New to Boating - C-Dory?

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Pr0t0c01

New member
Hello Everyone, I've been lurking in the shadows on the forums over the last few weeks as I am very interested in a C-Dory (thinking 22 Cruiser). I'm new to boating and don't plan to jump into anything right away but am doing my research and feeling out the market.

I live in Alaska with my wife and 2 young kids (4 and 2). We recently built a small garage/house, as is very common here, in order to live the Alaskan lifestyle. That is, don't be house broke, by toy broke instead and enjoy life. The majority of my summer last year was spent in Valdez working on a friends 1985 Bayliner 3288. After spending the better part of 3 months working on the boat in dry dock and eventually going out for some fishing once it was done, along with the wife and kids... We were hooked (pun intended). My son absolutely loves anything to do with fishing, including eating them. We figured it would be a shame to keep our kids land locked during their childhood seeing as myself and my wife both had childhoods that included being on boats (her in NY, myself in FL).

While in Valdez all last summer I was invited between working on the Bayliner, to go on a morning fishing trip in the bay with a friend of my friend. I went on the trip and little did I know until I recalled that the boat we had been on was a C-Dory. I'm guessing it was either the 19 or 22 angler model. The gentlemen had his wife, myself and his 2 grand kids on the boat and I remember thinking to myself "this is a very practical boat" I had a great time and the little bit of chop didn't seem to bother the boat or occupants. I didn't catch anything but the kids did, and that is all that matters!

I was looking for a boat that possible had a "cuddy" cabin or v-berth and could be used for 1 or at most 2 night trips. I was thinking something shorter as I'm not ready to dock a 32", although I did pilot the Bayliner for 2-3 days as we overnight in Sawmill Bay Valdez, just wouldn't dream of docking it. So a 19" - 22" seemed about right. I was also surprised to see that a 22" boat, with hard top, sleeper, stove, dinette and all of those amenities could be had and be trailerable by my F-150. I thought for sure I was going to be stuck to 16-18" aluminum boats. Although I have to admit I thought that if we didn't want to overnight that aluminum would have been nice over fiberglass for the sake of durability. Is this a fallacious concept?

I have a few questions regarding something like a 22" C-Dory for my use.

1.) Use in smaller lakes? We actually live in North Pole/Fairbanks, so we are 360 miles away from the ocean no matter which way we go. But have 3-4 nice sized lakes within spitting distance.
2.) Does beaching it carefully on semi-rocky shores hurt the hull. I mean rounded rocks, but jagged of course.
3.) Any chance of using it in a river. Some of our rivers here can be very shallow and I wouldn't expect to use it in those, but others that are slightly deeper, minimum depth required? How about faster currents, what is the fastest rivers safely traversed with a 19-22 C-Dory.
4.) Maintenance, obviously needing to winterize every year, changing oil, washing down after salt water trips. Other than the major things, what other costs can be expected from a C-Dory.
5.) Anyone else here from Alaska? If so, how the heck did you get a C-Dory up here without costing you an arm and a leg in shipping or trying to go down to Washington and making a long boating trip to AK out of it?

Sorry for the long post, I've been drooling over the practicality and possibility of my family and I being on a C-Dory in one of the up-coming summers.
 
I beach my 22' c-dory on sandy beaches all of the time, but I wouldn't do so on a rocky beach of any kind. Actually, I wouldn't beach any kind of boat that wasn't plastic or rubber on a rocky beach. That being said, the draft on a c-dory is less than a foot (at least mine is less than a foot), so you can come up pretty close to a shore and hop right off and unload gear and passengers.

Also, on our membership rolls list more than 400 c-dory's in Alaska. I don't know how many of them are active members, or boats still in the water, but C-dorys are made in Washington State so, relatively speaking, that's right next door.
 
1.) Use in smaller lakes? We actually live in North Pole/Fairbanks, so we are 360 miles away from the ocean no matter which way we go. But have 3-4 nice sized lakes within spitting distance.
2.) Does beaching it carefully on semi-rocky shores hurt the hull. I mean rounded rocks, but jagged of course.
3.) Any chance of using it in a river. Some of our rivers here can be very shallow and I wouldn't expect to use it in those, but others that are slightly deeper, minimum depth required? How about faster currents, what is the fastest rivers safely traversed with a 19-22 C-Dory.
4.) Maintenance, obviously needing to winterize every year, changing oil, washing down after salt water trips. Other than the major things, what other costs can be expected from a C-Dory.
5.) Anyone else here from Alaska? If so, how the heck did you get a C-Dory up here without costing you an arm and a leg in shipping or trying to go down to Washington and making a long boating trip to AK out of it?
Click to expand...

Welcome to C-brats! FWIW, I live in the lower 48 in Wisconsin. I've had my CD-22 now for about 6 years. Best boat I've owned. (Ok, so I've only owned two others, but still....)

