27OB experience vs expectations (or a 25OB)

[johnbenj]

Hello all

I am considering a 27OB this year. My missions will be primarily getting from point A to point B so the speed of the OB is very attractive. I live in Puget Sound and would appreciate learning from current owners of OB models their real-life experiences and seeking their advice.

What has your real-world experience been in speed and comfort compared to your expectation of the OB & hull combination? What cruise speed do you use for planning? How has your experiences been in less-than-perfect conditions where wind and tide are working together against you 😉 What time parameters would you use for planning Seattle to Roche Harbor, or to Victoria, for example.

Thank you very much!
John

 

[baz]

The R27/OB will in general get you from A to B in 1/2 time than for say the R29, but only if the water conditions are right for the high speed the R27/OB is capable of doing. If you have unfavorable water conditions the A to B time will not be that much different between the R27/OB and the R29.

How often is the PNW weather and water conditions suitable for R27/OB speeding along at 30 to 40 mph ? This is a good question and if time is of essence and the water conditions not suitable for high speed you will avoid going out on the boat and this subsequently reduces your ability to be on the water when you want.

With a 1 to 2 foot chop and moving the R27/OB along at around 30 to 40 mph (planing) the noise could be annoying for you as the water slaps the hull. This was my experience owning the R27/OB.

Running at high speed in the PNW requires you to always have a keen and constant lookout for deadheads. This can and will tire you on a long run and stops you from enjoying your shipmates company.

Running at high speed from Seattle to Roche in calm seas should be easily done in 2.5 to 3.5 hrs. Running at 38 mph means you cover a lot of ground very quickly. This can be appealing to people who are in a hurry.

In general I found the R29 (which I now own) compared to the R27/OB (which I owned for 1.5 yrs) to give me a more comfortable ride and the opportunity to go out on the boat more often regardless of weather unless it was simply too wild out there.

The R27/OB (planing hull) is a very fine boat but offers a different use profile than for the semi-displacement hulls of the other RT models.

I would place the R25/OB and the R27/OB in the same category except of course the R27/OB has more room and cost more.

If you and your passengers like speed the R27/OB is simply awesome to cruise in.

Good luck.

 

[johnbenj]

Thank you Baz. I appreciate your response and your points. I concur with the trade-offs you highlight. I am glad to hear that you found the combination of the OB and hull worked well together. My post makes it sound like speed is the primary requirement/driver all the time but that isn't true 🙂 Having the ability to get-up-and-go will be helpful and pragmatic for my current mission profile. I am pleased to hear that you like the 27OB for what it is. I think I will, too.

John

 

[Familyguy]

John,
I have the R23 and not the 27 (jealous!!) and, full disclosure I am an outboard fan. Baz is right that you can definitely blaze a trail with the outboards but the motors do have throttle adjustment so its not like you either do 40 or 5. I quite often am amazed to look down and learn, while crossing the Straight of Georgia in a 3-4’ chop that I’m doing 16 - 22 MPH. In big chop I’m usually trimmed down on the motor and the trim tabs so pounding is reduced significantly.
In my mind the main advantages of outboard are:
- Speed and power when you need it
- Cheaper to buy
- Quieter ride ( motor hangers off the back so farther away AND on a pod so noise does not transmit)
- More storage space (the engine compartment space becomes storage)
- Easy/cheaper maintenance- my opinion
- Easy winterization
- Don’t like the engine/power? - easy to replace
- Reliability - again my opinion, look at this forum on engine problem questions
- Personally - I hate the smell of diesel as a fuel and its exhaust when it burns
- Gasoline, if treated stores well.


Advantages of Diesel/Inboards are:
- HEAT!! You don’t need a separate diesel heater ( )
- Fuel economy/longer distance between fill ups
- Resale price and ease of sale (my opinion)
- More options for a tender
- looks cooler (my opinion)
- Diesel fuel lasts longer but has storage issues around organic growth and contamination

I’m sure there’s are more pro’s & con’s on each side, AND then there are the emotional fanatics that are currently reading this that are going to now rant at my analysis. The rest will just read and either yawn, or say ‘yabutt’ to themselves but not actually feel the need to reply.

Like I said I love outboards and short of buying a VERY large vessel any boat I buy will have an outboard!

 

[baz]

A quick mention about noise for OB vs. IB engines.

For me the OB engine emits a high frequency sound level whereas the IB emitted low frequency sounds.

Now depending on how your ears respond to high and low frequency, the noise sound you hear can be quite a bit different.

I measured the dB sound levels for both the R27/OB and the R29 CB and at the helm position the dB levels were almost identical.

If you like high frequency you'll be happy, but on the other hand you may find it annoying.

Also, some peoples' hearing at various frequencies can be quite a bit different. Some can hear higher frequency sounds than others and they both will have a different opinion about the sound level.

My wife always told me the R27/OB was less noisy that the IB Diesel engines, but her hearing at high frequency was almost nil, plus she also wore hearing aids. 😉

So the point here is that noise/sound levels can be all over the place depending on the person's hearing ability.

