I can't
believe that I'm finally leaving!
Posted 10/20/06
Frank Williams
The diatribe below is NOT a representation of of my
future postings. I was asked to post this information by some of my
boating friends and a couple of members of the MC30 Owners Group. Most normal people will find this posting less than
entertaining and, for this, I apologize. I will try to make up for it in
future postings. Thanks for your understanding.
Finally, after 6 months of working on the boat, the time is here
to leave on the cruise. As all of my friends know; every few years I buy a
new (to me) boat, outfit her for extended cruising and then take off for a
winter of cruising and spear fishing in the Bahamas. When I get back, I
sell the boat and go back to work. Friends have often asked me why I sell
my boats when I get back, why not just keep one of them? After all, I had spent
months on upgrading all of the systems; invested hundreds of hours and thousands
of dollar to just then turn around and sell them. The answer is that boats
don't do well if they're not being used on a regular basis. My job has me
traveling all over the country with no time at home to use the boat.
To be worrying about my boat during winter freezes or hurricane season also
takes away from my focus on work. To this end, every few years when I get
back from a cruise, someone gets to buy a boat that has been gone over with a
fine tooth comb and has been meticulously upgraded with only the finest quality
marine components.
In the past, I've taken sailboats, such as; Pacific Seacrafts,
Island Packets, a Gemini 105Mc and even a Marine Trader Europa trawler on this
cruise. This year I bought a Motorcat 30 for my trip because I was looking
for a faster, shallow draft, motor vessel that could be trailered during the
hurricane season and would be able to take the best advantage of the winter
weather patterns common to the southern Bahamas. A boat that could take
advantage of the one day of oily slick, 200 foot visibility (surrounded by lots
of days with somewhat choppy water with visibility ranging from 20' to 100') and
make a day trip diving run from the Exumas to the Jumentos or Conception Island
or even Rum Cay. I wanted a boat that would be reasonably economical to
operate and have the creature comforts needed for 8 months of living aboard.
The only boat that I could find that fit all of my requirements with the least
amount of compromise was the Motorcat 30, made by Bond Yachts. So early this spring, I bought
the only used Motorcat on the market, a 2002 model, and and started to work on her to bring her
up to my specifications for extended cruising and diving in the Bahamas.
Before I decided what to install on the boat, I went
through the boat in great lengths with a flashlight, multimeter and
other tools required to remove trim panels etc. and see how she was
made. My first impression (one that I still have today) is that the
fiberglass work done on this boat is some of the best that I've ever
seen. I have yet to find a void or unbonded glass/coring. On the
other hand, I wasn't thrilled with the use of stainless washers for
backing plates. So my first job was installing aluminum backing plates
everywhere. Anywhere there was coring, I drilled out the bolt holes
oversized, filled in the holes with thickened epoxy and then redrilled
the holes to the proper bolt size through the cured epoxy before
bolting back the fitting with it's new aluminum backing plate. I've
recently been told, by a marine surveyor, that this is overkill on my
part, but it makes me feel better so... In some cases, plywood or
starboard were used as backing plates because the material was more
appropriate for the particular application.
I went through the electrical system and found several problems.
The factory did a nice job with the wiring, but subsequent owners or yards had
made changes that ranged from inappropriate to dangerous. Dangerous was
the 10' piece of Romex wire used to hook up the microwave which I subsequently
removed because it blocked access to much of the limited amount of galley
storage. Inappropriate was the 3-way electrical switch that was wired into
the system before the factory installed engine on/off switch and the house bank
on/off switch in an attempt to have a way to combine the batteries if the
starting battery was low. What that did was negate the factory installed
on off switches that kept the banks separate. With the way it was set up,
you could either run both house and engines off of battery bank one, two or have
them combined but you could not run the engines off of the engine battery while
at the same time running the house load off of the house bank. I rewired
the batteries back to the way the factory had them and then wired in the 3 way
switch strictly as an on/off switch to combine the 2 banks. I put in 4 new
6 volt golf cart batteries for the house bank and wired in a Blue Sky Solar Boost 2000e
regulator for the two 130 watt solar panels that I'll get from e-Marine in Ft.
