SO WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OR ON YOUR C-DORY TODAY??

[Pacificcoast101]

It seems as if I'm down at the marina working on the boat every day. Yesterday I went down just to empty the dehumidifiers. As I was leaving, I saw my shore power cord and inlet plug in the water, and a hole in the boat where the inlet used to be. There was a kayak on the finger between No Pressure and my neighbor's sailboat. I assumed he must have dropped the kayak on my shore power cord while trying to lift the heavy kayak out of the water. I was peeved. I later found out that the finger was full of sea lions and someone scared them off. At least one of them jumped on the cord. I spent the afternoon replacing the shore power and moving the cord so I won't have to deal with my neighbor's side of the dock.

 

[colbysmith]

Decided to make some new window screens for the aft two windows in my cabin. (port side and in the head). I had made two initially as the boat was missing them. I just perfected my process and made some new ones. (If anyone would like the first ones, I'll hang on to them for a while before I throw them out. Just let me know.) Colby

 

[Gulfcoast John]

On our last outing we hosted the Club commodore, her husband and Father Nick to do the Blessing of the Fleet,including our boat, prior to a sailboat race,



Returning to our marina, we dropped off the guests. While maneuvering to our slip, the port engine shifting seemed stiff. The next day I went back to check it out and it became frozen half way into Reverse gear. I told Eileen, “I don’t think that Blessing did much good.” We wrestled the big girl onto the trailer with one engine and dropped the boat off at Key Marine for that and annual service.

Three days later the head tech called to say the good engine refused to turn over at all…turns out due to a totally fried start relay. Since being stuck in a marina slip with TWO inop engines would have been awful, I recanted my ‘blessing’ critique…we would hate to try to ‘paddle’ Cat O’ Mine a quarter mile onto the trailer…I don’t think it’s even possible.

The shift issue good news is that it’s a ball detent gizmo $34 in total parts in the vertical shift section.

The bad news is that to get to it, the entire powerhead has to be removed, which is $1,300 in labor that ‘takes all day.’

The other good news is we’re all fixed up in seven days for under 3.5 Boat Units as the only significant expense on the 2010/2011 engines ever when almost to 2024.

Could be worse!
We will definitely get the blessing again next year.

John

 

[JMacLeod]

Tilt/trim seal blew on the port motor.
Mechanic suggested replacing both sides at the same time, and it was good that he did.
The OEM parts were discountinued and both sides now have new seals and the newer pressure caps which hopefully eliminate any future issues.



Since it's time for a new calendar, it also must be time to check the trailer wiring and replace the lights again.
Yep, it's time.



Extra Tomcat bonus: Sitting in the tunnel to do work.

 

[JMacLeod]

Extra Tomcat bonus: Sitting in the tunnel to do work.

I'm 6'2" and feel like I have more headroom working under the boat than in the cabin. LOL

 

[Pacificcoast101]

After 14 years our Lewmar 700 windlass died. It's been on and off for a couple of months. I had to pull up 150 feet of chain and anchor by hand after our last dive, so I ordered the Pro Fish 1000. It arrived in two days so I went down to the boat at sunset to prep everything for installation tomorrow. Once I cut the wires and checked that the bolt placement was the same as the old windlass I began loosening the bolts. The next thing I knew, I had removed the old one and wired up the new one in less than a half hour. I checked the operation a few times and everything works great. I finished just as it began to rain. Sometimes things work out.
I told Merry I wanted to rename the boat Sunny Beaches because it sounds like something I'm usually grumbling to myself when I'm working on the boat.

 

[Gulfcoast John]

When the time comes to replace the windlass I hope we can do it in half a fortnight.

We launched today at the larger NAS PNS marina. Excellent security. The two waterjet propelled landing craft make Cat O’ Mine look tiny. It’s very impressive to see the crews run them up onto their giant trailers. The ramp extends to a depth of over nine feet at low tide (a WWII seaplane ramp). They just don’t make boat ramps like this anymore. Shorts and T-shirt weather.