To be fair to the R29 CB I have, I can tell you it's no slouch and can move at 27 mph at WOT for brief periods, and easily maintain a good 22-25 mph all day long if you want that. At 22-25 mph the R29's speed to me is as pleasing as I had with the R27/OB at 30 mph. Running the R27/OB any faster than say 30 mph requires you to pay close attention to things in front and to your side, and things at those high speeds happen quickly and rapid reaction times to these events become critical. The faster you go in the R27/OB the harder it is to change direction and the steering wheel effort increases quite significantly.

Quite honestly, I felt somewhat uneasy moving along at 35 mph in the R27/OB not knowing what maybe was in front of me and hidden from sight. Take your eyes away from looking straight ahead and moving at 38 mph means you're traveling over some 56 feet per second.... so for say 3 seconds to scan the chart plotter for example, the boat has moved forward some 168 feet. Just something to be aware of. I found when traveling at 38 mph in my R27/OB I did not like my passengers talking and distracting me from driving the boat safely. If you do opt for the R27/OB drive it safely; for yourself and for your passengers.

 

[Kimberly Dawn]

John, I'll try to be brief.

We own a 2019 R27-OB with a Suzuki 300 hp, starting our 3rd season with 130 hours. It's our 4th boat, 2nd fiberglass, 1st outboard (main), and 4th fast boat. Our last boat was a 24' SeaSport Explorer, a great fishing boat and adequate cruising boat. We needed more room and a better layout, and we got both with the R27-OB. This boat was not only better designed on the interior, but also opened up the interior space to the cockpit exterior, making summer socials a breeze!

All our boats have lived on a trailer in our driveway, and this boat is no exception. There are several benefits to us as a result: our “journey” always starts in our driveway, but first splash is at a launch closest to our crusing ground; there's no bottom paint, so there's less drag underway; I'm not growing a marine science project that requires routine maintencance (on the flip side we don't have the convenience of just hoping down to the boat and taking off); boat's an arm's length away for security and miscellaneous projects, not that I would ever have any projects! LoL!

Journey vs Destination. You've suggested getting from point A to point B in a timely manner is important. It is for us, too, although my wife will ask me to slow down sometimes to sightsee. I will because we can, but I can speed up to cruising speed at anytime, and it's not between 7-13 knots. There's nothing wrong with journey speed, we just prefer getting to our destination in a timely manner. When it comes down to it, we're all boaters enjoying our time on the water together, and we're all members of the same boating family with very accommodating parents... Ranger Tugs / Fluid Motion!

Let's put a couple of things to rest. When you've got 4' chop going against the wind, you slow down. It's called boating. If you're an R41 going 10 knots with stabilizers, maybe, just maybe, you're not impacted... I don't know. In our seasonal boating season of May to October you get a lot of GREAT days of boating. My cruising speed fluctuates, but my process is constant. My motor's performance seems to like 4800 rpm, so I accelerate to that range, trim boat side-to-side and trim motor to 30-50%, watching my tachometer. If it porpoises, I trim back and if it stops increasing in rpm's, I stop increasing trim. Typically I increase rpm's by 300 when I complete this process, and then I back it down to 4800. Depending on water and weather I'm doing 30 mph +/-. I don't care how fast I'm going. My fuel economy is 15-15.5 gallons per hour. Although I will run at WOT for 5-10 minutes per outing, achieving 5900 rpm at 41 mph, I don't cruise at that speed. Whenever we are underway, my job and my First Mate's job, is looking out for anything in our path (deadheads, crab pots, markers, etc.). Doing 30 mph only requires adjustment to field of vision with the same level of commitment.

If the layout of the boat meets your needs, I can assure you the performance of the R27-OB will not disappoint you!

Good luck in your boat buying!

 

[bergroup]

I've got an R-23 OB with about 125 hours on it. I usually cruise at 4500 which gives me 25MPH burning 10GPH. If I want 35MPH I bring it up to 5500 RPM but the fuel burn increases to about 14 GPH.

The great thing about the outboard is that if I just want to "cruise" I bring the RPM down to 2300 which gives me about 8 MPH. Anything between 2300-4000 PRM puts way too much water on the swim platform for my liking and just feels too "mushy." (Official nautical term)

 

[zekeandboone]

Sent you a PM

 

[ShortCut]

We cruise comfortably at 50 MPH when the water behaves. With a 2-foot chop, we cruise comfortably at between 30 MPH and 40 MPH. Driving at these speeds requires the same focus as driving on the freeway. The gas mileage is best when we run about 35 MPH, so that's typically our cruising speed when heading to the San Juan Islands We have the smallest and lowest cost boat in the Fluid Motions fleet. It is the C-242, recently renamed the C24. Our boat is powered with a 300 HP Yamaha. The interior of the boat is amazingly similar to the bigger boats, with the stove, refrigerator, grill, V-berth, Cave, and head. There's plenty of room for two people, and four people overnight would be crowded. We don't have a laundry room like the R41.

