CD 26 O/B in salt water

[Daadolf]

Looking for advice on CD 26 with outboard engine in salt water. Looking at 25D and 26 but concerned about o/b staying in saltwater. I favor 26. Advice appreciated,

[swhfire21]

I've got a 9.8 Tohatsu on our CD26. Previous owner left boat and motor in water for three years (thru the winter) in Jersey City (NY Harbor) resulting in a couple of components succumbing to electrolysis (zincs totally ate away). He indicated that it and prop had been sprayed with outdrive paint. There was lots of plant life (about an 1/2 - 1 in. thick) all over it and a few dime-nickel sized barnacles, but it cleaned up much easier than I ever could have imagined.

After rebuild this winter I sprayed the motor (new and old components) and prop with a spray on outdrive paint (whatever marina handed me). I just looked at motor this afternoon by luck. There looks to be a little slime on it, but no barnacles or major plant life. Boat is sailed in Great Bay/Little Egg Harbor and kept in salt/brackish water along a cedar water creek.

I'd take a CD26 over a 25 any day. Standing headroom makes it very comfortable to stay on.

Good luck,

[Gary M]

With boats there is always a compromise!

The outboard gives you easy access for engine maintenance.

The inboard is always put in the smallest place possible to give the boat more room.

The outboard cools on raw water. You should schedule time to desalt it and fresh water flush it.

The inboard most likely has a heat exchanger.

The outboard gives you a stern thruster to make things easier in close quarters, unless you have an outobar that barely fits in the well.

The inboard is hard to back out of a slip on a full keel boat.

The outboard can break your back pulling it out of the well.

The inboard will make you wish you could remove it so easily.

The outboard well will float your fuel tanks in a following sea and can even let water into the cockpit.

The inboard can take water up its exhaust in a following sea unless the exhaust hose was installed correctly.

Boats are alway a compromise.

I'm not a fan of boats with a motor well, on the other hand I would take a real close look at the 25's engine compartment and imagine what it would be like to change oil, bleed down the engine, change an impeller and expecially adjust or replace the packing gland.

Good Luck with everything, either boat will serve you well.

Gary

[swhfire21]

Gary brings up a few good points. The well mounted motor will only pivot somewhere between 10 - 15 degrees in either direction at most and is a bit noisy. In order to provide more room for pivoting and to allow the engine cover to be removed for maintenance I moved our motor mount forward about an inch and a half.

Learning to dock her has been an experience. Most of the boats I've owned had stern mounted outboards so I would usually lash the tiller straight ahead and maneuver with the outboard during docking. This boat is completely different. Also, everything you read and or know about maneuvering with an inboard motor does not apply to these boats as the prop is behind the rudder.

I tried steering with the motor alone and the motor in combination with the rudder several times while docking. This just ended up in confusion/panic for me and much amusement to the onlookers. Luckily we are on an end slip and do not have another boat to worry about (I try to practice as if there is one though for the future). What I've learned so far (and this will probably go all wrong next time I'm on the boat) is:

1 - The four bladed prop creates quite a bit of prop walk to port when in reverse. This is quite handy when leaving and entering our slip, which has a floating dock on port side.

2- I only use the motor to provide forward/reverse thrust and keep it centered when docking now. When making u turns in the creek I will pivot the motor as needed. Pivoting seems to be more effective in reverse than in forward. I think there is some benefit gained in reverse from the prop wash reflecting off the rudder, which is turned in same direction.

3 - Maintaining steerageway for the rudder is critical when docking. You need to come into the slip a little faster than you would with a true inboard or stern mounted outboard. Otherwise, the boat will stop responding to the rudder and you keep going in whatever direction she was headed when you lost steerage (Very exciting). I placed a large bumper at the end of our slip just in case.

4 - The 26 can be turned 90 degrees with the rudder hard over in about 1.5 boat lengths.

The primary reasons we chose the 26 were:

1 - Headroom in the cabin for overnighting

2- Outboard motor for ease of maintenance (my uncle had an inboard on a 31 footer, which was murder to work on. I can only imagine that the engine space gets even tighter on a smaller boat).

