Tomcat 255 owners - questions

Joe,
We feel a water heater that runs on shorepower is useless without a generator. Who wouldn’t use the unlimited hot water at the marina’s shower instead? And the ‘gray’ sudsy shower water is pumped overboard by the sump pump, right to your marina dock mate. Gross. The rated 1750 watts on mine is right at the top of a Honda 2000 rated output, or that of a wall plug.
Simple 2-beer job to remove heater...disconnect all 110v/12v input, remove white, black, green wires and plug hose cold water inlet, hot water outlet, and overflow to shower sump with SS bolts screwed into the hose ends with SS clamps (so it’s easy to rep lace if next owner wants to). I put up a Lexan sheet at the back to keep things from hitting all that rigging that runs along the stbd side behind the heater, and stuffed the hoses down their rigging holes.
What I haven’t done yet, but is on The List, is to re-connect the water heating wiring and change out the 110v plug behind the helm seat with a GFI, (currently it’s daisy-chained to the port side 110v outlet and BOTH are on a 10 breaker) then connect the now-unused water heater 110v power to that. Re-label ‘water heater’ as ‘starboard 110v GFI’. Now we have TWO 110V outlets EACH with 10A capacity rather than 2 outlets sharing 10A.
This frees up an entire cabinet for storage of stuff you really don’t need on a boat, so I highly recommend it.
No need to remove the inop sump pump.
I T’ed a hose from the shower cold water input to the transom for a hose-off on the bracket for those 95 degree afternoons, but you don’t have nearly as many of those as we do.
I also plugged the raw water washdown intake with a rubber stopper and sealant as who wants to wash down with hot saltwater when you’ve been in it all day?
Best,
John
 
I can put my two cents in for the trolling for salmon part. I can troll with one engine and depends on what species of salmon you are fishing for. No problem trolling for coho since they like a faster troll of 3-3.5 mph. Trolling for kings can be effective too however on some occasions when the tides are running fast it’s hard to hold a slower troll speed to keep my downrigger angle at the optimal angle of about 45 degrees to troll for kings. Trolling for pinks is tougher to get to that 1.5 mph speed however I accomplished it by putting one engine in reverse while having one going forward. Caught many fish on the TC. But get the extended booms need to be able to keep the lines away from the props while turning.
 
gulfcoast john thanks - Water Heater removal on the list

joechiro30 - thanks for the trolling tips

Had a great trip out this last weekend, loving the boat.

Met the Black Cat - nice folks:)

Will follow up with photos and the various mishaps :)

Joe/Sundog
 
We use the water heater on almost every trip. With our Honda 2000i we can have a hot shower in 15 minutes. We have cruised SE Alaska where we were out for 60 days and showered in marinas maybe 3 times. We think it's one of the best features on the TomCat. Just one couples experience.
 
We use our water heater for every trip as well. We use the boat for scuba diving and a hot shower feels great after being in cold water for a couple of hours. After the hot water runs out we rinse our gear so we can just clean the boat when we get back in the marina.
 
There are much smaller flow thru water heaters, some are a gallon and some slightly more. Some even use less than the 1500 or so watts. Being able to shower on the boat is a feature for us==and one of the reasons we moved back up to the 25. Not sure if we are going to put in a smaller water heater or not....but it is always a temptation to load up all of those storage areas!
 
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