test rode a procat and up coming race.

[Alok]

Hi, Alok

What engines do you have and what props? I'd love to get those kind of numbers, especially fully loaded, and I only carry 130 gals!

Bob Cat

Bob: I have the same motors as Bob Austin- twin Suzuki 150s with counter-rotating props. My props are 16X 21.5, 3 bladed stainless steel. I do not know what Bob is currently using. Aside from fuel and water and an extra house battery, we have not added much weight to the boat.

From Bob Austin's posts, and from being on his boat, I know that he consistently runs 1-2 mph faster than me at WOT and gets slightly better mileage. I think that his experience allows him to trim the boat a little better.

Interestingly, painting the bottom did not seem to affect performance. I was expecting a slight decrease in the numbers because the painted surface is rough. Maybe the roughness actually helps because of the "dimpled golf-ball effect"- the roughness might prevent entraining of water layers next to the hull.

 

[thataway]

Larry H,
We ran up and down the Inland passage for three years, with three trips as Far North as Icey Straits, and with the Cal 46 sat out only one or two days because of weather--but that was a 46 foot motorsailor which we had cruised thousands of miles in. Our experience with several passages were short +seas up to 6 feet with wind against current. If it were just 2-3 foot chop we could run all of the time in that. If we ran into 6 foot steep seas, they would be very slow going for the Tom Cat.

Our experience is that we have to get down to below 5 knots on one engine to significantly increase the miles per gallon over the cruise speed. (We did a 250 mile run at 7 knots and got about the same mileage as at 25 knots)
The Tom Cat 255 is a planing boat--as is the ProKat. The Glacier Bay is a displacement or semidisplacement boat (I think that both the World Cat and GB are really semidisplacment--but that is a point of definition). The semidisplacement boats do much better mileage wise at the slower speeds than the planing boat. The Tom Cat has a further disadvantage in that the bridge deck drags aft--and increases the resistance.

I am also running the 16 x 21 SS 3 blade props I feel that they are ideal for what we are doing.

As for doing a race--even if someone were to give me a light boat, and pay for the fuel--my back could not take it....and I would beg out. All of my racing has been in sailboats, with some exceptions when I got a rides in some of the offshore racers and in a Formula one race boat with a professional driver at 138 mph....quite a thrill. When I was in practice I used to patch up the fractured ankles and compression fractures of the offshore racers after the races. No thanks!