TomCat Heaven - or Rainforest

D

drjohn71a

New member
Hey all, 'Just found a computer at the hotel here in Edmonds, so a quick note. The new TomCat was ready to go yesterday (Thursday), so it got it's maiden voyage in 22k winds, heavy rain, and vigorous seas. What an incredible craft! We went slow yesterday due to the high winds, but were pretty much alone out there and the slowness allowed proper break-in.

Today was calm and we calibrated the electronics a bit closer with the calmer water,then shot down to Elliot Bay, Seattle, in about 30 minutes! Got to see some sea lions, alot of logs, and an orca.

This boat literally hovers over the water at speed, and incredbly fine ride. As with most C-Dories, the ppl at Edmond's keep coming over wanting tours and to tell me that they just know this boat was made in Australia!

The Raymarine electronics are superb and all units fired up immediately with no snags at all. The new 4k radar gives great detail, even showing up small 15-16 foot boats.

Anyway, thank you all for having shared so much information over these last three years and thus helping this all to become a dream come true.

Tomorrow we're going to Bell Harbor marina so my son can explore downtown Seattle while I pour thru the instruction manuals. Then off the Friday Harbor, Deception Pass, La Conner, etc, and all the famous C-Brat sites.

I have heard some grinching here and there about the TomCats, but I cannot imagine anyone who's using one of these not to be blown away by their quick,nimble handling whether at the docks or screaming over the bay.

Well, have to go plan how to dodge weather fronts these next few days.

The Permatrim (thanx C-Brats for recommending them) really helped level the boat, esp at slow speeds. We were planing at 16mph (statute) and got 4mpg for quite a run (it must have been downwind).

Also, there is no list, even when all the tanks are full. I kept it light on the stern by avoiding heavy extra batteries there.

Thanks again, John
 
I test drove a tomcat last week but for only 300yard drag races on lake washington. Would love to see one out of the sound. If you are up by everrt on saturday give me a call.1-425-220-6567 We would love to come down to the dock and meet you. I dont know the weather but the inside run to the Islands can be a lot smoother and more interesting. if you like art langley is a good place to stop on the way up to the pass. Laconner is a must stop for me and the wife , lots of nice shops and good food. the cafe at the bridge end of town on the right is really good, just cant remember the name. from there you can go out the pass or run up the channel to anacotzes and then out to the islands.

as for the whales, cool huh!! just love seeing them and you were lucky to see them in the lower sound. Keep a look out for greys whales. there have been some seen in the straits latey.
 
Dr John – thanks for the report. Glad the boat is everything you expected. Wish I could be out there with you in my boat, unfortunately she is scheduled for major surgery next week. I hope someday our paths cross.
________
Dave dlt.gif
 
John,
That's a nice looking boat. I was starting to gas up a few feet away at the Edmonds Marina today as you were you were pulling out for your test run. I was in the blue CD25. I don't think you saw me. I had been cruising around Bainbridge Island earlier. Good luck on the remainder of you trip. I hope the weather is reasonable- today was a pleasant surprise.
 
John - well OK then! Got your boat, it sounds like it exceeds your expectations - I got a test ride on the TC255 at Blakely Marina I guess it was the year before last when C-Dory first unveiled it for us...incredible boat for sure. Now you need a proper C-Brat christening ceremony though...
 
John,
Congratulations on your new boat.

Sorry about the weather but you should be able to get some time in between the nasty bits.
If you come into Langley or Coupville give us a call and we will at least drive down and say hello.

BTW if you check the ferry weather site, the Keystone ferry wind readings are reversed. I finally got mad at them telling me they had 30 Kts from the North when it was really South so I went and checked it personally then e-mailed them. They acknowledged the mail but I wonder how long it will take them to fix it.

Merv
 
John,

If you come through Decption Pass be sure to call - we'll meet you at the Deception Pass Marina dock - Latte in hand, if you like. 360 679 2629

And congrats on the TC. Mine was the 24TC, but what a boat!!

Merry Christmas

Dusty
 
John: Congratulations!! Your Christmas definitely came early this year :xlol. Enjoy your time in Seattle. Beth and I will look forward to hearing more about your new TomCat. What kind of transducer did you end up going with? Transom mount or shoot throught the hull? Does your boat have the new molded interior?
 
