Wooldridge

Alaska is famous for cold weather and moose hunting. Trips can take you 750 miles from the boat ramp one way. It was a 255 mile up river run after our last fuel stop on plane at 3400 rpm so you need to haul 495 gallons of fuel,two people,food, and gear for two weeks. The boat with the blue top is mine , it had a Hamilton 1031 at the time, the other has a Hamilton 273. Here in 1500hrs one of the tour boats had to replace all three tail pieces on Hamilton 212's. as the silt wears a hole is the housing right in front of the staters where it first hits the stater on it's way through the jet . The silt is so thick in some of our rivers that you can shut off the boat and you can hear it on the hull of the boat it makes a hissing noise.

Our cabin is 80 miles from the boat launch, and there are no roads after you leave the launch, so you must return there to go home. We carry a lot more weight such as 100 to 200 gallons of fuel. Our trips are any where from 20 miles to 200 miles in one weekend. Most of the boats here use the three stage Hamilton or Kodiak jets, but the 212 Hamilton works a lot better. This is what most people are changing their jet to this winter and most new boats are outfitted with this jet. By the way, our season is only 5 months long May through September, we start the year off by running the boat with snow still on the ground and ice chunks going down the river .We stop when the river ices up in September-October, then we change to snow machines to make the long winter go by faster.

Check out the Wooldridge boats site, they have been building boats for 85 plus years. They were the first ones to use the outboard jet and ran many of the rivers in the northwest for the first time with wooden boats, outboards and lifts. They are a family owned business with four generations building boats, you don't find many companies with this much experience.

Todd Graham
Alaska USA

---

Specifications

24-foot Wooldridge aluminum with a 12-degree bottom, 3/16 thick.
It carries 160 gallons of fuel
Hamilton 241 pump
Ford 502 cid engine with aluminum heads, MSD electronic ignition,
rev limiter and Kodiak exhaust manifolds.
It has a top with windshield and wipers, heater/ defroster, two truck seats, with bench seats that are big enough to sleep on.

Performance and other info

It's about 435 hp, top speed is 52 mph at 3800 rpm, we cruise at 2900 rpm at about 38 mph

Photographs

Moose hunting a few years ago on the Koyukuk river The moose horns are from 58 to 70 inches wide respectively.
The barrels you see in the boats did contain 495 gallons of fuel

Our new Hamilton 241 that we just put in spring 2000. Note the cavitation plate under the jet. you can run maximum rpms with a heavy load and not cavitate while trying to get on plane, and we all have jet guards to try to "prevent" rock and log damage.

Wooldridge deeper v spring on the Yentna

Wasilla lake spring test run 1989

Koyukuk on a cold September morning a little snow over night