best offshore hull under 6.2m

[TJ Bear]

I'll agree with with the Haines V19C, bit of a tidyup and repower if needed and your sweet.

[lippa]

see ian, if ya wanna take boys fishing the 5.2 may handle it. but it obvious they can't handle men!! men need a full checkerplate floor, somthing thats tough. not weak and flimsy fittings like on the baby pussy cat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gofishin]

...A question for those that love the Cats. I know the Cats are great in 2-3 feet of wind chop, but how do you find them in a big following sea? My last ride home in a 34' PowerCat in 2-3m of swell was down right worrying. It missed behaved so much I was wishing to be in my 25 Berty...

Myles, are you fair dinkum??? Was it the 348 Powercat or the 328 (original)? The 348 was a cut&shut version of the 328, with a much higher tunnel (& CoG) etc. Never went in a 348 but by reports I heard from guys that had/used both was that they weren’t nearly as good (maybe why many weren’t made?????).

In what now seems a former life as a fanatical game fisherman, spent ~2500+ hrs in a 25’Nova FB (copy of a berty), ~200 hrs in 25 Berty FB’s (Berty was superior, both types with many different engine combos) and ~1200hrs in a 328 PC FB, not to mention a few trips in ~6 or so other cats.

Absolutely no contest, and it was a very predictable cat! Not to mention you could fit a 25 berty inside a 32’+ ‘any’ cat & still have room to fish and sleep! But…a cat is a cat, not a mono, and behaves completely differently due to the laws of physics - which spooks some people. Do a search for ‘cats’ etc & you will find heaps of threads/posts with good reading by many guys with vastly more cat experience (and in many types & sizes of cats) than me, and I’m sure you will get the same reaction to your question.

Sorry, back to topic….

...the best offshore fishing machine under 6.2m...

Best under 6.2m for purely fishing? Every answer you receive will be subjective. I would say probably a cat – but that’s just my opinion based on many assumptions! As others have stated, no one can really answer this (give you their opinion ) for you, and without considering other things, neither can you. i.e. What are your wants/needs…??? What are you prepared to compromise on…??? What are your constraints…??? etc etc. Still, even if you listed all these precisely, you will get many different answers.
cheers

PS. Myles, not saying the 25 berty’s aren’t a good boat, they are a great boat!

[business class]

Best under 6.2m for purely fishing? Every answer you receive will be subjective. I would say probably a cat – but that’s just my opinion based on many assumptions! As others have stated, no one can really answer this (give you their opinion ) for you,

If you have a look at my previous post Go Fishin...i have given the man all the info he needs, and i have the answer HYDROFIELD 5.6 and he will be a happy fisherman .

[trueblue]

Gday,
A question for those that love the Cats. I know the Cats are great in 2-3 feet of wind chop, but how do you find them in a big following sea? My last ride home in a 34' PowerCat in 2-3m of swell was down right worrying. It missed behaved so much I was wishing to be in my 25 Berty, or even a 17R Haines would have been better!
Not to mention the tunnel slap at anchor and when trolling. It put me off them for life.
I would love to be proved wrong if someone knows of a Cat builder that has beat these problems.

Cheers,
Myles

An interesting point is that the vast majority of rescue boats in SEQ are cats.

I am also tossing up the same questions myself though

cheers

Mick

[Vitamin Sea]

ok Bill i will throw it in for ya! haines v19c, if you can find a good one, and you wont come home with a wet back or chew through motors from sucking in salt mist like a cat, and all for 20G, that should stir things up

OK Brett

You had to pull me into it

Absolutley correct, sea going capability, value for money, the old girls are hard to beat, with a re-power as TJ Bear mentioned, all the better.

15-20 ne going from Manly to Combie, I know who whould get there first.

Dunno about the 20 G's though mate, she owes me a bit more than that.

Cats are nice, great sea boats, but they do come at a cost.

Cheers

Bill

[siegfried]

I'll agree with with the Haines V19C, bit of a tidyup and repower if needed and your sweet.

