Tom Cat power

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Bryant

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For all you Tom Cat people. I have a C Dory 22. We are thinking about a Tom Cat. What do you think of the idea of a single 200 hp motor mounted in the center of the transom motor mount?
 
If you don't want to get up on plane easily, it may work with the prop being in less disturbed water. If you want the speed of the conventional TomCat, you'll need to think about a Yamaha 300 or 350. The Armstrong bracket is probably strong enough to handle it if modified competently. Then there is that "Twins versus Single" thing.
 
Bryant":1jtj9ip3 said:
For all you Tom Cat people. I have a C Dory 22. We are thinking about a Tom Cat. What do you think of the idea of a single 200 hp motor mounted in the center of the transom motor mount?
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This is not a good idea for a number of reasons. First for the 255 this is just not enough power. 200 hp is OK for a TC 24, but the 255 is considerably heavier. Several were powered with 115's and they are marginal in power.

The next issue is running a single engine on a cat. The motors do much better behind a hull or some form or appendage. I have one of the few successful single engine cats at 18 feet--and it has 140 hp, with hull weight of 1800 #, add in motor etc you are about 2600 lbs. The Tom Cat 255 is going to run about 8500 lbs, and a lot more wetted surface area.

The problem with a single engine cat is cavitation--in my 18 footer (and some of the other single engine cats, there is a pod which is molded into the bridge deck and is just in front of the outboard. This helps to some degree.
Although you might think that the engine would work better without a hull to interfere--that turns out not to be the case in a cat. The hulls both throw a wake, so that the water in the center is quite disturbed as you get up to faster speeds. This makes planing with a single very difficult--even with the HP.

If you wanted to only run the boat in displacement mode, I suspect you could with a single center motor, but there 90 HP would be plenty to get up to 8 knots. The Tom Cat is a planing cat--not a semi displacement cat--like a Glacier bay.

In other words, there is a reason that most cats have twin outboards, behind the hulls. Sorry. Buy the cat, and use the proper engines, you will love it.
 
Kind of defeats the purpose of a cat for me. Twins are really nice for maneuvering . Agree with roger proper mods or most likely a new bracket. There must be a hydrodynamic theory on two versus one on a cat as well.
 
We made the move this year from a 22' Cruiser to a 24' Tomcat.
We spend most if our weekends 20-30 miles offshore, so the Tomcat is a better fit for our family. Our boat is powered by twin 135 hp Hondas, which are the largest motors that you should put on a 24'. As mentioned above, I would not think of a single motor on this boat. I love having redundancy and the maneuverability with twins is amazing.

If you are looking, there is a great 24' in the for sale section. Overall, the 25's have a number of upgraded options, but are nearly twice the price. 24's are relatively rare and do not come up in the market all that often.

We love our new Tomcat. Here is a video of a recent trip to Santa Barbara island.
http://vimeo.com/m/96552165

Tim
 
I can agree with what others here have said. Having 2 engines provides the margin of safety backup in the event that one engine has a mechanical failure.

Also, one of the best virtues of the Tomcats is their ability to go fast in chop and to maneuver in tight quarters. I think if you went with the single engine, you would lose both.
 
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