Marshall

 

[Navigator's Son]

Hello all
I live in Puget Sound and would appreciate learning from current owners of OB models their real-life experiences and seeking their advice.
John

Are you only ever going to use the boat as transportation to get from dock to dock? There are some factors to consider that only you will ever be able to address, but others can share their experience.

If you never intend to drop anchor and need to get to shore, then you can ignore this piece. But if you think you would ever want the ability to drop anchor and easily and readily deploy a dinghy, that's where I think the real issue lies between OB versus IB.

You're going to get all kinds of feedback about how easy it is to just throw an inflatable in your OB storage area and etc, etc... Fine - if that option works for you, enjoy. But there's something to be said about the ease and simplicity of simply dropping and stowing an "at the ready" dinghy on the back of the IB model that you won't realize until you have experienced the hassle for yourself with lifting kayaks and inflatables up out of the water and not scratching your boat.

If you do go the OB route, take a real good look at the prototype/available dinghy lift and consider what your options are ahead of purchase.

I strayed from my original '17 R23 purchase for the R25SC for this reason, and after spending 2 weeks anchored in the Gulf Islands and using the dinghy every day, I would never consider another boat that didn't have an immediately easy to deploy and retrieve dinghy option.

 

[Cutwater28GG]

the new Cutwater 32 with dinghy davits over the outboards is a sweet solution. also the extra 2 foot length on the engine pod I hear makes a dramatic difference in the top speed

 

[Kimberly Dawn]

John,

Navigator's Son brings up a good point, inasmuch as the dinghy solution is the OB's Achilles heel. The RT stern-mounted davit frame is a creative way to get a standard dinghy mounted. I don't know where the motor would be mounted, and I have not been around the prototype enough to speculate an opinion.

My solution was in fact an inflatable kayak that I keep in a rack on my roof-mounted sports bars. It only weighs 38#, but is still very awkward getting it up and down. When our itinerary permits, we will pull it up thru the transom door and secure until our next stop, putting it back in the water to use or simply tie. It's not ideal, but it seems to be working for us so far.

Bob

 

[johnbenj]

Are you only ever going to use the boat as transportation to get from dock to dock? There are some factors to consider that only you will ever be able to address, but others can share their experience.

If you never intend to drop anchor and need to get to shore, then you can ignore this piece. But if you think you would ever want the ability to drop anchor and easily and readily deploy a dinghy, that's where I think the real issue lies between OB versus IB.

Terrific points! Thank you!

 

[spierp]

baz wrote:How often is the PNW weather and water conditions suitable for R27/OB speeding along at 30 to 40 mph ?

Good question. This made me wonder, has anyone done a deep dive into the data on this to determine, on average, how many "2 ft or less" days (those suitable for 30-40mph speeds) we have in Puget Sound / San Juans per year? I started clicking around NOAAs website and am having a hard time finding any historical data on wave heights. If this does not already exist somewhere publicly I might write a script that crunches buoy data over the last 20 years to see what trends emerge. Does anyone know of any resources where these types of trends/statistics might already exist? We all have our anecdotal observations from experience, but I'm curious what the data says.

 

[Toki]

John,

Navigator's Son brings up a good point, inasmuch as the dinghy solution is the OB's Achilles heel. The RT stern-mounted davit frame is a creative way to get a standard dinghy mounted. I don't know where the motor would be mounted, and I have not been around the prototype enough to speculate an opinion.

Bob

They had this OB dinghy frame at the boat show on one of the Cutwaters. VERY slick system! Dinghy is upside down above the outboard, and deploying looks quite quick and simple. Gotta hand it to those FM engineers for devising such a slick solution. It does look pretty elegant (read that "expensive") but according to the FM rep they were offering a boat show special, free frames on new purchase.

 

[Navigator's Son]

but according to the FM rep they were offering a boat show special, free frames on new purchase.

Is it safe to assume that would hold true for a new Ranger, or just a Cutwater? Having a working dinghy option for an OB certainly just made the idea of entertaining upgrading to an OB all the more attractive, and if the cost for the system was removed from the equation, then all the more a really difficult package to say no to...

I'm going to assume they are not throwing in the dinghy and outboard as well, just the cradle?

 

[Toki]

I was on the R27 discussing this with the rep, he pointed to the dinghy rack on the Cutwater and said they were throwing that into the deal for the tug, so I assume this deal applies to all OB tugs and Cutwaters.

Boy, I hope someone from FM chimes in here to correct me if I heard wrong. I'm picturing a rush of people to the dealers saying "But Toki promised me a free dinghy rack!"

 

[Andrew Custis]

Just to clear this up. There is a free davit and dinghy included on the 29 and 31. Free dinghy with the purchase of a davit on the 27. If anyone has any questions about the boat show specials, please feel free to call me directly. (253)230-0727.

Thank you!