question for experienced owners

[Sea Wolf]

C-Brat Dog Fanciers- My 150 lb Great Dane female, Shadow, sleeps in the V-berth, and I sleep on the dinette berth, which seems to be a fairly equitable division of space. This suits me just fine, as we both can get up and down and in and out of bed much easier with this arrangement. Reckon my spousal unit will have to sleep with the dog when she comes along (in the "Ladies Only Lounge"). Joe, Shadow, and Cathy(?).

[Da Nag]

Heh heh heh...that would be this little gal, eh Joe?

[Sea Wolf]

Bill- Yep! She's the other woman in my life! Thanks for looking up the vintage photo. Joe.

[Okeydokey]

Hi from San Diego. We have owned our 25 since last May and make weekend trips to Oceanside, Long Beach, Catalina, ect. We would not know what to do without our Refrig under the helm seat. Those trips, our early evening snacks (maybe even some white wine) are all made better by this conveniece. We have bought slide out wire drawers for the other storage areas, a big plastic box for under the v berth removal cushion, installed a wine glass and paper towl racks over the galley and added a mircro wave and toaster oven on the shelf aft port side (just before you go out of the door). Additionally, we installed a 1800 w inverter (expensive though) to operate some appliances while at sea or away from dock power. My fishing poles (3) are mounted inside the pilot house on the ceiling and our wine cabinet turned out to be the space below the table where two cases of two buck chuck can be stowed along with other items of extreme importance

Additionally, we run two small circular dehumidifiers all the time while at dock power (one in the berth and one under the table). This sure controls the damp air. Another item we deem very important is the diesel stove & heater. It sure makes life easier on cool days and nights.

Ok...I have talked too much but hope you find a little of this helpful.

Ken & Candy
Candy 'O

[El and Bill]

Ken and Candy --

Sure hope El doesn't read about your setup -- might be a mutiny on our boat.

[C-Puffin]

Well, it looks like we have a little longer to get everything figured out. We heard today that our boat won't be ready until mid to end of April. This means we may have to miss the C-Dory get together for opening weekend on Lopez Island. We were really hoping to have our inaugural cruise on Easter weekend. Oh well, it's worth the wait, right? On the bright side, it gives us time to spend lots more money on all kinds of "boat stuff". We will continue to live vicariously through all of you, so keep the stories coming!


Scott and Laurie

[DaveS]

[C-Puffin]

We went to Boater's World and West Marine today looking for accessories. It's difficult to buy stuff for a boat you haven't really seen or used yet, but we're trying. I'm wondering what recommendations you all have for things that you wouldn't want to be without. Our big debate right now is over coolers and deck chairs. Any suggestions are always appreciated.

Scott and Laurie

[Captains Cat]

Scott and Laurie... We've got the deck chairs that fit in a bag to stow, but then we've only got a 22 and only room for two. As for a cooler, get something you can sit on and have a cushion made for the top of it.

If you can't think of anything else to buy, send me your extra money and I'll buy some stuff, try it out and let you know how it works....hee, hee...

Congrats on the new boat, let us all know how you like it!!

[DaveS]

[Anita Marie]

As far as deck chairs take a look at the collapsible camp chairs at Costco. We got these chairs last year and really like them. They fit in a bag and stow nicely in the Vberth.

Fred

[Cosmic C]

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

[C-Puffin]

Pat

Thank you for the information, some of it I had heard about but some was also new. We are meeting with Jeff from C-Dory the end of this month to go over some additional items and I will bring up some of these issues with him.


Scott

[Bess-C]

Pat,
Good information. C-Dory replaced the plastic tank on our 2003 25 a couple of months ago. It was done at the Kent factory. They put in the new aluminum tank, with a fill pipe and vent on each side. They also put a larger access port by the tank, and two small access ports by the vent and fill lines. The boat has been at E.Q. (my dealer) since they replaced it, so I haven't been able to fill the tank to be sure the problem is solved. You're right to be concerned about cutting out the deck to replace the tank. I don't think that the factory did a good enough job patching their work. I can still see the cut line in some places. I don't understand the water in the cabin by the door. We've never had water intruding the cabin like that, no matter how wet it got outside. We've had a lot of water in the bilge area under the back deck, and it hasn't gotten into the cabin. Are you sure it's not something to do with the through hull or hoses under the step?
Lyle

[dotnmarty]