The two front trailer tires are losing some PSI, so we’ll let the tire pro investigate that before we trailer to Key West next week. At 36 months from mfg date they’ve lost 50% of their structural strength like all do; we replace all at 48 months max. I suspect the old metal valve stems; the temp/pressure sensors rotate on top of them at highway speeds. Are there any Physics majors out there to calculate the torque generated on the stem of a 1oz sensor rotating 1 inch inside a 16” D tire going 65 MPH? Of course, the lighter boats are not always running so close to their max rating. Report to follow.


Cheers!’

John

 

[mstrpo]

The weather for the last few days has been incredible and we had a free day so we put in the Columbia River at the free Kalama ramp. Its pretty steep so I loosened the bow eye strap a few inches just after that stern was in the water so the bow could rotate more easily once the stern started floating.

Kalama is at about river mile 75 and our target was downriver to Walker Island at river mile 60. There's a slough that starts at Lord Island on the Oregon side that we took as it ends as the downriver end of Walker Island. Our cruise downriver was filled with seal sightings. We surely saw a hundred or more in the water during the down and back and probably a hundred more out of the water on rocks and sand bars. I can understand why the fishermen were describing slow catching! There were more seals than debris in the water!

The slough had a very shallow section which left 3 ft below the boat so right at my crawling speed limit. We made it through and checked out the little bay at the lower end of the Walker Island for future use to anchor for the night on the way down to Astoria. Looked good but no protection from a wind from the west.

As we cruised down river, with the tide going out, I noticed how we were able to stay on plane all the way down to 14-15 knots. I also noticed an improvement in fuel efficiency (according to the meters in the motors) but couldn't understand why. On the trip back upriver, the same held true. It occurred to me this was the first trip out with the new anchor (25 lb Mantus M1 replaced 5kg Lewmar claw). The rest of the load in the boat was about the same. Any thoughts on the added weight on the bow reducing planing speed?

Here's a pic as we approached the Lewis and Clark bridge as we headed down river.

 

[thataway]

s we cruised down river, with the tide going out, I noticed how we were able to stay on plane all the way down to 14-15 knots. I also noticed an improvement in fuel efficiency (according to the meters in the motors) but couldn't understand why. On the trip back upriver, the same held true. It occurred to me this was the first trip out with the new anchor (25 lb Mantus M1 replaced 5kg Lewmar claw). The rest of the load in the boat was about the same. Any thoughts on the added weight on the bow reducing planing speed?

The 12 or so lbs you added will make no difference (no more than the dog on the V Berth might make a difference.). It could be a lighter boat, different trim tab setting or different engine trim. A Permatrim helps to lowing the planing speed, by giving more stern lift, slightly more bow down. Of course other factors such as clean bottom, different prop cup or rake as well as the pitch and diameter all make differences.

 

[Pacificcoast101]

It had been ten months since we last dived Spongehenge at Hermosa Beach Artificial Reef. Storms had knocked over the rodeo bar that the Giant Sea Bass used as a cleaning and mating site. I didn't know if we would ever return, but the ocean was calm enough for us to give it a go. This morning, Merry Passage and I dropped into chunky soup. Visibility was six feet in the particulate-filled water. We were only down a few minutes when our old friends came to visit. The only halfway decent shots I got were when the fish allowed my housing to get within a few inches.

 

[Gulfcoast John]

Our 2010 boat has lived in the Southern sun since new and has a LOT of oxidation damage. The entire eyebrow had gelcoat crazing (not stress cracks like a spider web, but like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle) and chalky rough gelcoat. My Shurbold buffer didn’t help at all. I was thinking it was time to paint after 14 years despite waxing with Collinite 925 every 3-4 months.

In late 2021 we paid a pro detailer $2,000 (incl tip) to buff the exterior three times prior to taking it to the AGLCA Rendezvous and Looper Boat Crawl so that it would look as nice as possible. It looked much better, but certainly not like new.

I asked another owner whose experience I respect to take a look and he offered to do it better for the same price. He did an incredible job. I thought the black trim gelcoat was basically gone, but with an incredible amount of labor he brought it back to the point you can see my reflection in it, and ALMOST the SONY on my camera.