Lauderdale. All the wiring has been done, as has the stainless mounting rods so the panels shouldn't take but a
few minutes to mount and hook up. The reason for waiting till Ft.
Lauderdale (besides not needing the power as I'm motoring from marina to marina
as I head down the coast)
is that I've dealt with e-Marine in the past and not only are their prices right
but they bring the panels preassembled down to the marina and right to my boat.
I then clamp them on, hook up 2 wires and my batteries start charging! I've
also
installed a amplified WIFI system that has a 8dBi marine antenna and so far has
been able to connect me at almost 8 miles (guesstimate). I'm using this
right now anchored near Little River Inlet to upgrade this Web Page. I've
tried to get a preproduction model of Raymarines Sport Pilot series
autopilot, as this is the only model made that will work with a twin cable
steered boat. Unfortunately for me, they stopped production of that series
at the end of 2005 and won't have the new and improved Sport Pilot series in
production until the first part of 2007. That will make this boat the
first one that I've ever had to hand steer 100% of the time.
Hope that I'm not boring anyone too badly yet... I installed a
hatch in the head to replace the vent, window shades and Oceanair hatch shades.
The head was replaced. Wire shelving and baskets were installed to
organize the storage without adding significant weight. An Origo 3000 stove was installed, as well as, a
Magma Newport (great grill, way better than the old Magna kettles!).
A shower was added at the stern platform as well as 2 water tanks, one flexible and one custom
made polyethylene, bringing the water capacity to ~75gals. One note on the
water tankage - catamarans are very weight sensitive so the tanks were installed
centrally to minimize their effect on performance. Also when traveling, I
do not plan on carrying a full load of water, that's only for the 90% of the time
when I'm at anchor. I replaced all of the tank fills, as the ones from the
factory are made in a way that facilitates water wicking off of the deck and
into the tanks if the o-rings are at all compromised. I installed a, new
to the market, Lewmar Profish 700 stainless steel freefall windlass. This
is a beautiful windlass that makes so much sense. When you reach your
destination, this windlass uses a minimum of power to put down the anchor in
freefall mode, at a time that you are about to shut down your engines and want to
use as little power as possible. The company (Lewmar) is fabulous! I
had one minor issue, after installing this windlass, that I think could have
been fixed with the application of a lubricant. When I questioned Lewmar about
it, they said that "because I was leaving on a trip and was having issues with a
new unit," they would send out a new one immediately and for me to just return
the one I had. Two days later, I had the new unit. It took little
time to switch the two out, and I did notice that the new unit had the piece in
question pre-lubricated. Amazing for a company to go to these lengths to
ensure their customers happiness. Bravo Lewmar! And finally, I've
gone through the 2 Suzuki DF50 4 stroke outboards changing all of the lube, the
water pumps, fuel filters and plugs just to get a bit familiar with them.
Oh... I almost forgot, I bought a new aluminum Float-On trailer, but that's a
story in itself...
The above are just a few of the changes
incorporated into the boat to make her reliable and comfortable for the upcoming
trip. I've also purchased a Avon RIB Lite and 2 stroke Yamaha to be my car
when I'm in an anchorage. This week I will stock up on those items that
are hard to find in the islands, revue the final bills and accounting with my
accountant, go to a couple of parties, then take off! I'm ready!
A special note of thanks to Kris and the crew at
Bond Yachts, the makers of the Motorcat 30. Just before my departure I
noticed that the hinges for the foredeck were bent. I emailed Motorcat and
sent pictures of the hinges. There response was immediate! Not only
did I get emails but even a phone call because some server or router on the
internet was telling them that the emails weren't getting to me. Kris
explained that the hinges that I have were the original off the shelf hinges
used early on in the production of the Motorcat and that subsequently they have
been replaced with a much heavier hinge of a better design. I asked if
there was anyway to get the hinges to my roommate well before my crossing over
to the Bahamas, so that she would have time to send them to me and I would have
time to install them. Kris said that he would try but that the hinges were
coming from Poland so??? To my amazement, a few days after that email, Susan
received a notice from the post office that a package was here for me.
