I am looking into
buying a small cat that I can
cruise solo or with 1-2 crew island hopping the
Bahamas over the
winter. I dont have any experience to speak of when it comes to cats I have been on a larger
power cat but that was a long time ago. As far as sailing experience its not much more than some small dingy
work when I was younger but I was very much into
power boating.
I am looking to buy close to the Chesapeake and use it as a
training ground before making my way down the
ICW maybe hitting the Keys for a bit more practice before making the
passage over. I have access to lots of
classes and
training facilities in my area so plan to attend as much as possible and do not plan on making my leave down south for many months yet.
When it comes to cats I am looking at a couple right now with a
budget of around 40k giving me around 10k to play with for outfitting and servicing plus a substantial bit for the trip itself. The two possible cats I have found are a Prout Quest 33 and an Endeavor cat 30. The Prout 33 looks to be needing some
elbow grease and has some issues including a bad set of
electronics depth finder and nav lights plus who knows what else might be hiding after a
survey. The Endeavor cat looks to be in better shape with a newer
engine (50 hours) and all
electronics working. They would both need upgrades including auto pilot,
radar and chart plotter for the Prout. Along with these electronics they would need several other items to make the trip such as some way to make electricity other than the
engine and many other bits and pieces (dingy) plus what ever a
survey might find.
Does anyone have any good info on these two cats I have only seen a few things on the Endeavor including one that crossed the pacific and I know Prout line of cats have made several ocean crossings but I am not intending on any crossings of that sort. What I am really looking for is info on how they sail and how they hold up when it comes to
reliability both only having a
single engine (that stillete drive thingy on the Prout scares me). Also when it comes to
weather I know they both slap hard but how do they hold in blow and what are the best practices? (running a drouge line off the stern?).
Oh and one more thing what is the advantage of the forward nacelles/wave breakers under the bridge
deck? I have heard they do not
work very well and may even cause more harm to the boats performance than what they are intended to help with.