I bought my 16 ft cruiser in 2003. I seem to get 5+ knots per gallon on my heavily loaded cruiser with a 50 HP Yami. The boat planes at 12 to 14 knots. I usually run it at 16 to 18 knots on flat or minor seas, 16 knots when cruising downhill with the wind to my back and following seas. When going far, I carry two six gallon cans, two 3.5 gallon cans and a 9 gallon can between the seats. The three gallon cans get drained first and when empty, get strapped to the roof or go under the v-berth. I can only carry this much gas when alone on the boat. Adding a second person would be too much weight on top of those gas cans. That means my friends only get to fish near home port.
I installed marine board shelves in the motor well on each side of the outboard. I have an 8 gal bait tank on the side of motor well with the swim step. A wood disk (sold at Home Depot for making a coffee tables) serves as the bait tank cover and a cutting board/fillet table or stand-up bar table. The bait tank can be removed, giving a swimmer a level step to enter or leave the boat, or to board a dingy.
A big cube ice chest is installed on the other side of the motor. The top of the ice chest has a drawer and cup holders. A hose lets melting ice drain overboard. I often use dry ice. I don't want that inside the boat when the tent back canvas buttons it down. Co2 from the dry ice could kill me in my sleep.
I bought a stainless, vertical three rod holder and knife and plyers holder from West Marine. It a storage holder. I put that on the outside of the motor well wall to store rods at night when I want to clear the v-berth of rods to sleep.The rods have to be outside the canvas which snaps to the transom above the rod holder.
I also installed adjustable Bennett trim tabs. There is some benefit from that, but the extra benefit is not worth the cost on such a small boat. The Yami engine has a nice tilt feature. With plastic wings on the outboard, adjusting the tilt keeps the bow down when you want to speed through low chop or minor swells. I use the tabs down most of the time because of the weight I carry in the stern, but not always. Sometimes I use one trim tab to balance the boat. Trim tabs in a down position (especially just one) cause my boat to swerve wildly in turns at a certain speed, around 9 - 12 knots, or given a certain swell angle. The inexperienced skipper will be shocked by that the first few times. The advantage of adjustable tabs is that you can eliminate that unintended consequence by raising the tabs when you don't need the tab feature. Fixed tabs stick you with the problem.
If you're a fisherman, trim tabs are a knife to cut your line when bringing a fish to the boat. Be sure to free spool if a fish makes a run at the gaff. I lost a beautiful yellowtail at the Isthmus when it did that and the tight line rubbed against a trim tab.
I see talk about moving weight forward to keep the bow down. That is dangerous in a following sea. You want the boat light in the bow and popping up like a cork when you slide down a swell and hit the wave in front of you.
I also keep the anchor in the cockpit and launch it over the side. (Of course, the line is run through the anchor pulpit. When I retrieve it, I power the boat forward and use a gaff or boat hook to grab the line and haul the anchor up from the cockpit. I also use a release line tied to the anchor and a buoy. I never go on the bow deck at sea to fool with the anchor. That's a fast ticket to a bad day or to the ocean's bottom. I have a roller on the side of the cockpit to prevent anchor line and chain abraision on the hull. Fortress makes a light aluminum anchor that takes away most of the weight of a steel anchor, relieving the pain of hauling in heavy iron by hand.
As some of the Catalina cruisers can tell you, my wife and I brought our two dogs one year. We all slept for a week in the v-berth of our 16 ft cruiser, one dog between Kimiko and me and one dog on top of me. Tight, and a little doggy in odor, but we had fun... at least once I got my unhappy dog to understand on the first night that he really had to share the v-berth and it wasn't all his. (That followed a half hour of his growling and snapping to tell us to leave him alone, while he comfortably curled up on top of our sleeping bags! I had to learn dog whisperer crisis negotiation !)
What else can I tell you about C-Pup... it has radar, dual Lowrance GPS/sonar units with two transducers, two batteries and a trickle charger, a Sears starter (jumper) battery, a Givens survival raft, a dingy, a Spot Me satellite communicator (which is a great safety idea!), a 406 MHz "PLB" (Personal Locator Beacon), a painting of a topless girl in the surf (actually a mouse pad from Avalon), a sail boat tether line, a down rigger, two gunnel rod holders and one transom rocket launcher, shade canvas and the tent enclosure, window privacy and shade covers, two anchors (one with chain) and a series of rollers for the anchor line to run along the side of the boat to the cockpit, a chum churner, a detachable bait cutting or fillet table that drains over the gunnel, a gas barbecue that slides into a rod holder, standard porta potty, windshield wipers, bow deck cowl vents, LED running lights on each side of the bow, a "cross" tower structure (I made it from PCV pipe) to hold a metal radio antenna and flag, a stereo, a breaker box in addition to the standard fuse box, bow rail flood lights, a cockpit flood light, and I probably forgot something from the list. When I was in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, it was inspected and approved to be a harbor patrol facility.
The cruiser is a sweet little boat for one guy to handle at sea and spend a few days living on board, anchoring up at night. I can easily launch and retrieve it from the trailer alone. I drive it off and on the trailer with the outboard, stepping on the spare tire to climb on or off the bow deck.
What would I do different? I hope to add wind shield washers someday so the wipers can clear off dried salt water. A hose sprayer over each window connected by tubing to a bottle of Windex sitting on the pilot's counter would work. I also want to move my running lights to the Radar tower for better visibility. The boat literally disappears between swells, it is so small. The vent cowls and trim tabs were probably money better left in the bank. Everything else I added offered a benefit that was worth the money and added ease or safety, making them worth while. Maybe the art work added nothing to safety, but it was worth while too!
I don't often check in here or post, so a follow-on answer may take a while.
If you own or buy a 16 ft cruiser, enjoy it but play it safe. RESPECT THE LIMITS OF A BOAT AND YOUR LIMITS AT SEAMANSHIP GIVEN WHAT THE SEA CAN POTENTIALLY TOSS AT YOU, NOT WHAT IT'S LIKE WHEN YOU DEPART ON A FINE DAY.
Keith
C-Pup16 ("Tiny But Tenatious")
