I love these powerboats! They are the only ones that make sense to me if I was a power boating type.

Has anyone ever been aboard one? How do they handle? Is it similar to being underway in a sailing cat?

I can't answer your questions. I have noticed over thast several years they are becoming more & more popular....i2f

I was soundly walloped by 20 or more of these cats going up the ICW last spring.

They passed every other boat out there and did it without leaving a wake.

These lagoons were the ones I remember most:



Very nice boats. They seemed incredibly efficient too.

Well, I posted this thread in the mono-hull powerboat section about the Atlanta Boat Show since almost every boat there was in that class.

But there was one boat that fits in here, and I was impressed with it.

The C-Dory TomCat 255 PilotHouse



This is not exactly the boat I would buy for myself, mainly because it's gas outboard powered, but there is a lot to like about it, including the price. It's really designed as a stable platform fishing or diving boat, but I think it would work well as an intracoastal cruiser. And it's trailerable!

For about $150-175k, this is a lot of boat. It happened to be in the same booth with the Ranger Tug I talked about in my other post (the same dealer sells both).

The TomCat is a full featured cruiser with really everything you would expect in a non-genset boat. Only thing missing was a stove, but there is counter space (with plenty of room underneath) to mount what you want. There is a customer that added A/C and a genset, because there really is a lot of space in various places.

With the max sized engines it'll run 40kts, cruise at 20. At cruise, with 150 gallons of fuel with twin 150s, it has about a 350 mile range. The max hp on the link on their site says 300, but the info at the boat show said 350 (and they had twin 175s on it). At 5.8 knots, the range is 750nm. That's not bad at all.

If you are familiar with C-Dory interiors, you'll know what this looks like. No interior tub. What you see on the inside is the inside of the hull, not finished. The layout is a little cramped, but after all this is just a 25' boat. It's utilitarian but with real wood trim accents done in a way that it looks good.

The head is to starboard aft. Normally (as is the case with the 25' Ranger) this would block your view a little. But the TomCat has very large windows fore and aft with snap-on canvas covers. When you are running, just remove the canvas and you have 360 degree visibility. Wanna shower? Snap in the canvas.

Berth forward (not a v-berth, since it's a cat, it's full width).

One other nice touch. The hand rails topside are set inboard something like 18". So, your arms are comfortably extended while walking down the side. I forgot to include that feature was also on the 29' Ranger Tug.

-dan

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When I collected my Leopard from Cape Town they have just opened up a brand new factory for making the powercats. They do a 47ft and a 37ft. The 47 is almost identical to my sailing 46 apart from two huge motors in the back and a flybridge. After talking with some of the delivery skippers they recon they are really stable and handle well even in heavy seas. Due to the layout the 47 has the internal space of a 60ft normal mobo but with about a 1/4 of the fuel consumption.
One of the guys was loading 6000 litres (1200 gal) of diesel onboard for the delivery trip from Cape Town to Brazil where they would again re-fuel before ending up in the BVI. That's one hell of a lot of fuel!!!

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Andy
www.tulliana.adaero.co.uk

Wow so it wouldn't be unsafe to go transatlantic with one of theses I'm guessing?

By far the best powerboat designs on the market these days are Cats as long as you don't overload them

All I have read about power cats almost has me convinced. The major drawback is the traditional gin palace mentality that just keeps stuffing things on board until the boat hits the boot stripe. To go from a sailing multi, where wieght and efficiency is a way of life, to a power cat, would probably be an easy transition.
The theory is great. Less weight, less wetted surface, more usable space.

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