Scott & Laurie:
Several months ago another CBrat asked me about my experience buying the Cosmic C (25' cruiser) new from Cutter Marine in Baltimore. I had several problems which needed to be addressed (some still do!), and since my experience may be of interest to you and others about to take delivery, I have copied & pasted part of my response below. Before getting to that, however, let me put in a good word for the refrigerator! We actually have both the refrigerator and a cooler, since the latter is a better choice for keeping the beer cold of an afternoon, but the former is better (in my opinion) for cruising. There is so much storage room on a 25' that we have never felt the need for the additional space. Some are concerned about the energy consumption of the refrigerator, but we have a fairly substantial triple battery setup on the C (Optima Blue engine battery, twin Group 31 AGM house batteries) and have never come close to draining the system when cruising with the refrigertator going full time.
Now to the problems:
1. The gas tank. You may already familiar with the problems some of us have been having from an earlier thread. If not, it is the tendency for the gas to suddenly geiser back out of the filler tube when the tank is only two thirds full. I had the housing running up the port side of the cockpit cut away and made removable so we could check the vent line. It turned out to be fine, so the factory now advises me that I need to change the tabnk itself. I very much doubt that I will have a big hole cut in the cockpit floor to change the tank. I would rather live with the situation and design a catch tank system to prevent my old faithful eruptions getting into the boat or the water. I wouldn’t accept delivery until they have demonstrated filling the tank full without problems.
2. Bow rail. I guess I am unusual in that I decided to have my spotlight mounted on the bow rail by welding a stainless steel plate across the apex. It’s out of my line of sight there, there are no back reflections, and we were able to run the wires back through the rail itself into the cabin, so it looks neat. Problem was, when they first mounted it it became obvious that the bow rail was way off center. In fact the apex of the rail was nearly 8” to port of the point of the bow. It wasn’t so noticeable with nothing mounted on the rail, but stuck out like a sore thumb with the light up there. It turns out that quite a few C-Dories come with an off=center bow rail, although mine was by far the worst I have seen. Anyway, I told them this was unacceptable, and they ordered another rail (two actually, to ensure they got at least one straight one) from the factory and went through the whole process (welding, running the wires, etc.) again at no cost to me. So check your bow rail, unless it isn’t important to you.
3. Trim tabs. The boat came from the factory with small trim tabs, much smaller than recommended by any of the trim tab manufacturers, and much smaller than those on a demo 25CD that was at Cutter at the time. They said that this was the way the factory was shipping now. I said this was unacceptable, and they replaced them with the recommended size at no cost to me. 25’ boats need 24x9 tabs, don’t accept anything less than 18x9. Mine came with 12x9! This is important, because trim tabs are an absolute must on a CD. Without them the CD25 would be a slow, uncomfortable boat in anything more than flat calm; with them it is great!
4. Water in the cabin. I’ve had a continuing problem with water getting into the cabin via the space under the step (where there is a”cabin” bilge pump.) When I brought this to Cutter’s attention, their solution was to seal along the bottom of the step and close off the hole there into the cabin. They maintained that this was an oversight by the factory, but the whole idea of the “cabin” bilge pump is to allow an owner to hose out the cabin and then pump the water out. Without the hole, the water can’t get to the pump. Cutter’s solution didn’t work anyway because as soon as enough water accumulates behind the step it comes into the cabin around the port side under the water heater. I was at first afraid that the source of the water was the through-the-hull fitting behind the step which feeds the toilet. But now I’ve determined that it is just bilge water coming forward through the various holes under the cockpit floor. Which leads me to my next point. There have been some reports on the CD sites that the hatches and access panels in the cockpit floor have come from the factory unsealed, thereby allowing rainwater to enter the bilge. I had Cutter check them on my CD and they said that they were sealed. But since I seem to get more water in the bilge than I think I should, and it correlates with rainfall, I think the sealing on mine is faulty. This spring I plan to take all four access panel out and reseal them, and I bet my cabin water will go away then too. Then, when I first want to hose out the cabin, I’ll open up the hole in the step again, although I’ll probably close it again afterwards, but this time with a simple bung. Anyway, I would recommend that you double check that the seals on your access panels are in fact holding out rainwater; use a bucket – I wish I had.
5. Grab rails. I asked Cutter to install three grab rails in the cabin ceiling, and I recommend that you consider grab rails too. In rough water they are much better than trying to hang on to the table! I’m going to install another one in the toilet this spring. There’s not much room there, and a vertical rail next to the door would make it very much easier to pull oneself up from the seat!
6. Other odds and ends. I’m going to install at least two solar operated exhaust fans this spring, one in the v-berth area, and one in the toilet. Ventilation is a problem in cool, rainy weather, and I have been dripped on during the night on a couple of occasions from condensation on the roof. I would advise you to consider exhaust fans, and, if you do, have them installed by your dealer. I am also very happy with my electrical system. I think it is well detailed on the appropriate thread on one of the sites. It is a bit more complex than the simple 2-battery (class 27 I believe) that Cutter installs, but if you are going to run a refrigerator, the Cutter system won’t hack it. Let me know if you want details. Research what anchor you want. Cutter installs a Danforth anchor as part of their package. I prefer a Bruce anchor, but I also took the Danforth as a back-up anchor. Also make sure that your anchor will self launch. Bruce anchors will not self-launch with the roller set up which comes with the Cutter package; one needs an articulated roller (Cutter knew what they were doing here and installed the articulated roller without my having to ask them to).
Even with my gas tank and leakage problems still unsolved, I LOVE THIS BOAT!! The St Lawrence river has much shorter and sharper chop than the ocean, but with the trim tabs the CD25 is a comfortable, efficient, quiet, and good-handling boat. I’ve averaged about 3 mpg; with the Honda F130 I can get to 34 mph on smooth water if I really want to, but mostly cruise at 15-25. The boat is very easy to live on for two or three people. Don’t believe the claim that it will sleep 4, however; the dinette bed is really only big enough for one.
Hope all this helps.
Pat
