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Mike and Dave
Maggie and Sally
Wendy and Dave
Maggie in holiday gear…. (note the mittens
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Our first RIB was a
2.5m Avon Searider, we then progressed to a 6.5m Bluewater
Maritime RIB (BWM) followed by a 7.5m BWM. Then came our diesel
powered Scorpion RIBs which we’ve used to cruise throughout the
UK, to take part in many National and International races and to
set six World Records.
Hot Lemon 5 is a 10m Scorpion Sports Cruiser, she is a ‘stepped’
hull design by Lorne Campbell and was built of standard GRP (no
Kevlar or carbon fibre) but incorporates a good deal of foam
sandwich in her superstructure for lightness and strength. The
luxury features usually found on the Scorpion Sports Cruisers
have been omitted and, whilst she has no bunks, cooker or
shower, she does have carpeting plus four exceedingly
comfortable bolster seats with rise/fall squabs and a bench seat
plus a nice sea toilet in the cabin! The hand lay-up used on the
hull comprises a GRP composite E-glass with a 12mm Herex cored
deck, cabin top and engine box lid. She has a dry weight of
approx 3200 kgs but a ‘normal’ weight of approx 4000 kgs plus
fuel.
The team at Scorpion RIBS are without any doubt the very best in
the business; their enthusiasm, knowledge and ability are
unmatched and the smallest detail is completed with total skill
and attention, Hot Lemon exists because of Team Scorpion.
We designed Hot Lemon specifically to attempt the Round Britain
World Record for craft under 30’ (success!) and you can see that
she has a very blunt nose; we used an angle grinder to shorten
her by 4” so as to bring her into class!
The power units are two, perfectly standard, 4.2 litre 315hp
Yanmar diesel engines. Apart from very regular oil changes and a
thorough annual service, the engines are ‘out of the box’ with
no changes whatsoever. We changed the standard Bravo 1 outdrive
legs for Imco SC/SCX drive units mounted on 12” stand-off boxes
so as to gain strength and performance; she has high-spec 4 ram
Imco steering & we’ve also fitted prop ventilation to reduce
turbo lag . All our engineering is carried out by Dave Crawford
Marine in Lymington, their team’s knowledge and attention to
detail is superb and Hot Lemon could never have achieved any of
her successes without them.
We use a range of propellers depending on the task in hand and
we choose from a set of specially developed Hydromotive five
blade propellers of various pitch or a pair of Bravo four blade
32.5” pitch.
We considered using larger engines but followed Lorne Campbell’s
excellent advice and concentrated on maximising her power to
weight ratio using conventional GRP and standard engines. This
power to weight ratio, and the truly superb seakeeping of the
original David Marsh hull, is the reason for Hot Lemon’s
success…keep everything as simple as possible, build the hull
and the engineering to the very best standards and cut the
weight. The ability to maintain a high average speed on
endurance runs was vital from the start and was particularly
important when carrying some 380 gallons (1725 litres) of fuel
weighing in at close on 1.5 tons. Fuel is stored in the 200 gall
underdeck tanks and we add deck tanks according to need. We use
pumps to maintain trim as fuel is used and the deck tank is
plumbed straight into the main tank fillers.
Hot Lemon is fitted with two GPS systems, twin VHF radios, two
plotters, a radar,
a radar reflector, a Navtex, floor and dashboard operated trim
switches and various other bits and pieces. We’ve also added
shock mitigation flooring to make the ride even softer. In the
right conditions, Hot Lemon will run close to 60 kts but her
real strength is a superb ability to maintain high average
speeds in arduous conditions.
More information on some of the above can be found on our Links
page.