Bob of Thataway - Thanks to your feedback, it looks like C-
Dory is really putting a slick final finish to all the glass, windows, interior, and all. Only big problem I had was the Honda digital fuel guage does not work and no lights on the other digital guages. That would not be a problem in a land where the sun shines alot, but here about 4:30pm you have to use a flashlight to read those guages. A few other little gitches, but considering how all this was arranged from thousands of miles away, it came out pretty slick!

Day before yesterday we got caught in a major storm, 35 k winds with 55k gusts... waves completely over the top of the TomCat. Then headed into Sonomish canal with that wind at our backs and a 8-10k outgoing current filled with half the redwood forest. Many logs/trees had huge root balls and spanned a third of the canal width, so we refer to that as the Sonomish Log Dodge.

The Permatrims are great! Even set at neutral, we planed today (downwind in 15k winds) at 14kmph.

A new Ranger was being dropped in at Edmonds day before Christmas Eve I think.

Beth and Ted - I thought I was getting the 1000 W bronze, shoot thru transducer, but my livewell prohibited access to the only good spot to put that one in. They put the plastic tri-ducer on that most C-Brats and alot of the C-Dory ppl say is the way to go. Only problem we had with that was that for some reason it shut down speed log, etc., during the storm. The massive waves and water spewing into our very slightly open windows (to minimize fogging) blew a bunch of fuses including the Raymarine VHF and GPS units. Our lifesaver was the $269 Lowrance iFinder H2Oc with the $89 Map-Create, six disc detail download set. It even helped us find an open deli in Downtown Seattle when all else was closed. We have had a terrible time finding food, ice, Wallas Fuel, etc, since most everything was closed down for the holidays.

Anyway. the accuracy and ease of use of these little portable GPS units is amazing. I pretty much just downloaded the area maps and turned it on. The Raymarine system is great, but very complicated to set up and get all the different pieces talking together, and all are dead if you blow the fuses! No way to crawl around and find the correct fuse block in 35 mph winds!

We are having a ball, though, when we do find a place open. e.g., on Christmas Eve, in La Conner, after hours in horrendous storms and no meat, milk, bread, etc, we stumbled onto a "Prime Rib Restaurant" that was open for the locals to have small Christmas parties and we all had a ball. Sensational evening with Snoqualmie Amber "harvest"? beer. I think that is Pat and Dave's doing and it's a great treat. My son from Boston is more of an expert on the beer thing and he raved about it.

We came back from Friday Harbor via Juan de Fuca this am, Dusty. I passed Deception Pass on the East two days before that and intend to get up there again and drop by the Deception Pass Marina on Thursday. Tomorrow, Roger of Sea DNA has offered to take me "Crabbing".

I'm leaving here Sat am, so Friday is prob the last day in the area on the boat. If anyone wants to cruise around a bit, I'd welcome an extra hand, but have singe-handed for many years.

Well, we're walking over to Anthony's for a good, hot dinner!
Thanks again C-Brats for all the help over the years!

John
 
Back again for one last splurge...

Dusty - I spoke with Rogerbum (Sea DNA) and he and I are going to try to run up to Deception Pass tomorrow, Wed, 12/27. My son is flying back to Boston tomorrow am. 'Don't know exactly when we'll get there , but are planning to leave the Edmonds Marina about 8:15 am tomorrow.

Beth and Ted - the plastic, transom mounted "triducer" that we have does lose bottom alot at speed. I am attributing alot of that to all the debris in the water here right now. 'could have been some kelp or bark. Also, I think I have the normal, old style interior cabinets. I like the cabinets as they are just fine.

The dinette table is mounted Heck bent for Stout - no vibrations there. The interior is huge with lots of storage and enough room to pass in the aisle without touching. The forward bunk is really great. I used a big suitcase as a bedside table and still had more room than a normal double.

Well bye for a day, John
 
John,

I'm glad you're enjoying your new boat in these rain-soaked parts. Sorry the weather hasn't been better but at least Christmas day was beautiful. Sounds like you're having a wonderful time. Maybe next time, you can come up during the summer to one of our C-Brat gatherings to really get a sense of the awesome beauty that is the great Pacific Northwest. Who knows, it may even stop raining by then! :thup

Peter
 
Thanks, Peter. Acutally, Kansas has been in a drought, so the rain is kind of nice. I have come up to Seattle many times over the years and am aware of the nice summers. However, my favorite boating time in the MidWest, is the late Fall thru Winter and Early Spring when you pretty much have all the water and scenery to yourself. I don't much care for crowds and the most boats we've seen out has been two or three a day! Amazing when you consider how many boats there are up here.

