Nustar Cats

[Fish Guts]

hi ausfishers,

can someone provide me with information regarding nustar cats. have been trying to find out information about them on the net but keep coming up short.
Im after info on the big nustar cats, 45' ect. Are they still in production ? closed down ? have seen a couple on boatpoint but am at an ends to find out any more about them.

cheers

fish guts

[on-one]

Not sure if it's any help but the designer/builder was Nelson Raebel and he runs a surveying and marine architect place out of horizon shores

[Fish Guts]

thanks for that. i thought they may have been built around the gold coast. Do you know if they are still in production?

has anyone got any experience with these boats, good or bad ?

[jimbo59]

The hulls are fuel efficient but the tunnel is lowish so they will pound in a sea they are cheap and are well worth considering; the scimitar is a better hull but they are more expensive 400k is the entry on these.There is another cat thats 39 feet long they are powered by ivecos the name escapes me at the moment but they sell for around 230 k.

[Fish Guts]

yeah thankls jimbo. more appealing to me over the scimitiar primarily on living space inside. i think they'd be a top crusiing boat. ive seen a few with as little as 200's a side. what do you suggest would be a good engine size . 375-400 ?

[jimbo59]

I love col cliffords design, bruce harris has nearly finished his 46 foot cat its a col clifford/harris design. It will come in at 9 ton and he is using 2x165 styer's hes looking at a wot of 21 knots and a fuel burn of 1 litre per nt mile.I like the nustar but it wouldnt suit my needs.As for hp i would buy the one with a late model yanmar or styer around 200-250 hp as juice is gunna hit the roof.Hope this helps..jim

[dec0guy]

I believe they went bust about 7 years ago.

I used to be a part time deckie on a 40ft Nustar used as a diving charter boat with twin 400hp engines and am glad I didn't have to pay the fuel bill! I think the boat was deliberately less than 12m so a coxswain could drive the boat and therefore the hull/engines combo was a bit of a mismatch and used about 200L/hr cruising at about 20kt tank lasted about 3 trips, maybe 6 hours running time).

The Nustar is a planing hull and a displacement boat such as a Scimitar with say twin 125hp engines will cruise at around 16 knots and use a hell of a lot less fuel!