Kudos to C-Dory

H

helm

New member
We ran our C-Dory 25 from Albany Ny to Mackinaw City Mi this summer -1000 miles- absolutely zero problems and many nice comments from people along the way telling us how much they love our boat.
Heres what we found:
The boat is great with two people and does four with no problems, five is a stretch but we did it.
The C-Dory behaves in a running sea, we had some fair sized mixed up seas on Lake Huron and the boat took it all well with never a worry.
The ability to plane and run long distances above 20 knots lets you take advantage of good weather windows for safe Great Lakes crossings.
Boat systems have been well thought out, are simple and seem pretty bullet proof.
We kept all of our food in the fridge and drinks in an aft cooler, the fridge really works well and we had no amp hour worries with our two battery house battery bank system.
Redundant navigation is good. We use a Standard Horizon CPV 350 chartplotter plus paper charts plus a laptop running Tiki navigator with a separate Holux gps reciever. I don't think you can have to many ways to figure out where you especially on a route like the small craft channel on the Georgian Bay.
I think the boat is stiff and well built, no gel coat cracks, no stress fractures, just no worries about the boat structurally.
C-Dory needs to fix the leaky deck hatches and offer a fix to current owners, heres a boat with a totally dry bilge except for those poorly designed and executed hatches, wash the deck - water in the bilge - open the drain on your cooler - water in the bilge - bad C-Dory.
Moving the batteries out of the stern and relocating them under the deck opens up a large storage space and seemed to help balance the boat.
Upgrading the foam to a tempur pedic like foam is very worthwhile and really makes for comfortable sleeping.
If you are going to use the boat in moderate or more off shore or Great Lake conditions then the more horsepower the better, we have a Suzuki 140 which is a great running reliable engine but there are times when it would be nice to have more - like a Suzuki 200.
Just some thoughts about a great boat
Eric
 
We also think the C-25 is a great boat, and the trip you took is one of the best that can be done. The Eire Canal is one of the greatest trips in the world: history, views and the people. We're astounded that it isn't packed with cruisers. The Trent-Severn is a great trip, especially those funky locks. We didn't have to wait in Petersburg to get through the hydraulic lift, but the load after us did. Here's a link to our Great Lakes trip: Journey On's Trips Look under the 2007 trip. We did the Eire Canal a couple of years before, in a sailboat, and had to come back to finish off the Great Lakes.

I would appreciate a picture of how you moved the batteries. In Journey On, a 2005, you've got the stern stowage, and then the cabin storage. If I move the batteries into the cabin, I'm in Judy's territory, and they get tossed out. If there's an alternative, I'd love to see it. Also, what hatches are leaking? The ones in the cockpit?

Boris
 
Boris, I stole the battery location directly from Hank Brooks and Sea Skipper, I can't send you a picture of my batteries as the boat is being stored at Sheplers in Mackinaw City until next spring when we will head down Lake Michigan to Chicago.
Hank has nice pictures in his Sea Skipper album of the batteries relocated under the cockpit floor, was a very simple relocation on our 06 boat.
The leaking hatches that I referred to are the cockpit deck hatches, we have tried the tweek them approach and improved gasket approach but really they need to be redesigned.
I agree with you that the trip through the canals is great but we really loved the Georgian Bay, Collins Inlet, Killarney and the North Channel - almost rivals Maupiti.
Best
Eric
 
journey on referred to the "Eire Canal" vs "Erie Canal"...

:lol:

You are not the first person to misspell it, nor will you be the last. While the two words are similar, they are quite different in linguistic provenance.

Eire is Erse Gaelic for Ireland. As a history I read once said, the Gaels got "Eire" ("foreign" in Old Norse) as an Erse Gaelic loan word from the Norsemen who came a viking (pronounced "veeking") and liked the Emerald Isle enough to stay.

Thus, Eireland meant "foreign land" in Old Norse.

The "Erie" were a tribe of Indians. See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl ... n&ct=title

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The Erie (also Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were an Iroquoian pre- and early-historic group of Native Americans, who lived from western New York to northern Ohio on the south shore of Lake Erie.

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Somebody with a wicked sense of humor did a spinoff of the old "Erie Canal" folksong, wrote lyrics about digging a 3000 mile transatlantic canal, and titled it the "BALLAD OF THE EIRE CANAL". See:

http://interrobang.jwgh.org/songs/index ... re%20Canal

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In article adw@cci.com (Derrick Williams) writes:

I was riding by the University of Rochester, riding by the Eire canal,


BALLAD OF THE EIRE CANAL
From Buffalo to Derry,
Three thousand miles and more,
It was the first canal, me boys,
What dared to stretch offshore.
They said that we were crazy,
They said it was in vain,
For just as fast as we dug the trench
It filled right up again!

CHORUS:
Some say you still can see them,
Walking o'er the waves,
Ten thousand mules, as many men,
Each one strong and brave.
And sometimes when I'm good and drunk
I seem to hear my pals
Calling me to a hard day's work
On the good old Eire Canal.

The mulewalk made of oak and steel,
The channel lined with stone,
But the winter storms in the mid-Atlant'
You feel right to your bones.
Fourteen good men died there
Just a-building Iceland Lock
And we buried them at sea, each one,
Far from land or dock.

CHORUS
The barges lined up on each side
To cross that first spring day.
The hundred-fifty waypoints
Were stocked with ale and hay.
And when in summer's heat they met,
The westbound and the east,
The celebration went right on
For seven days at least.

CHORUS
Eight years was all she lasted, boys,
Eight years, two months, five days.
I still recall the day they let her
Sink beneath the waves.
The sea was wracked by wailing,
The mulewalk shook with sobs,
When the Trans-Atlantic Railroad
Cost us all our jobs.

CHORUS
(C) 1995 Ranjit Bhatnagar
ranjit(at)moonmilk(dot)com

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I hope you enjoyed this parody as much as I did.

I would love to cruise the Erie Canal and the Canadian canal system sometime!!

Best regards,
 
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