Fantastic customer service if you ask me, especially considering the fact that
the boat is not under any warranty and the manufacturer is in Poland. So
Kudos to Bond Yachts and thanks for the spectacular customer service!
Evaluation after a month and a half of living aboard
and cruising.
Posted 12/01/06
Now that I've had a bit of time on the boat, I
figured that it was time to update and evaluate the boat and installed systems.
Overall, I'm VERY happy with both and in fact have found the MC30 to be a very
comfortable home with more than adequate room and storage for long term
cruising. I must admit that this comes as a bit of a surprise to me as I
really thought that, going to this sized vessel after cruising on a 36' Europa
style trawler, was going to wear on me a bit. It hasn't. The boat is
very well laid out and with the least bit of compromise, 2 people can live in
comfort and harmony. Beyond that; the added
speed, maneuverability and shallow draft have added a very positive dimension to
this cruise that I really like. The weather, since I took off, has been way
worse than in past years yet it hasn't slowed me down or made me see less.
The opposite is true if anything. I've seen and done more and have had the
luxury of picking my weather and spending more time in the areas that I want.
All this and using a little over half the amount of fuel/mile that I burned in
my last Europa style trawler.
Ok, specifics on the engines, props and fuel.
The boat has 2 50-hp 4-stroke Suzuki's, using Amsoil synthetic marine 15w40 in
the top and Amsoil synthetic marine gear lube in the lower, turning 12 x 9 Michigan Wheel, 4 blade,
aluminum props. Since I've exceeded the designed weight limit of the boat,
I figured that the four blade props would give me a little more "torque" to push
that extra weight. My fuel usage has been surprisingly low considering
that I almost always run the boat at a cruising R.P.M. of 4800-4900 which
translates to a speed of about 15 to 17 mph depending on the sea state
(remember, I'm overloaded and cats are VERY sensitive to weight beyond their
design capacity).
In my opinion the excess weight hasn't really
affected the handling of the boat and I've had her out in all kinds of rough
seas since that's all we've really had since I crossed over to the Bahamas.
She's slower out of the hole than before I loaded her down, but there are no
issues that are of a safety nature as far as I've been able to determine (due to
all the lawyers... let me add that I'm not a marine engineer, don't try this at
home, if you sink because you loaded the family car onto the bow don't think of
calling me to complain and the opinions contained in this page are just that,
opinions!). My total (both engines total, not each
individual engine!) hourly fuel usage has varied on this trip from a low of
2.8gph to a high of 4.5gph. Pretty darn economical if you ask me.
I did lie earlier in this page when I said
that I would not be traveling with all of the water tanks filled. I really
don't notice any difference between having just the factory tank filled and all
of the tanks (75gal) filled. The tanks are properly located somewhat
centered in the boat and the boat trim, other than pushing the boat straight
down a fraction of an inch, remains unaffected. And by having all of the
tanks filled, it allows me way more freedom to hang out in those wonderful
remote spots.
The down side of this boat are so minor as to
be hardly worth mentioning but, to be complete, I will. There are only 2
things that I can think of, and they are by no means unique to this boat.
The first is that in higher winds (20 - 40kts), when anchored, the boat wants to
sail back and forth a bit. I've tried a bridle with some success and am
testing a new variation. If it works, I'll post the design here. The
second thing is something that afflicts all fiberglass boats but white ones the
most. The static electrical properties of both the fiberglass and hair
means that there's always hair stuck to the fiberglass inside the boat. No huge deal, but
you really need something sticky like a Swiffer TM or vacuum cleaner to remove them. Just using a cleaning
spray and paper towel doesn't work well. That's it... not bad at all!
A quick note on my favorite anchor, the Spade
15lb aluminum. Great anchor. So far, it's only not set with my first
try, two times. Both were in thick grass and both times I got it to bury
on the second attempt. I forgot to put in a swivel between the anchor and
the chain and am looking to get one at my next opportunity.
The rest of the evaluation will be attached to
the pictures. Click on the picture of interest and a larger version
will pop up along with my comments.
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