cat drive types

[trueblue]

Looking at the Kevlacat website, the 2800 comes with Yanmar shaft drive diesels, petrol stern drives, and outboards

Whats best??? curious to know what others think, especially regarding the shaft drive diesel option

cheers

Mick

[GBC]

Book a trip on nomad and ask Damon's opinion.:P Sorry - Capt Damon's opinion.

'Best' in this case would be firstly directly relative to the funds you have available to get the rig afloat, and secondly what you intend to use it for.

[finding_time]

Mick

If it were me and this is purely from a fishing perspective i would opt for the shaft drive diesels for the reason of a clear transom ( no pods or motors ) great for fishing and specially trolling, and the diesels dont half help with fish raising either!!!! Outboards may be cheaper and easier to service but fishing is my focus;)


Ian

[Noelm]

In a 28' Boat I guess it would be hard to justify the added cost of diesels (but they would be nice) so I guess if you were "loaded with cash" then they would be best, but I reckon I would be taking a good drive in one first!

[dfox]

I like diesels, but one of the downside of shaft drives in this size cat is you cant adjust the trim. With legs or outboards you can lift the bow, adjust trim and fine tune the ride, with the shaft drive theres no adjustment. Having driven shaft drives I found it annoying at times when your nose down, wasting power pushing water and getting a wet ride. One big plus is shafts have much less exposed moving parts to maintain especially if its in the water all the time. Youll have to weigh up the pro's and con's depending on your requirements ... foxy

[fly_1]

Damon hasnt owned a kevlacat for a while. His old boat is now called saltwater and based in Fiji. He replaced it with a 36ft blackwatch.
I have fished on a 7.2 with shafts, a 3000 with twin steyrs and sterndrives, and plenty of kcats with outboards. All good, all very different, and it all depends on what you are using it for etc....

[Greg P]

Nomad are also running a Contender CC now I think. Top rig for that style of fishing from the mothership.

[cormorant]

Some volvo IPS would be nice.

Unless the Cat hull is beamy enough to actually mount the motor mostly in the sponson the angles for a shaft are a real compromise and would really cause a lot of nose down all the time and a loss of effeciency.

If I was going for a new cat about that size I would be seriously thinking of the diesel outboards being developed if the price is no object or the diesel vdrive bolt on pods.

So much comes down to what you are going to use it for and just how much money you won in lotto

[julian1]

in that size i would want to have the ability to trim the cat as cats really thrive on trim adjustment, obviously the bigger they get the less it will matter, will it be moored or trailered ? i would want outboards.

cheer's

Julian

[Finnatical]

Whilst I can't comment on the 2800, I see that the 3000 is the better part of $40,000 more for diesel shafts over 250hp Suzuki's. The outboards are apparently significantly faster and of course trimable which should improve the ride over varying water conditions. Be a hard arguement to go with the diesels in that case, but each to their own.

Good luck with your research.
Jason