The reflection of the Robalo in the next dry slip:








We suspect that some of the problem was old dead Poli-Glo residue, which can be hard to get completely off after a number of years. I wasn’t looking for a ‘brand new boat’ look after 14 years of damage, but boy am I impressed…gave the guy an extra $500, but he says he wouldn’t have taken on this job if he’d known how much labor it would be.

So keep our experience in mind before considering painting, Poli-Glow or vinyl wrapping an older C-Dory!

John

 

[gstraub]

Had to do a radio inspection on a commercial vessel yesterday and decided it was closer by boat than car (and more fun). Weather looked great with some possible thunderstorms after 4 PM. Convinced a friend of mine to go along as "autopilot" since it was about 36 miles each way. Forecast was for waves less than one foot on the Chesapeake...HA! Got the stuffing kicked out of us! Poor old EnDoryFun really took a beating, but we got there. Stopped for a quick lunch at the TIki Bar in Solomons on the way home (got to have priorities and pay the "autopilot"!). Luckily the seas had died down and we made much better time getting home and tied up before the thunderstorms got there.

 

[mstrpo]

After some research last fall, I decided to make an anchor bridle following some ideas that I found online after reading an article that thataway referenced in a post. After successfully building the anchor bridle, I naturally needed cleats on the forward corners of the bow on my TC255! I followed instructions from posts here and elsewhere online to:

1. Drill oversized holes.
2. Use a special bit (big nail with partial head) to route out the core between the fiberglass. BTW - it looks like the bow on my TC255 has a foam core as it certainly wasn't wood that came out. More like a rubbery foam.
3. Fill the holes with thickened epoxy. I used West System SIX 10 and it was super easy to use and made for this kind of job.
4. Drill the correct size holes for the bold.
5. Use a bit to bevel the holes.
6. Use Bed-It tape to seal the cleats to the deck.

You can find picks from the job in my album in the 'Add bow cleats for anchor bridle' sub-album.

Thanks for those here who posted info that gave me the ideas and confidence to do this job!

 

[ssobol]

I did the same thing on my 22 last year. The 22 foredeck is not cored (at least were I put the cleats), so the steps with oversizing the holes and all did not have to be done. I did use a dremel tool to grind off the anti slip surface under the feet of the cleats to get a good contact with the deck.

 

[Captain Starbucks]

Mounted a Viking Rescyou Coastal 6.

I chose this location for a few reasons.

It's the furthest location from my 4 lithium batteries

It will help keep the scuppers a little higher

At 77 lbs plus the stainless mount, it should help balance out my 96" 70LB electric bow mounted trolling motor mounted on the other side of the bow.


Also, the headliner on my boat is quite well done. It was installed using wooden plugs sawn and sanded. To remove the whole headliner would have taken a long time to do it right and I didn't want to just punch holes through it for the bolts. So I chose not to install on the roof.

 

[Gulfcoast John]

Cat O’ Mine Repower

We decided to replace our 2010/2011 Yamaha F150 outboards with new F150’s with Digital Throttle and Shift and Integral electric steering. We’ve never had more reliable, bullet proof engines (now at 15 years) on 13 trailer boats over 40 years. Our calculus is that we hope to competently manage this boat on the water and on the road for another 10 years, when God willing, we’ll be 80. But then we’d be selling a boat with 25 year old engines. We know it’s not a great decision based solely on a ROI perspective. But we’re more interested in maximizing reliability as we cruise. Our Financial Planner said Go For It! As did experts we trust who know our style.

Our shop gave us $5,400 trade-in value on the 2010 F150s. . We lucked out that Yamaha is running a free extension of the warranty for six rather than 3 years now ($3600 savings over purchase). Suzuki 175’s would have been $10,000 less, but we’ve never owned one and never wanted more oomph than our faithful Yamahas have provided over our past 12 years with them.

Integral electric steering eliminated four hydraulic hoses and the SeaStar Liquid tie bar so that frees up engine bracket real estate without the seal leaks, manual realignment hassles etc.