3 - It was the largest CD we could get with a draft under 4 ft. We can pretty much sail on any tide we want, while most of the fixed keel boats in our size range are limited to the top half of the tide.

[bgephart]

Lots of good points above, but if your main concern is the O/B in saltwater, do not worry - proper maintenance will prevent significant problems. I have had my CD-25 for over 30 years now, docked continuously in salt water in Savannah Ga. I currently have a 1993 Johnson 6 HP outboard that I purchased second hand in 1996, and it is still going strong. It is in the water continuously about 51 weeks a year, with one haulout per year when I change the zincs (VERY IMPORTANT) and renew the antifouling paint. The CD-26 looks like a great choice.

Bob Gephart

[Neil Gordon]

I'd take a CD26 over a 25 any day. Standing headroom makes it very comfortable to stay on.

No, no... the comparison is to the 25D, not the 25. They're totally different boats.

[swhfire21]

My bad. I assumed the D had the same headroom as we never ran across any 25D's in our searches.

[RIKanaka]

I have a 9.9 hp Honda (100lbs) that sits in the well of my CD26 for about 3-4 month each summer. After about 2 month of every to every other weekend sailing, the intake channels start to get a little clogged up with marine life. On multiple occasions I've had to clean out small shell-like material from the tell-tale output. This year I've been using a smaller 4 hp Johnson that I can remove and stow on the stern rail eliminating the marine growth problem. I wouldn't recommend that small a motor but I think a 6hp would be adequate in most circumstances and would still be light enough (about 55#) to pull out of the well between outings.

[drb9]

I have a 26 on the Chesapeake (brackish water, with barnacles). I got tired of growth on the motor, clogging the intakes. I'm at a slip, so I came up with a nice solution.

I bought a waterproof duffle that opens at the top, fitted a hoola hoop around the top (wrapped the top of the duffle over the top of the hoop, which I had to cut down a little), and added a little weight at the bottom. I attached some 10' lenghts of waterski (floating) rope to each side. When I'm in the slip, I bring the bag up around the motor, pump the water out, and then fill it with fresh water from the dock water. When I want to sail, I drop the bag off the motor, and head out.

It's a little work, but I have a clean motor.

Oh, and I run the motor after filling the bag with fresh water, so I don't need to hook up the hose to the motor to flush out the bay water.)

Good luck.

Darin

[Jim Walsh]

I knew a guy who used to slip a garbage bag under his lower unit, he had long arms and sufficient space, and pour in a couple gallons of fresh water with some bleach. Essentially his outboard was sitting in brackish water with a bit of Clorox to kill the inhabitants thereof. Probably illegal today.

[SAIL1]

The duffle bag sounds like a good idea...I have used a 5gal bucket on the 6hp nissan for over 10yrs and have been very satisfied with the results...takes about 2min to remove or install....the setup instructions are somewhere on this site...attached is a photo of the bucket with approx 2 months of growth...

[swhfire21]

We made it through almost 3 seasons with no cooling water issues and doing nothing more than applying outdrive antifouling paint to the lower unit and the cooling water inlets. Well our luck ran out, our engine started to overheat last weekend leading to an investigation of the cooling system. After trying to clean the screens in the water with no success I had to pull the motor which resulted in the discovering of some kind of gelatinous growth behind the inlet screens (see picture).

I'm considering the bag/bucket method for next year, but wanted to see if anyone has come up with any other/better ideas since this last posting.

Thanks

[Neil Gordon]

My bad. I assumed the D had the same headroom as we never ran across any 25D's in our searches.

The 25D is sort of what you get when you take a 28 and cut away 3 feet of boat. It's a 25 that will take you anywhere. (Seriously, ANYWHERE! They handily cross oceans.)

[swhfire21]

I like your thinking commodore, although we are thinking 30 - 36 ft for the next step. Just not sure we are ready to go through the whole boat buying and selling routine quite yet.

[Neil Gordon]

I like your thinking commodore, although we are thinking 30 - 36 ft for the next step.

For crossing oceans, I'm not so sure that the 25D is a "we" kind of boat.