38bat

Was reading Passagemaker magazine last night and came across an ad for a 34' Catamaran outfitted stock with 60hp four stroke outboards. 14 knots at 2gph, 20 knots at 3.8gph. Outfitted as a cruising boat but got me to thinking. Fuel being as much as it is these days, might be something worth considering. Are there any of these built for sportsfishing? This is a big boat with a 16' beam, optional flybridge etc., not a glacier bay type. Base price was 299,000 new.

Interesting to consider outboards vs. diesels on a big boat. Definately would be quiet. Outboards can be tipped up for beaching, easy and economical to replace. What do you guys think?

38bat

Here is a link http://www.cruisingcatsusa.com/docs/coastal_cat_34.pdf

markw4321

I think $299K will buy a lot of gas for the boat I currently own-

hebegb

I cannot understand what would cost 299K?



that is way high in my mind

Xanadu

Doesn't fiberglass have a petroleum content?

38bat

Unfortunately everything is expensive. Yes it would be cheaper to have a 25' center console. Not really my question. As for the 299k you would need to compare that to a twin engine, two stateroom new yacht. For a comparison(granted twin diesels) a new 36' Meridian(Bayliner) is 399,000 so the price point is not out of whack.

I currently own a 38' twin diesel that is probably comparable in livability. I get 1nmpg at 16knots. This is intriguing as cats are less subject to roll and much more efficient. Could something like this be outfitted as a nice offshore boat? I was thinking that with Twin e-tecs this would be a helluva boat. Running 250 miles tuna fishing would save some fuel at 7nmpg. Has anyone seen these for this purpose?

hebegb

I personally WOULD get a cat if I had the choice ( and $$$)

I like the stability and roominess

ElJay

I think high gas prices are going to give us a bunch of new boats to use that are cheaper to run.

One project that got my attentionabout 25 years ago (and was killed by politics ) was the HYSUCAT project. They never took it to a + 30 ft cat as far as i recall but on the prototypes they did build it was very promising.

Essentially theconcept is that a cat is efficient to start with, roomy and stable: but those twin hulls have serious drag (all boats do). So the inside edges of the hulls had small horizontally mounted finlets added to lift the hull out of the water as speed increased: a hydrofoil supported catamaran or HYSUCAT. Therewas muchmore research needed playing around with size of finlets, whole hull raised with rudders in the water or just front portion of hull raised etc. The propotype i saw was about a22 x 8 or 9 ft one . Ran about 25 knts on twin 30 hp two stroke outboards with 4 up if i remeber the numbers right. Pretty decent handling in the local3 to 5 chop which is kind oflike the Gulf.

Hope somebody resurects it and gets it going.

flyliner

Years ago in a cruising or boating magazine of sorts was an article on a 40 plus foot catamaran built in Australia and outfitted for long distance cruising and fishing. It hada flybridgein the middle and twocockpits and fighting chairs and could make long distance passages, as in Australia to Hawaii. Fast at cruise and incredibly efficient at trolling speeds. The beam was 20 plus foot and with riggers you had one wide spread of baits.

A buddy of mine who tinkers in building boats still gives me shit about misplacing the magazine the article was in.

__________________
Pat Dineen
Flyliner Charters
850-376-0400

Xanadu

2 60 hp outboards are not similar in cost to two 350 hp diesels. The reliability and length of life are different as well as the internal rigging. That said, 120 hp pushing a 30' boat 20 knots sounds too good to be true.