What he said

[finding_time]

Gday,
A question for those that love the Cats. I know the Cats are great in 2-3 feet of wind chop, but how do you find them in a big following sea? My last ride home in a 34' PowerCat in 2-3m of swell was down right worrying. It missed behaved so much I was wishing to be in my 25 Berty, or even a 17R Haines would have been better!
Not to mention the tunnel slap at anchor and when trolling. It put me off them for life.
I would love to be proved wrong if someone knows of a Cat builder that has beat these problems.

Good luck with the boat hunt. Best hull under 20 feet, gotta be a V19R or a Signature.
Cheers,
Myles

hey Myles

Basically what Gofishin said but i would add, that a skipper can make a huge differance in ride in a cat, How good was the skipper? Also as far as misbehaving goes, what do you judge it by? Cats ride and lean differantly to mono's and what would seem unnerving to a mono guy unaccustom to the feel of cats , seems perfectly normal to a cat guy! When they lean and heel it does freak the average joe out , but that's just what cats do. A good skipper can minimumize this alot though and a poor driver will have this happening more often!

Ian

[ifishcq1]

one of my fishing mates just put pods on a 18ft sharkcat after some advice on Ausfish and it turned an okay boat into a beauty it is now 6.1m
we came home doing 48km in 1.5m following sea last weekend and did 40km comfortably on the way out with twin suzi 75hp getting better than 1.7km/ltr
Snapperhead says that it is easier to drive in most conditions than it was before
Once you learn to drive a cat you will probably never go back
I am a one eyed longboat fan but after the run on the weekend in the cat
I recon there isn't a better boat under 6.2m and I have been in plenty of different rigs over 40 odd years of serious offshore fishing and boating
If I did'nt have a longboat the next choice would have to be a cat for the stuff we do
however good quality local built glass monos like seafarer or haines would suit the average family fisher/boater without the added cost of twin motors

cheers
SL

[Hecle]

not my open 4.5m dory in anything other than glass!!!

[QldKev]

In the Cat Vs Mono debate; a cat weighs a lot more and need a lot more hp to push it than a mono. So for a fair comparision they should not be set to the same overall lenght?

QldKev

[Dean1]

see ian, if ya wanna take boys fishing the 5.2 may handle it. but it obvious they can't handle men!! men need a full checkerplate floor, somthing thats tough. not weak and flimsy fittings like on the baby pussy cat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey your checkerplate floor would be heaps stronger than those clinker ally sides your runnin ey??

[Midnight]

Gday Gofishin, Trueblue and Finding Time,
I don't have a lot of time in cats but a lot in Deep V monos, and I have had some beautiful rides in cats over the years in short chop, no better ride in that sort of stuff.
But it was the ride in a decent following sea( We were losing the horizon from the flybridge while trolling before we gave it away) that had me wishing I was in my Berty, due to as you said the wierd leaning and digging a shoulder in and lifting the opposite stern etc.

The skipper seemed to have his hands full too, perhaps in better hands the ride home may have been different.

The other thing that REALLY put me off the cat, was the tunnel slap. Bad while trolling in slop and at night behind the reef at anchor, sleep was impossible due to waves pounding, not slapping, into the tunnel every 5 minutes.

I am sure that from the responses here I probably got a bad experience, but I still think a deep V mono's behaviour "down hill" suits me more.

Horses for courses.

Cheers,
Myles

P.s I just checked the photo's from the trip, it was a 328 Flybridge, not 348

[lippa]

Hey your checkerplate floor would be heaps stronger than those clinker ally sides your runnin ey??

WTF???????

clinker pressed in 8083? = strength my friend









you want a strength comp over glass???????? lol i win!!!!!!

[Dean1]

ok Bill i will throw it in for ya! haines v19c, if you can find a good one, and you wont come home with a wet back or chew through motors from sucking in salt mist like a cat, and all for 20G, that should stir things up

Youv obviously never been in a properly set up cat. Youv got alot of wet backs from a cat that simply probably just needed a set of spray plates fitted. Ive never had one of these so called 'showers' that you waffle on about all the time in my cat