On Tue, 17 May 2005 13:38:40 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:
The cats are nice platforms and give a nice but slow ride in the nasties.
Actually they give a slow ride any time. For our offshore waters (mobile
area) cats don't offer a lot and there are few of them. Offshore here means
OFFshore. In decent weather a deep V hull will get out and be fishing long
before a cat arrives assuming the same start point and time.
If its an area more often sloppy than not a cat ould offer a lot more.
IMO, the different hulls same power argument is useless. No matter how much
power is hung off the back of a cat it will only go so fast.
~~ snippage ~~
I do not wish to gainsay Chuck and his well written review, but I just
wanted to compare impressions.
I have taken two of these for a ride - both Canyon Runners. One was a
22' that a fellow has at my marina owns and the other was a 26' that
was being offered for sale by a private owner through a dealership
brokerage.
It was during the time when I had a couple of prospective purchasers
for my Ranger and I wanted to purchase something a little larger than
a 20 foot bay boat.
My impression is that both were under powered even at maximum. Being
a multihull, you would think that speed would be an advantage of the
dual hull configuration, but I was shocked at how slow they are both
coming up to speed and at cruise.
Having said that, my perception may have been skewed by the
acceleration and speeds I can get out of the Ranger and Contender.
On the 22, I had a chance to test the ride at the East Passage
entrance to Narragansett Bay - seas were running 2-3' with the
occasional 4' - it handled very nicely - that was impressive. There
was a minimum of rock and roll in a beam sea, but it was
uncomfortable. Of course any boat in East Passage in a beam sea is
going to be uncomfortable. But head on, quartering, following seas it
rode dry at varying speeds.
Form, fit and function was acceptable, but I would have like to see
more storage on both boats. That may be accounted for by the hull
configuration.
Just for the record, I had pretty much the same opinion of a World Cat
230 SF which was powered by twin Hondas.
I was disappointed because I had this idea in my head that this style
hull would be a performer. And these type hulls perform acceptably,
but they didn't give me the performance I was looking for. I had the
distinct impression that they are over built. All things considered,
that isn't really a bad thing.
To be fair, the owners I have talked to love their boats. And if
their owners like them, that's all that counts.
May The Force be with you,
Tom
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