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williwaw

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Hello - new member here. My wife and I are the proud owners of a new-to-us 2007 23 Venture. We've owned lots of boats over the years both larger and smaller but none that feel as right as this one. Seaworthy enough for adventure and economical enough that I can actually do it!

We've been everywhere in the Portland area on our previous boats. From Oregon City to Bonneville Dam to St. Helens. This summer will be Astoria and maybe we'll tow up to Olympia to explore southern Puget Sound. Out further than that would be the San Juans northward. My goal is to someday make it to Skagway - but that may have to wait for retirement! :smile

Of course it didn't take me long to come up with a list of projects/upgrades. One thing I'd like to do is upgrade my Wallas 800 to the new Nordic Nt. The 800 works great but it just doesn't put out enough heat when it's 39 degrees and raining. My wife loves to be out on the boat but more than once I've looked back and seen her standing in front of it warming here fingers. I can't have that now, can I?

So glad to be here and thanks for a great website.

Steve

PS: I'll be posting the Wallas 800 on the For Sale forum.
 
Welcome to the C-Dory gang such as it is. You will learn way more here about your boat than you probably want to know.
Good luck with your new 2u C-Dory.
 
Welcome and we hope to make it down your way and explore by boat sometime. Always down there in the car.... For more heat, quite a few owners install an Espar or Webasto forced air heater and do something else for cooking. This is what I am putting in our boat:

http://www.suremarineservice.com/at2000-diy.aspx

We lived with the wallas in a previous C-dory and while it did and decent job of heating while under way, it lacked power and was not thermostatically controlled. It was also a less than perfect cooktop. We cooked mainly on one of these on top of the wallas.

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/portabl ... QgodMQIAig
 
I chartered a boat once that had a Webasto and it was nice so I can understand the appeal. If we were used to cooking with Butane we'd probably go that route. But we like the new Wallas for a few reasons:

- it's easy to install as I basically just cut a bigger hole in my counter top and hook it up to the existing exhaust output. It's also space efficient in that it occupies the unused space above the refer.
- use of diesel means we don't have to worry about a separate cooking fuel on longer voyages.
- the heat output of the Dt is 6650 watts so almost the same as the Webasto.
- the Dt also has a thermostat mode that doesn't actually turn off the unit but dials back the output to minimal levels when the target temp is reached.

Btw, a really great cruise in this area is to launch in the Portland area then head up the Columbia River gorge to Beacon Rock state park (WA side just below Bonneville Dam). The trip is very scenic and there's a small dock there with shore power. The hike up Beacon Rock is not to be missed.
 
Welcome aboard. Congratulations on the new boat! To prove that you learn something everyday--on this site; I had not heard of the Nordic Dt 85 Wallas stove. It sounds like some improvements to the conventional 2 burner.

I agree that a forced air heater or hydronic heater is ideal for AK, and we have not cruised in the PNW in winter, but out trips to AK in the C Dory 25, during the summer, the Wallas was adequate for heat.

We did not have any problem cooking on the Wallas stove, avoid propane in the cabin, unless a permanently installed system, with sniffer and shut off valve. The older Wallas occasionally required a bit of creative shuffling to make sure that all of the food was cooked at the same time--but did it well.
 
Congrats on the new boat, I look forward to seeing some pics of it :) do you guys fish the river much? I'd love to bring our boat down to your neck this year. 2013 was our first C-Dory year and I think we spent somewhere around 20 days total in the South Sound. We launched from a number of places between Oly and Tacoma, but right out of Oly there are some neat little islands and state parks to explore. Pretty reasonable tow distance for you :wink:

Look up the Jarrel Cove stuff here on the forum if you're unfamiliar. that was a fun place we visited last summer.
 
Yes, I dabble in blackmouth. A few years ago I was trolling downtown when I hooked up with a nice chromer. I fought that thing for about five minutes, the fish jumped a couple times, finally landed it then looked up to see people lined up along the river railing watching the whole thing. It must have blown them away that right in downtown Portland you can land an awesome fish!

However, ODFW estimates it takes an average of 100 hours to land a King in this area so they're not exactly throwing themselves on the hook. Usually the problem is when the bite gets hot the aluminum armada descends on the river and it's crowded as heck.

We're definitely going to try to make it up to Olympia this summer. Unfortunately right now we're suffering from THE major problem with the 23 Venture: it weight more than 5000 lbs... gotta deal with that first.
 
Williwaw,

Congrats on the new to you, and welcome to the Brat site. You will enjoy both. Posted recently was a thread on a get together on the lower Columbia, Cathlamet area. Maybe we can meet up there. Always fun to meet others with like interests.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon
 
williwaw":27s3hn5w said:
Hello - new member here. My wife and I are the proud owners of a new-to-us 2007 23 Venture. We've owned lots of boats over the years both larger and smaller but none that feel as right as this one. Seaworthy enough for adventure and economical enough that I can actually do it!

We've been everywhere in the Portland area on our previous boats. From Oregon City to Bonneville Dam to St. Helens. This summer will be Astoria and maybe we'll tow up to Olympia to explore southern Puget Sound. Out further than that would be the San Juans northward. My goal is to someday make it to Skagway - but that may have to wait for retirement! :smile

Of course it didn't take me long to come up with a list of projects/upgrades. One thing I'd like to do is upgrade my Wallas 800 to the new Nordic Nt. The 800 works great but it just doesn't put out enough heat when it's 39 degrees and raining. My wife loves to be out on the boat but more than once I've looked back and seen her standing in front of it warming here fingers. I can't have that now, can I?

So glad to be here and thanks for a great website.

Steve

PS: I'll be posting the Wallas 800 on the For Sale forum.

Welcome to the forum. We upgraded our Wallace as our old one which came with the boat was broken when we got it. Did not plan or budget for its replacement, but now that we have it, we are really happy with it.
 
williwaw":1q1tosx4 said:
Hello - new member here. My wife and I are the proud owners of a new-to-us 2007 23 Venture. We've owned lots of boats over the years both larger and smaller but none that feel as right as this one. Seaworthy enough for adventure and economical enough that I can actually do it!

We've been everywhere in the Portland area on our previous boats. From Oregon City to Bonneville Dam to St. Helens. This summer will be Astoria and maybe we'll tow up to Olympia to explore southern Puget Sound. Out further than that would be the San Juans northward. My goal is to someday make it to Skagway - but that may have to wait for retirement! :smile

Of course it didn't take me long to come up with a list of projects/upgrades. One thing I'd like to do is upgrade my Wallas 800 to the new Nordic Nt. The 800 works great but it just doesn't put out enough heat when it's 39 degrees and raining. My wife loves to be out on the boat but more than once I've looked back and seen her standing in front of it warming here fingers. I can't have that now, can I?

So glad to be here and thanks for a great website.

Steve

PS: I'll be posting the Wallas 800 on the For Sale forum.

Welcome to the forum. We upgraded our Wallace as our old one which came with the boat was broken when we got it. Did not plan or budget for its replacement, but now that we have it, we are really happy with it.
 
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