drejustice

my 26 ultra shadow(similar hull to a 26 daytona) with 525 runs me a little over 1300 a year, full coverage, no layup with Markel. Clean record, no claims, 1st cat for me but 20+ years of boat exp. I did take the Tres Martin class but it wasn't required and I took it 6 months after I already had the insurance. I figured the education was worth it alone.

T2x

The cat market isn't the only one that is shrinking..... but I have enough sympathy to go around.

T2x

berns29scarab

absolutely not...i lost an engine in my 30 spectre at just over 90 mph...reminded me off getting a blow out in a car...slow and easy no abrubt moves and alls well...in my case anyway

rlj676

Wow. That sounds incredibly low for your first cat.

I keep seeing about $4000 after Tres Martin class, and that's with an HO in a 26 foot cat. I wonder if it would be worth buying a 26 with 6.2 just to get "cat experience" and then swap the motor when insurance won't be more than the boat payment.

Comanche3Six

Kemosabe is the best, when you see the best 40' Skater go by Kemosabe in those conditions, then it is case closed. Truthfully, I don't think the Skater can do it. At least we have something to look forward to.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

Same here, Dean and I lost an engine racing in Cambridge last year at a buck five and the boat just mildly pulled to the stbd side and slowed. Nothing abrupt at all. 30 foot AMT which is now predator, great handling boat.

T2x

With all due respect...... what is, or was Kemosabe? Where did/does it race...?

The two best Apaches of all time were the Kramer Saccenti 41....and Richie's Apache Heritage. IMHO. Both won multiple championships against World Class competition....back when that actually meant something.

T2x

Comanche3Six

Kemosabe is a privately owned 47 Apache. It does not race. Many knowledgeable Apache people.....Steve Nykamp, Mark Adams among them say it is the best balanced, best running Apache to date. I believe them.
As for the others you mentioned, yes, they are fantastic powerboats. Combined with driven, talented, fearless offshore race teams. If true open ocean racing were to come back, I think Apache would do well on the rough days. It would certainly be exciting.

Comanche3Six

To rough water.

T2x

Comanche:

.... I knew Ben Kramer pretty well, so I can speak with some first hand knowledge regarding Apache Hulls.

FYI.. at the end of his career, he was totally into cat development. He built the Mike Peters designed John McCall constructed 41 foot Apache cat in 1986, from which the later glass hulls emerged. That same year he commisioned Conquest (my company) to provide him with a completely different Linder Design cat hull (a project cut short by his trip to "camp"). I personally gave him the line drawings for that boat at Marathon in '86.

Not many people know that the four engined 48' aluminum Cougar Superboat, "Eric's Reality", was also commisioned by Ben right before he became a guest of the Federal Hotel System. It is also a fact that there was no real development going on regarding any new designs on the vee bottom side of Apache. So it is clear where even Ben was heading along with anyone else who truly understood (understands) the vast difference between the older Vee technology and the cats. As a matter of fact even Aronow's last designs were cats.... bad ones, but cats nonetheless.

IMHO the 41 Apache is the best rough water vee hull ever designed. Beyond that anything over 40 feet becomes a simple spanning exercise.... 50 feet is better than 40 feet...and 60 feet is better than 50....etc. There is no doubt that a 100 foot monohull is better than a 40 foot cat in the rough water that any 40 footer ordinarily runs in, but can a 40 foot monohull make the same claim? Many boneheads have this picture of "Perfect Storm" size waves with sturdy Apaches climbing up the face while burning the raging testorone from the loins of the fearless owner driver...and in truth a similar length cat owner might not try the same water... The reason for that is simple... Cat owners are smart enough not to go out in that sh*t...

There is no doubt that there are far more vee manufacturers and vee hulls on the water. Vees were introduced almost 20 years before cats and had a heck of a head start. This has created a rather tilted marketing structure based primarily on the obvious numbers and, secondarily, on the better living quarters in most vee hulls versus Cats. The safety, rough water, and speed issues are simply baloney subtly supported by the golf shirt wearing vee bottom marketing types and frequently ill informed barside discussions among vee owners (" I never been in a Cat, but I hear they flip!"). Couple that to the fact that a number of guys with little more than big checkbooks and egos have put themselves into the 120 plus MPH club without any experience or skill set, and most have done this in cats....sometimes too small and sometimes simply too fast.... but too many with disastrous results.....and Voila!.... the insurance companies ran for the hills.

The truth is that this is like comparing a Ferrari and a Lincoln with the argument that far more people get killed in Ferraris at 150 mph than in Lincolns......and then claiming that, based on these "facts", Lincolns handle better at high speed.

This whole issue is, was, and always will be short ( no reference to Reggie implied or intended ) sighted and a haven for subjective thinking.

T2x