We had all the fuel lines replaced with new Yamaha lines. All fuel hose manufacturers require ‘replacement’ at 10 years from the mfg date stamped on the hose (not boat purchase date), but I seem to be the only Brat to ever worry about this.

We opted for the Yamaha Electronic Keyless Start fob, which makes it impossible to start the engine if you Lock it with the Fob (with a red LED blinking, just like your car).

Thieves tend to skip these boats for easier targets. That system can be retrofitted onto any Yamaha Helm Master binnacle control.

Today the high was 78 degrees and calm in Pensacola Bay, so we clocked our initial one hour of break in time at varying from idle to 2000 RPM.

Cheers!

John

 

[colbysmith]

Electric steering, interesting. How's that work with the autopilot? Colby

 

[Gulfcoast John]

Hi Colby,

It works because the autopilot is Yamaha, the rigging is all digital lines, the steering is Yamaha electric, and if you go with the joystick control, it too is all Yamaha. The table at the bottom lists the option packages with the Helmaster EX helm, which looks like a lit up Star Trek warp speed controller.

https://global.yamaha-motor.com/busines ... ies/hm-ex/

We don’t have an AP (and never have). I understand how it’s indispensable for those who fish patterns, choose to cruise at low displacement speeds rather than cruising speeds, navigate long segments out of sight of land (where it really is surprisingly hard to steer a perfect straight line) and those who just want one etc. If I ever want to upgrade, the AP is just another module to rig. Although we’re outliers on this subject, we regard it as something we’d use so seldom that it’s not worth buying.

It’s interesting that this all-Yamaha approach mitigates against the problems you could encounter with different makers pointing the finger at the others when the Garmin pump, Seastar hydraulics, Simrad plotter, Raymarine AP etc don’t play well together or at all. And with widely spaced twin outboards, I can’t justify a joystick controller or thrusters for docking. It’s much cheaper to simply pay the fiberglass expert for the repairs every time we dock. Everyone's mileage is different.

John

 

[Captain Starbucks]

John,

It's nice to see you were so happy with your previous generation Yamaha's that you went with the same brand. You're the guy manufactures are trying to please and this time it worked!

I too was also curious about the A/P integration.

Rob

 

[Gulfcoast John]

Yesterday we pressure-washed the exterior, including the brown stains above the waterline that we collected on the Down The Tenn-Tom cruise in Oct-Nov. Today it’s 76 degrees and sunny, and 90 degrees in the boat even with a full open door and all windows. We grew some moldy hairs on the mouse fur after the foggy mornings up there had condensation dripping off the window frames and ceiling and running down the mouse fur. It’s shedding with brushing and vinegar or hydrogen peroxide or Folex or Incredible cleaners, but it is 15 years old, so no surprise there. Since it’s only cosmetic, we’re not sure it’s worth investing in a pro total replacement project.

The new Yamaha F150 XSA engines with digital throttle, steering and shift are awesomely precise and quiet! Good riddance to the Sea Star liquid tie bar, four hoses and the engine bracket real estate it took up.

Jan 10 we plan to head down to cruise the Okeechobee waterway as an out and back, then stay at the Pink Shell Marina resort until the Hontoon Hoot in March. For planning purposes, I can’t find info on whether the Rim Route can be at planing speeds for us or not…as is so often the case, it may depend on local conditions like bass fishing tournaments, water levels etc. Good to be retired with no schedule. Appreciate any advice!

Last May we asked a fellow dry slip guy with much more experience than us to buff/polish the exterior with his pro Makita as best he could for $2500, and he did an unbelievably good job! It looked almost shiny new and reflective. There is now some expected oxidation, esp on the sun exposed side, and I’ll try my toy Shurehold buffer on that this weekend.

If Current Plans come to pass, we may finish our Loop this summer in only nine years! If not, no worries. Betty on Molly Brown’s blog yesterday wrote that they did the Gulf crossing after waiting only six days for a weather window and it was overall more pleasant than their Lake Michigan or Chesapeake Bay segments.

In three days, they start getting longer, so Summer Is Almost Here! Fire up the pressure washer and come down to enjoy south Florida!

John