Give This Renaissance Man A High "Five" For Taking His Car Audio Skills To The Marine Arena
Do-it-yourselfer Jonny "5" Moore is a 30-year old Senior Manufacturing Engineer who lives in Illinois. The first thing we wanted to know was what the number/nickname signified. There must be a good story behind that, we thought; after all, a lot of people know him as "Jonny Five" or simply "Five", and few even know his last name. Alas, he would not tell; but that's OK, because our minds are on this boat, a '99 Moomba Kanga. It was custom-built at the factory for the owner. So the hull was sprayed in a discrete blue metal flake color and the interior was stitched up with a red and white scheme that Jonny designed to complement the blue hull. Hence the boat's name, "Patriot". Making it all go is a 325hp MPFI 350 Chevy engine (by Indmar Marine).
It's clear from the pictures why Jonny purchased the Kanga. He and his friends love to rip up the water, as he put it. Just par for the course for a former professional BMX freestyler and expert-level mountain biker, (you can add 'blading, snowboarding, competitive running, snowmobiling, amateur boxing as well as professional waterskiing to his list of activities). [Where does he find the time?! -Ed.] Jonny started waterskiing at the age of 8 and started competing in 1990 with a local waterski team, the Ski Broncs. After being with them for five years and winning a national championship title (1991), he signed a pro contract and performed in the waterski and thrill shows at Sea World in San Antonio, TX, as well as at Sea World of California in San Diego. If not for his academic pursuits Jonny might still be working as a pro skier, or extreme athlete. Instead he got his degree in Industrial Technology. On top of everything else he has designed, patented, and manufactures a dog toy and exerciser, the RoverRunner (www.roverrunner.com).
Practically a lifelong car audio enthusiast, Jonny designed his first system nearly a year before he even had a car. Over the last ten years he has designed and installed many systems and competed very actively in Midwestern IASCA sanctioned Sound Q and SPL competitions from 1990 to 1994, winning several first places in both types of competitions. Jonny worked on Patriot by himself. It took him four consecutive spring seasons to complete the major revisions and upgrades on the project. When we asked him why he built this system, he said, "I love the challenge that a big design and install like this presents and also the opportunity to develop and try new installation techniques. It gets my creative juices flowing!" You have to have true passion to do what Jonny has done. From what we can tell, that applies to everything.
Got Juice?Usually we leave the battery portion of the feature for the end of the article. As crucial as it is in the marine environment we thought we should cover it first. Really though, car, boat, whatever, batteries are first and foremost. It's just not the sexiest of topics; and in a marine context it's no sexier. But this story will make it clear how important it is to have enough juice. Jonny's friends learned that the hard way.
Patriot has four batteries total. Three deep cycle marine batteries are housed in a custom built enclosure made from sheet PVC and stainless steel with an acrylic top. The acrylic top has vent holes drilled in it. The batteries are connected using a silver plated copper buss bar. The bank is mounted on the amp rack in the nose of the bow.
A fourth battery was added after Jonny and friends drained the battery a couple of times while floating along, listening to tunes. They had to paddle the boat back to shore (that is, the friends did the paddling). "I really didn't mind watching them paddle," Jonny says.