with a length/beam ratio of 2.75. IE its a long narrow (by kiwi standards) boat. Its the narrow beam which makes them so easily driven, directionally stable even at low speeds, and the relatively flat deadrise makes them stable at rest. Boats like this do not noticeably make the transition onto plane because there is no huge amount of drag induced by a beamy deep vee. That two or three seconds while the outboard churns and the bow points skywards as all the loose gear slides sternwards just isn't there. That also transforms into economy at trolling speeds because at 8-10 knots the boat isn't halfway out of the "hole". If there is a downside its that the damn things do over 5kts at idle.

I do admit, having done it a few times myself, that nothing beats heading our to sea in a boat you built yourself. Except, perhaps, laying a little rubber in the rod - but thats another topic.

Maybe the side seating is flotation chambers, maybe not.

the americans have done some lovely things with the panga design, maybe if you extended it to 9 metres you could make the beam a bit wider, and the sides a little higher.

Our one was a yamaha built 23 foot panga, it was a bit of fun.

 

Panga, the reason the gunwales on a self bail /internal liner Panga are low is to limit the amount of water they hold. This means if the boat is pooped or swamped by a sea/s the weight of water in the self bail hull is not enough to destabilise the boat or cause it to float gunwale under, which renders the self bail useless.

 

I have been in a few Pangas in the Islands which have been filled gunwale top in reef entrances and poorly calculated (Pacific Rum) attempts to surf over reefs at high tide, and the worst that happened was a tackle box full of water and a wet jacksie. The scuppers clear it in a surprisingly short time, usually before the woo hoos and shrieks of laughter that accompany such events in the Islands have died down.