A funny coincidence just came to light related to the 1983 Keith Steel drift boat that I am restoring (see my other forum listing). My boat was originally owned by Jimmy Gabettas a guide in Idaho Falls, ID and my younger brother Dean was editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register for a number of years and knew Jimmy. Dean recently came across a little humorous piece he wrote for the newspaper's outdoor magazine in 1984, in which he weighed a number of different drift boats and compared them to the manufacturers specs or the owners best guess. It turns out that he actually weighed my boat for the article! The article includes an interesting comparison of boat weights and some boat makers opinions of whether weight matters in addition to some good natured ribbing about fisherman and their propensity to misjudge size and weight.

PUBLICATION: Post Register (Idaho Falls, ID) DATE: July 8, 2004

Wading through driftboat bullpucky

By Dean Miller

It was an innocent enough question. What's a driftboat weigh?

Deep Float chuckled. "I lie. We all do. If the rest of 'em told the truth, we would, too."

WHAT?

Driftboat builders are also members of a tribe known for its inerrant moral compass and devotion to truth. They're anglers! But Deep Float, a highly placed nautical official with access to inside information, was right. Hyde understates weights by 25 percent or more. Clackacraft both understates and overstates. High Plains is off by 8 percent, and private boat owners don't have a clue what their boats weigh. This Post Register investigation will document the truth: what does the region's favorite watercraft weigh?

First thing, we rounded up all the local boats we could. Then, we convinced the crew at the Idaho Falls Del Monte seed division to lend us forklift driver Gary Peebler of Menan and their bulk bag scale. And then we proceeded to spend the morning of June 22 weighing boats. This is what passes for work when you're a crusading investigative journalist. First up was Jimmy Gabbetas, the young dean of the local fly-fishers. His sturdy Keith Steele wooden driftboat would weigh less than 300, he said, in the same confident tone with which he dispenses fishing advice. Uh, Jim? Try 354. He was crushed. "It's like being told you're fat," he said, ruefully. But he cowboyed up and went home to get his bigger boat, a 17-footer, which he thought would weigh 425. Now he was overcompensating. It weighed 358.

And so it went all day. Confronted, the boat boys shrug. "I don't think weight matters because the boats are on a trailer when you're hauling 'em around and the water's holding 'em when you're using them,'' said Jack Parker, Clackacraft's dealer. "You don't have to pack them around." Try selling that to a tired angler trying to load a boat on a trailer at the end of a long day. That's why Parker's customers are somewhat obsessed with weight. "We go to these shows and (customers) try to pick 'em up. I don't know where this obsession with the weight of the boat comes." Hyde's marketing guru, Jeff Entyre, agrees that weight isn't a big factor. "Weight obviously plays a role in the performance of the boat, so it's a bit of an issue, I guess. But hull shape has more to do with performance."

Least happy of the boat builders was Tom Dalik of Dal-Fab & Machine, whose aluminum boats sat about 100 pounds heavier than he expected. He ran by with a second boat, just to be sure we didn't have a finger on the scale. It was heavier than the first.