Thoughts on catamaran style tenders?

NWcamper":2f72zhx9 said:
Anyone try using one of these on a 22 cruiser. Thoughts?

https://www.takacatamericas.com/lx-seri ... s/t260-lx/
Click to expand...

It might be easier to step into than a regular RIB. Maybe? However, I'm not sure how an open bow is an advantage in most cases.

It looks like it would be really "wet" in any chop, and I'd worry about every little thing falling off since there is no "inside" to it.

I would be interested in seeing how it performed compared to regular RIBs, say, with the electric outboard shown. Sailing cats are quite efficient. My Hobie kayak with two amas is much more efficient than my Avon with the same motor.
 
Looks interesting. Not sure of the open transom though. A few plusses and minuses there. Apparently the price is "$1790 and up".
 
The tubes are 19 inches in diameter so I think the floor would be dryer than it appears. I’d love to check one out in person
 
I have been intrigued by these and several similar boats from "Down Under". We have a great dinghy (which will go with "Thataway" if the buyer wishes. So I never really continued to investigate. The boats are not cheap--they begin at $1800 for the 260 XL (which is PVC--the Hypalon boats are much more expensive.). There is at least one report of a 2015 boat having its seams all go at about 3 years of age The warrantee is 2 to 3 years....the report was for a boat which had been stored inside, in climate controlled environment....

I see some advantages, and perhaps some disadvantages. My understanding is that the most recent boats have a number of improvements. It seems to me that the open bow could be very positive...but we often take dogs to the beach, so we are careful about getting onto the boat--usually a sit down as we wade out, on the pontoon, not jumping onto the floor..

Videos I have seen do show some wetness in real chop--but that would probably be true of any boat. My standard of comparison is always going to be a 12.5' RIB we owned. We ran it with a 15 or 25 hp--and with a good V bottom, it would handle chop very well. Problem was it weighed about 350# or more depending on motor, fuel etc...

I would love to try, or see one of the C Brats try one of these.

Saturn has a 12 foot inflatable Cat which is similar and costs much less but weight is in the 125# range--too much for us to deal with on a C Dory, although it could be hoisted w with a Garhaurer Davit. there is also a 9'6" version which weighs 90#.
 
I’ve watched that Auzzi do his YouTube solo and son trips on his and have been impressed but the three year delamination turned me off combined with the premium price. There is one sitting in my buddies marina and it looks sad and neglected but like anything if you have the right engine it should be a lot of fun.

I’ve been close to buying regular Achilles hypalon but have to repair my Alaskan and get the kicker running good before I can justify an upgrade.
 
At only 55lbs I would like one.
 
Our Kaboat dingy will be on its 6th year this coming season & with its double lined bottom has been a really good dingy, but at 80 lbs, I agree with Tom, the Auzzie’s at 55 lbs is really tempting as a future replacement. The price compared to the Kaboat is my only hesitation.

Jay
 
Seattle dealer has 10% off right now....tempting.
 
We bought one this spring for our new-to-us Tomcat. We've been happy with it so far in Alaska. Water does come in when it is choppy or when the front is loaded (our dog always likes to be forward). Fortunately, the water just goes right back out due to the open transom. We opted for the beach wheels and they have come in handy on steep pebble beaches with 15-20' tides, and it is possible to launch and putter back and forth with them installed.

We really like the ease of access off the bow for toddlers, dogs and when schlepping gear ashore.

The Takacat is very stable laterally and easy for two (okay for one) of us to haul up and over the front railing on the Tomcat. It fits nicely between the factory roof rails.
 
We've had a 4m Truekit Discovery for about five years and are very happy with it. Most of our trips are from Santa Barbara across to the Channel Islands and we keep the boat deflated and in the cockpit for the crossing. Once we get out there, it's pretty easy to inflate the boat (we use a battery powered high pressure pump) and it sortof deploys off the back step. I can tie it up super tight between the engines and then walk the outboard out to it and hook it up. We use a 20hp Suzuki which is 97lb and it's a little precarious to walk it out there but with a little foam "shoe" on the lower unit I can put it down and take rests without damaging the inflatable floor. Once we are out there, we just tow it behind our Tomcat. It tows nicely at 15kts and I've even towed it up to 18kts on a calm-ish day. It's super stable, great for swimmping/diving, easy to pull up on the beach with the beach wheels, rows well, and actually pretty fast with the 20hp motor. When it's time to go back to the mainland, I reverse the process, take off the engine, flip the boat so it's transom to transom with the mothership and then deflate/pull it in through the gap between our main motors to fold it back up. It's a big dinghy for a 24' mothership but I've never wished to have a smaller dink...
 
NWcamper said:
Anyone try using one of these on a 22 cruiser. Thoughts?

https://www.takacatamericas.com/lx-seri ... s/t260-lx/
Click to expand...
We have a 420 and it is amazing, I have had many inflatables over the years and this is the best yet. They require less power to move we use an epropulsion 3 hp and it works fine unless we have a bad wind. I would never have bought the 420 because it is 13ft 9 with22 inch tubes but could not pass up the deal I found. The nice feature is the floor slash paddle board if you dont need the whole boat you just inflate the floor and off you go.
 
For those with extra funds and some time to wait for a custom order (right off their website), you can even get the TakaCats in hypalon or TPU nylon. I myself nearly bought a TrueKit Discovery but chickened out and went 9.5’ air floor Achilles hypalon from Defender, which was about $2k and should serve and last me better with my use case. For the comparable pricing, I didn’t want to buy PVC (easy to repair, but more likely to need said repair). I did spend far too many hours browsing the owners forums and learning from videos, and they’re generally positively favored. Many end up adding custom transom risers, permatrims, and cupped props to get far better than stock performance (more speed, faster hole shot, less bow rise, less spray). I will say they are seemingly far dryer rides than people assume, due to the curved-up bow. We have cold waters up here, but otherwise the “landing craft” bow would have been very appealing. For heavily loaded, TrueKit does recommend the regular tender style for more buoyancy up front. The factory dinghy wheels seemed cool, too. “Every boat is a compromise”
 
olekils said:
We've had a 4m Truekit Discovery for about five years and are very happy with it. Most of our trips are from Santa Barbara across to the Channel Islands and we keep the boat deflated and in the cockpit for the crossing. Once we get out there, it's pretty easy to inflate the boat (we use a battery powered high pressure pump) and it sortof deploys off the back step. I can tie it up super tight between the engines and then walk the outboard out to it and hook it up. We use a 20hp Suzuki which is 97lb and it's a little precarious to walk it out there but with a little foam "shoe" on the lower unit I can put it down and take rests without damaging the inflatable floor. Once we are out there, we just tow it behind our Tomcat. It tows nicely at 15kts and I've even towed it up to 18kts on a calm-ish day. It's super stable, great for swimmping/diving, easy to pull up on the beach with the beach wheels, rows well, and actually pretty fast with the 20hp motor. When it's time to go back to the mainland, I reverse the process, take off the engine, flip the boat so it's transom to transom with the mothership and then deflate/pull it in through the gap between our main motors to fold it back up. It's a big dinghy for a 24' mothership but I've never wished to have a smaller dink...
Click to expand...
Good morning, I noticed that you said you tow your Dinghy behind your Tomcat. I'm just curious if you added a towing bracket to keep the tow line away from the outboards or how you set that up. We would like to be able to tow our center console from Oceanside to Catalina, but I assumed I would need to have a custom bracket made that would connect to the tow line behind the motor so there's no chance it rubs on them.
 
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