Congrads, Joe, it’s a great boat and you’re going to love it! At five years of ownership, I am still discovering things about this boat and fine-tuning my approaches to them. The good news is that the boat is more sturdy and forgiving of operator errors than any of my prior 12 trailer boats. That said, try not to run it over a jetty or forget to put in the drain plugs or leave the Wallas on while re-fueling (that was what caused a TC255 in Alaska to explode, burn to the waterline and sink at the fuel dock last I read). I’m a big fan of ‘checklist discipline’ as boats get more complex. Every airline pilot uses one, as does every USAF nuclear missile launch facility crew (although to date they haven’t got to end of that list, thank goodness). It can’t hurt, it might help, and it’s free and easy and can be adjusted to YOUR boating style. I’m so OC that I disable the windlass thermal breaker by the helm when trailering or underway, under the theory that me or crew hitting the other switch with my knee and deploying the anchor then would be…unfortunate. It’s on the checklist. I’ve PM’ed you a copy.
1. We have a marina slip but trailer for long trips and always pull the drain plugs then (on the Checklist…twice!) One of the legit gripes about the 255 is how the cockpit floor fishboxes (Bob’ s ‘storage boxes’) like to collect rainwater a LOT more than the corner cockpit scuppers like to drain rainwater out. Those fishboxes are typically plumbed to, then blocked by a macerator pump that has no float switch so the fishboxes tend to fill with rainwater and stay that way without a full ‘camper canvas’. So DON’T store your cell phones, laptop and digital cameras in the cockpit fishboxes. Some have put tough float switches in the fishboxes. Some cruisers (us) disconnect the fishbox drain line at the macerator pump so it lies in the bilge, and fishbox rainwater drains into the bilge and is automatically pumped out when the water level lifts the bilge float switch enough to activate it (about ¾ inch). PS even with a dead level trailer, that ¾ inch times so many, many feet of 255 rather flat sponson can equal a horrifying amount of water. It won’t be horrifying to you, but it will be to the BMW convertible that is coming down the same hill you are climbing when your bilge pump decides to come on at it’s output height of about 6 feet above the road. Amazing how much water can be in there.
2. Bob’s Suzuki 150’s allowed bigger props and higher speeds for the same prop pitch as the Merc/Yamaha/Honda/E-tecs. I’m running 17 P, 4 blade Solas today (and have 2 other different sets, still haven’t decided what I like best). Top speed at 6000 RPM about 37 MPH, about 23 MPH (your 21 knots) @ 3800 RPM seems their sweet spot. A little hull slime or hard growth makes a big, slower difference. Of current posters, Bob may well have had the fastest 255, and I defiantly have the slowest. But it climbs on plane like a locomotive on rails and stays there at the lowest speeds possible (19-21 MPH in our ‘Heavy Cruise Mode’ of 12,000 lbs boat and trailer) even in sloppy conditions. (We usually leave the trailer in the parking lot, unless we forget to remove the trailer transom straps and bow safety chain when we launch…checklist item!). You’ll figure this out over your next 200 engine hours, and it really doesn’t matter…do what works for you and yours! If you have Honda fuel meters, DO consider what your engines like best as you want to pamper them for many years.
3. Agree with Bob that I have read over the years that the ‘punch it’ method is slightly more efficient on fuel. However, I have gradually come over in this boat (unlike the last 12) to the view that I can better get to the ‘nirvana’ point by setting both throttles to about 3000-3100 RPM, and then GRADUALLY increasing engine trim to about 3+ of 5 (for my Yami’s) while watching for GPS speed and RPM to continue to increase (with trim alone), until the steering wheel left/right effort is about the same, as well as GPS speed stops increasing. About the same time, the engines will not sound as ‘happy’ as they start to ventilate (harmless but obnoxious, unlike cavitation, which is both harmful and obnoxious). The Good thing about being just BARELY on plane (about 3000RPM in Heavy Cruise) is that is where you get your max MPG/efficiency. The Bad is that when you hit a wavelet, or a wake, or make a turn, or your Air Supply 8 track tape runs out, is that you’ll fall off that ‘happy place’ quickly, so I add 100-200RPM to my ‘happy place’ throttle settings to compensate for that. We shove in another ABBA 8-track tape and we’re good. (You may have cassette tapes if you are as with-it and hip as I think you are). You can pretty much ‘sync’ the engines RPM manually under most conditions. I am NOT disagreeing with Bob here, this is just ‘another county heard from’ in the vote tallies.
4. We don’t fish, but we DID get many hours of experience on the last St. John’s adventure running one engine on, one off, both down, trying to find max efficiency (like 255 Discovery on their Alaskan Inside Passage adventure did out of necessity rather than mere curiosity). At one-engine idle (pre-set at 650RPM on the Yami F150, shows as 600 on gauge) we would be down to 2.2-3.2 MPH against the St John current, which we couldn’t measure but seemed about 1 MPH. Throw an empty bucket overboard and slow you down some more. If your Honda 5-star tech is like my Yammi tech she’ll just say, idle as many hours as you want, but just run it up to WOT a while on the way back to burn off any carbon residue. NO need to buy a kicker as the cost/benefit will never add up with 2 main engines for get-home power.
5. Agree with Bob, and that any front door fridge dumps a lot of cold air every time you open it. Other things to consider is that your ‘smart’ fridge at your marina will run on 110v until the marina power goes out, then it will ‘smartly’ automatically switch over to 12v and drain your batteries. Imagine if that same storm dumps a bunch of leaves and debris that clog your cockpit scupper drains so that the flood ends up in your bilge and your now-dead batteries don’t work the bilge pumps…your boat sinks at the dock. Happens all the time. I pull the 12v fridge fuse when leaving the boat at the marina (checklist item). Agree with the amp draw, that’s over 50% of a 105 A-H group 31 AGM. Add some windlass use (a HUGE 12v energy HOG), and that your House battery is the sole source for both, AND does not get recharged by your engines while underway…and you’ve got some Switchcraft (my term) to do. Set the House battery switch to Combine when the engines are on, and un-combine on arrival at destination (don’t forget!!...checklist item!) Interesting aside…during the many hours running one engine at 600-1800RPM at the St John adventure, we found that when the House battery was Combined, it was ONLY with the PORT ENGINE battery, not the Starboard engine battery, based on measured battery voltages (ie, over 13V is being charged, and under 12.5V is not being charged). I incorrectly assumed that when the House was Combined with the single Engines battery switch, then BOTH engine batteries were Combined with the House. But it makes sense to me that to prevent idiots like me from forgetting the Switchcraft, that this wiring makes it impossible to accidentally drain all your batteries with one switchcraft error. Good on Triton, even if they only built two 255’s other than mine…their first.
6. You have a great boat that is very forgiving of operator errors, so Enjoy! I encourage you to trace out where every hose, wire, and pipe goes so you know your boat…every nook and cranny, every deck access plate, all 12 thru-hulls and all 8 (Bob may dicker here) water pumps, not including those in the engines. It is a great design that is only as complex as it has to be (but if you are human, you still need a checklist, IMHO).
Happy Boating!
John
Thanks in advance.