1. I use my boat primarily on small inland lakes and the Great Lakes. However, I've also had it out in the San Juans in the PNW and in the Mississippi River. The boat floats in 2' of water, and can handle oceans. Hope that answers your question here! :D

2. I've beached mine on sand, but not sure how the Fiberglass would hold up against sharp rocks. I'll let others respond to this one...

3. As mentioned above, I've used mine in the Mississippi. Have also used it in what we call the Upper Dells here in Wisconsin. A few times was during "flood" times with a pretty fast current. 4 kts perhaps. The main thing is keeping control of the boat. If the current is flowing fast, you have to plan accordingly with docking or anything else where you are approaching hard things standing still. The boats only draw about 18" of water, then add another 6" for your outboard trimmed appropriately and you can run in 2' of water. That's off plane. Know the water well, get up on plane, and you probably are only using a foot of water max. :-) But I'd say safely 3' no problem! 2', watch carefully. Anything less, go really slow, and keep the motor up. Just remembered, after joining a group of C-Brats out west on the Delta Cruise in California, my wife and I stayed around a few more days and took our boat north on the Sacramento River up to Old Sacramento. The river was really flowing. Boat did great. But again, you have to plan accordingly when docking or approaching any bridge structures or such when water is flowing fast. Makes docking more challenging, but a little more fun if you are in to that. lol.

4. I'm mostly in fresh water, but maintenance is annual at the end of each boating season. Change the Oils, filters, stabilize the fuel, clean everything up, change the water pump impeller every few years. Outboards are much easier to winterize than Inboards or Inboard/Outboards. Do the oil changes and leave the engine down. That's about it, barring any mechanical breakdowns. (Those with carbs tend to rebuild the carbs every year or two it sounds like.) Pretty basic boats, so maintenance is also pretty basic. If you trailer, and I do a lot of that, you need to pay attention to maintaining the trailer as well. Repack the hubs annually (I run oil bath hubs, negating the need for that), check the trailer brakes and associated system, cover the tires when not in use, and replace them about every 5 or 6 years, particularly if you start seeing sidewall cracking.

5. Wish I was! ;-) In any case, I'm hoping to bring my boat up to the Inland Passage in SE Alaska, perhaps as early as next summer.

Colby
 
Hey Colby, I'm down in beautiful Homer. I found my CD22 right here in town. Unless you are looking for a brand new boat, there are usually a couple of CDorys on the market in AK most of the time. Check CList in all the AK lists and here often.
There is nothing about a C-Dory that requires more than the normal boat maintenance. I like having the Honda dealer here do the annual outboard service but it's easily DIY for most part. In fresh water you shouldn't have the bottom paint issues that most of us deal with. I would not want to beach on rocks as a rule. If you start hunting for a used C-Dory there is a ton of great info in the forum archives that should help you figure out what to look for.
Good luck.
 
Wow. The top of the world. Literally.

Better you than me. :wink:

Lakes. Sure. As long as you could launch safely and had sufficient water depth.

I would not beach any fiberglass boat on anything but sand, maybe small, round gravel, depending on wave action. Any rocks. Nope. Never. We installed a vinyl bow guard which is both wider and longer than the stock brass strip with no screws/holes either.
 
There is a vinyl plastic bow guard, which will help some with putting on rocks. I have used a RIB with fiberglass bottom on your kind of rocks in AK--this required putting some superficial fiberglass mat on the bottom where it caused abrasion each year. Not sure this would be practical for a C Dory. You might make a mat of some sort to throw down on the rocks before putting the boat's bow on it.
 
Looking at how you described your primary boating environment, I don't believe a glass boat is going to do what you want. In my opinion, a windshield model aluminum boat, possibly a jet would be a better choice. You can walk through the windshield to set the anchor and/or beach in rocky terrain. A cloth top and camper back could give you enough flexibility for a night or two of camping.

Aluminum boats are going to be a lot easier to find than a CDory is something else to consider.
 
When I lived in Alaska I found an aluminum boat served me best. I had an outboard I believe it was Yamaha where i could swap the lower half between a prop for the ocean and a jet for the rivers up there. That seemed to work really well.

Best of luck!
H
 
#5: probably most are trailered up by the owners, or bought in AK. There are plenty of C Dory's which come up for sale there. Barge of course is the other way. It would be a long trip from the area where you can get fuel near Juneau to Valdez. But a shorter trailer trip from Skagway or Haines.

As far as River. One of the members has done much of the upper Yukon, as far as Dawson. Problem going further down river, was getting the boat back on roads. It can be iffy. Also one did the McKensie from Great Slave Lake. (OK these are mostly in Canada...) In the US--most of the major rivers, Mississippi, Columbia, Sacramento, Missouri etc have been run by C Dorys.

Granted that the Aluminum boats would be better for banging on rocks!. Depends on how you want to use it. Certainly the cabin is going to be warmer in the c Dory than an aluminum open river type of boat--and the c Dory is going to be a better boat if you take it to the ocean....But...
 
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