Thought this topic may make for an interesting DEBATE ??

Been reading elsewhere a ongoing debate & these are some of my views having owned both types of hulls & skoppered both typed on larger moored boats & the smaller trailer craft.

I've found the alloy cat hulls 2B very dependent on weight placement one I used to skipper a 6.5 meter or close to that size was a pig very nose heavy mainly because of the oversize hard top & would bury the nose in any sort of sea.

Recall the 1st boat that I ever fished out of belonged to Fed & it was a 16ft Bruce Hariss Sharkcat cant comment to much cause Fed never let me drive it I wonder why ?

Did spend quite a few years on same boat but the 18ft vesion & had one for a few months even recall the 1st time I tried driving it up onto the traler missed & one of the pontoons run up on the guide hoop leaving the boat parked on trailer @ around 40 degree angle lucky there was no one around to see me do it

Personally I prefer a good Alloy Plate boat like the one I now have, A couple of weeks back gave a Alloy Sailfish a good 1/2 mile start coming back into Botany Bay from the in close FAD & still beat the Sailfish in by a another very good 1/2 mile or so.

Thats over a 6 mile run ne veered Nth a touch to get a better ride where as I took on the Nth Wester head on & did it comfortably reaching speeds up to 20 knots reckon he was doing around 12 knots in those conditions.

OK my boat is 7 meter + & the Sailfish was only around the 6 meter mark but I'm going to take this oportunity to point out a fact.
Continue the non existant nose on a cat to equal the nose of a mono & that 6 meter Sailfish or any other cat of similar size will end up the same length or very close to my 7 meter +

O find it annoying when people start to compare say a 5 meter cat to a 5 meter mono hull it's not a fair comparisment cause both will have approx the same beam just that the cat has it's nose cut off.

How did you find the performance of the 18' Sharkcat (was it Odin) compared to your Current boat Jumpy?

Haven't driven any of those Kevlar cats recall them cracking up heaps when they 1st came out.

The original 18 ft cat handles quite well Fed if I have to fault them I'd have to say in a following sea & they're a pain in the arse to anchor up esp when you're out on your own.

You alse have to remember back then I used to own a 17ft tinny my original decent sized boat dont know if you can recall it



Well fishing or driving a Shack Cat was heaven compared to that boat.

My current bigger boat will match it with any cat out on the water these days & I'd leave most of them in my wake more so because I've spent alot of hours behind the wheel of boat's & have accumilated alot of expirience doing so.

As far as a stable fishing platform goes cats do have that advantage but so does my rig 3 guys over one side handling a big fish is no probs whatsoever.

Do recall one incident many years ago on a mates 18 ft cat , we shouldn't been out there sea's were huge 4 - 5 meters but only rollers we were on the peak I wanted to come back in he was sounding looking 4 Reds on the bottom not paying attention when a wave broke over the top of us ended up with around 1 ft of water covering all of the deck.

It released out through the scuppers & I started looking for any fish that may have been washed in.

I remember the old Esra I used to see it parked in Earlwood all the time after you sold it.
Pretty sure I gave it a good check out at your parent's place, you had a big live bait tank cut through the hull didn't you?
I can't quite remember the setup other than to say it seemed like a good idea at the time.

You're confusing the live bait tank set up with my current boat Fed.

Not wise to set up a live bait tank like that unless you've got a wet deck.

I have no need of a pump nor scoop pickup with as water flows in from a 50mm hole through the hull

But I've never seen your current boat so how would I know???
Are you sure? This is strange.

I posted pcs of current biats setup elsewhere that's where you saw it & got confused

Are you trying to freak me out?
I'm sure I've seen it in real life.

No I'm not !

Here it is B4 I built the pod onto the boat & when I did that the live bait tank went into the transom wall with a glass frint so as I could keep an eye on the livies.

Like I said the one in the floor setup requires a wet deck else the hull would fill up with spolage water & the old ESRA Y - Y ARSE didn't have a wet deck.

The one I saw was in the floor, I guess it was your current boat.
How long have you had it?

About 15 years now I guess ?

Had others since including the big boat but always hung onto current one it's to good a boat & owes me alot of $$$

Looks quite nice outside think I'll take it out for a fish after lunch see if I cant get some reds

Then I had to have seen it very soon after you got it. Mystery solved I hope.
Good luck with the Reds if you go out, don't forget the pics.

i think this is one of those holden v ford type things, lets face it we all think the boat we have now is the best thing under the sun my best friend bozo fished for spanner crabs of the north coast for 20 years from a 18ft kevlar cat with out a problem

Dont think so poly

For starters I dont like either Fords or Holdens

And no one here is putting crap on either mono or cat both Fed & myself have owned both types

Prob with most discussions between the 2 types of hulls is you'll generally get some idiot boasting like you said because he owns one i the other

Think I'm pretty fair when it comes to boat discussions & will point out any faults that may be wrong with say one of my boats.

I remember having a discussion with you Jumpy on the drive back home from Crookhaven and at the time we both agreed that a 18'-19' plate mono with a single outboard was the best configuration.
Of course this was relative to the type of fishing we were doing at the time, not much has happened to change my thoughts.

Cats have their place but with a Cat you really are buying a bigger boat when you do the sums.
Power, weight, fuel, maintenance etc.

I do like the user friendly soft, warm and quiet feel of fibreglass though.

Geez that talk was a long time ago.

These days I wouldn't own a serious boat if it didn't have twin motors just my personal view but think twins offer alot to a boats handling
eg] If I want to come in, in a bit of a hurry I leave one motor with rev'a up & use the other throatle to regulate my speed to suit conditiona find I get a quicker respond using this method without the sudden thrust forward burst that you get powering on/off with both motors.

Not to mention how tou're able to swing the arse of the boat with one motor in reverse & the other in foward, cats may have a slight edge doing this only because the props are wider apart.

I still believe the best motor configuration on either cat/mono is a pair of straight 3's working as a V6 of course boat size determines this find you get much better fuel economy than running what alot of the earlier cats had [ a pair if V4's]

Dont think I'd like a cat with just a single motor haven't been in one but reckon they'd handle like a pig