My office vacations are always Christmas and July 4th weeks, so this was a perfect time to get to let the TomCat play in her own backyard before going on to "foreign", MidWest waters.

John
 
Thanks for the information John! It sounds like having the handheld GPS along was a wise decision indeed. We'll have to look into the Permatrims, and we'll look forward to reading more about Tomahawk. Have a blast!
 
John,
We added separate circuits for the electronics--so that fuses were all on one bus and clearly labled.

If you were blowing fueses it sounds as if water were getting onto the electgrical pannel behind the console. I put all of my fuese in the sockets with silicone grease, and this prevents weater from getting into the holders.

A short due to salt water implies that there might be a short between the positive and negitative wires--you may want to check that out.

We have one fan on each side of the windshield to help "defrost" or dehumidify the windshield for those rough days. Also there are several
"Defoggers" like make by RainX which work reasonably well on the inside.
If this doesn't work, we keep a good real Chamois for cleaning the condensation off the windshield.

Sounds like a great shakedown. Good luck and getting the electricals back up and running. Incidently I have been using the Lowrance Creat-a maps and Nauticapth charts for some time--they are quite good.

Regards.
 
Just got back from a long ride with John. We left Edmonds at a little after 8:30 by the time we fueled up and headed up the east side of Whidbey to Cornet Bay. Winds were out of th N at 20-30kts and about 3/5 of the way there, things got a little rough 4'-5' waves and we had to slow down to about 6-7kts for awhile. A couple of waves broke over the top but all-in-all it was perfectly safe. When the waves were smaller (1-2'), 25kts was no problem, under 1' 35kts was no problem. The boat handles like a dream. Very flat, very stable. Hard turns produce no lean at all and with the twin Honda 150's she just gets up and scoots along.

Relative to my 22', the ride was absolutely stellar. The comfort factor was equivalent to what I'd get in much nice water or what I'd get at about 1/3-1/2 the speed. In water that we did 20-25kts in, I'd be running at 7-10 kts to keep from pounding myself to death in the 22. The water we were running 35kts in was 14kt water for the 22' All-in-all, I was very impressed with the ride. Next time I have a "spare" $150k laying around, the TomCat will be a serious consideration.

Anyway, we got to Cornet bay around 12:30, and docked at Deception Pass Marina. We went into to E.Q. to talk to Les for little while and we weren't there for more than about 15mins until Dusty showed up. He took us to a nice restaurant and bought both John and I a nice seafood lunch. Dusty - you're a standup guy. Of course, we also gleaned a few good stories from Dusty and had a generally good time.

The ride back down to Edmonds was much easier than the ride up. The wind was down and at our backs and we probably averaged 25kts even with slowing down several times to dodge the logs. John is getting used to all the components and the electronics and should have most of it figured out just about in time to go back home. There was a few minor issues with the boat - the wipers are very noisy and th starboard one doesn't work properly. The canvas was missing a panel and the electronics all need to be calibrated. However, John is happy overall.

To sum things up - neat boat, neat guy and fun way to spend a day. Thanks again to John and Dusty.

edited to correct some typos
 
Hi back -

'Had a great day with Rogerbum. Very sharp, knowledgeable, detail oriented sailor. I learned alot on the trip.

As Roger stated, we ran a bit of stirred up seas going North to visit with Dusty and Les. A trip well worth it. You don't often get to meet ppl of that calibre in this world. If you've got the time to wait for the best, have Les set up your new boat. (Right now he is not doing TomCats) Dusty is a living legend and I could listen to his stories and fishing/marine advice forever. I tried to force him to let me buy lunch, but I could see I'd be in for quite a battle if I pressed that thought! He hooked us up with a little family restaurant that catches their fish up in Alaska, ships it at -20 degrees and sells a $10 filet that will be the best fish you ever ate.

Listening to Roger and Dusty talk fishing made me feel like a grade schooler in that field. They really know the art. I was very lucky to be able to listen.

Now I'm going to take a little more time to study the electronics manuals' details and putt around the harbor area. I'm just now getting used to crabbing and pivoting on two outboard engines. The TomCat has to be one of the most managable boats of that size w/o thrusters.

Attention-wise, the TomCat draws alot of on-lookers. Experienced hands especially notice those two, widely-spaced outboards and the Permatrims.

Bye for now and you all have a good Holiday! John
 
Back
Top