Tournament 275 w/Yamaha F350 Sea Trial

[White Horses (Mike)]

Tashmoo's research is consistent with how our local grady dealer has told us they plan to bottom paint our new 225. (Thank Goodness - I am hopeful that my dealer has his head screwed on straight - this bodes well...) Thanks for passing on the info!

I am mostly hoping that they have a strategy for painting any alluminum components like the engine cantilever bracket with non-copper based anti-fouling paint. I have been reading alot about that on this site. They may be on top of that already - I haven't had a chance to quiz them yet.

 

[striped bass]

Thank you for this great piece of information. Very, very informative. I'll be sure to have the marina follow these guidelines. Seems like it could be a tricky process. I may have the boat hauled to my Grady White dealership to have this done since the bottom has never been painted.

 

[grantmey]

I am going on a sea trial next week, 275 Tournament with F350, hard top. My concern is docking, steering, and being offshore with 1 motor in a 27' boat. Any thoughts? The dealer has 2 available, one with F350 and one with twin 150s, no hard top.

 

[striped bass]

If you are going 100 miles off shore, the piece of mind of two engines may be worth the extra cost. Within 30 to 40 miles off shore the twin engine config may not be worth the extra cost especially when you can buy Sea Tow or Tow Boat insurance in case of the very unlikely engine failure of a new Yamaha four stroke. We sea trialed both configs and the F350 won hands down. Very powerful and relatively quiet. Also the maneuverability of the twin engine config was not great (we need maneuverability) because the props are too close together and the wash from each interferes when one is in reverse and the other forward. We would love to hear about your impressions when you return. Take a few pics if you can and post them.

 

[Tashmoo]

I firmly believe and agree as Striped Bass has put it that if you’re going 100 mi off shore then you should buy twins. However, I will add that if you’re going 100 miles off shore you’re out over night and this is not the boat for that application. I also think that if you want twins because you like the ouh – ouh manliness of two engines you absolutely should buy twins. You need to really be satisfied with your purchase, nothing is worse than looking at the boat after a year and saying I should have …..

On reliability, I have had boats for a long time (several thousand engine hours) and have never once had a failure. I have a lots of boat head friends we all take very good care of our engines and all agree that the overwhelming majority (perhaps over 95%) of engine failures are operator induced. Lack of attention to operational signs of a pending problem, no or bad service and so on. Gas related problems are next on the list and are perhaps the most common. If you get a load of bad gas it matters not anyway what power option you have as it isn't going to run period.

As for handling, I never even sea trialed the 275 with twins as I just do not want the head ach of two engines, one is more than enough in my book. The 275 handled at low speed like a dream, at idle speed you point the bow and it goes there quickly, almost on its axis. It tracked well below planning speed and did not wander too much. In reverse the boat actually backs down reasonably well. I fly fish and hence have the bow up into rocks all the time therefore handling was a real concern for me as well. Long story short on my sea trial I worked her bow slowly to within ten - fifteen feet off of a rock pile that I know well and worked her for position. Short of the dealer getting anxious about sticking his $100 K boat up next to a pile of rocks she did beautifully. By the way the boat tracked well with no power as well, position the engine to resist the wind and she stayed pointed up pretty well and for a longer period than I would have expected given her windage.

As for the engine in general, with the three year warranty extension now out on the F350 you have six years on Yamaha's nickel at no extra cost. With the F350 you also get all of the latest technology such as variable rate valve timing, fly by wire controls, an over built lower unit.... In my case the twin 150's were ca $3,000 more, that's 3K more for lower gas mileage, lower performance, older technology, more drag, twice the service and less stern space but I’m not bias of course.

Buy what makes you happy, I would not mental m too much over the handling issues or the newness of the engine.

Do any of you know how to post photos, I have the Raymarine C120 installation photos to post but have no clue as to how?

 

[Yamama]

My experience with skipsand is not as positive as the paint dealers. I purchased my Tournament new in '91, and the dealer applied skipsand, then the bottom paint. Every other year I applied two coats of ablative. After approx 10 years, I had big patches of paint that had flaked off, right down to the gelcoat, which created a uneven surface over the whole bottom. I finally decided to sand off everything, right down to the gelcoat, and start over. During that sanding process, the areas that still had the skipsand either scraped off, fell off, or sanded off easily. Those area's which had bottom paint right on the gelcoat were tough as nails to sand off. Skipsand for me had good adhesion for maybe four years, then started loosing the bond to the gelcoat.
After all sanding was done, I primed with gray, then applied 3 coats of ablative. That was in 2000. Since that time, I have not had one spot flake off as before.
So, my take on skipsand is it's a great time-saver, but for long term adhesion...sanding the gelcoat and priming is the best.

 

[Tashmoo]

Yamama great name!

I will press my dealer to explain why other then time does he chemically etch & prime vs. mechanically sanding and priming and post the reply. Thanks for bringing your experience up I thought I had this issue resolved but looks like I need to do more homework.

 

[grantmey]

Thanks for the replies

I went to the dealer again today and explored the 275 on the show floor with hard top and F350. I am in love with her. If I do not have any problems docking and do not feel underpowered, I'm sure that is the boat for me.

I had a 225 Tournament with a Yamaha F225 and felt it was underpowered at times with a full load.

I know some people power the 275 with twin F250s, just like the Chase 273. It seems a little overkill. My buddy has a 31 Contender with twin F225s and it flies. I know, different hull designs, weight, etc.

Any complaints, concerns, problems with the 275 that I should be aware of? I am looking at the Raymarine C120 package with the Sirius weather and possibly the Garmin 5212 with XM. Any thoughts?

I will take pictures on Thursday morning during the sea trial, but I've tried to post pics on this forum before, and it's not easy!!!

 

[Tashmoo]

Grantmey PM me if you want to discuss what we found in our efforts leading up to our purchasing of the 275.

As for performance print out the performance curves for the 275 with twin 150's and a single 350 then print out the 273 Chase curves for the twin 150's, 200's, 225's and 250's. Compare the Chase to the Tournament with twin 150's they are the same. Next look at the performance of the Chase with twin 200's, it is the same as with twin 150's I assume due to the extra weigh of the twin six cylinders. Next look at the performance of the Chase with twin 225's it is only a hair better then the Tournament with a single 350. Finally look at the Chase with twin 250's, the gain from twin 150' to twin 250's is only 10 mph at wot. With 200 more HP, 60% more power for an 18% gain in speed, only 10 mph more!!!! The hull is at some type of limit around 50 mph. I am only looking at wot numbers so you need to do the same at various RPM. On a final note I was told that the Chase hull and the Tournament hull are the same.

 

[gregsteph]

Grantmey --

We have the 275 with the twin 150s (the 350 wasn't an option when we purchased the 275 last May). I only have positive things to say.
We have a Garmin 3210 with the XM Radio / Weather package. The 5000 series wasn't yet available. We very much like the Garmin, and find it easier to use than the Furuno systems on earlier boats.
I assume, with your Wilmington address, that you are speaking with Crockers. They are a great shop, and are absolutely committed to your satisfaction. Everyone there I've worked with is top notch. I worked pretty closely with them on the location of electronics, radio speakers and such, and they were very receptive to input and feedback.
From a twin engine perspective, your options really are the 150's or the 250's. The cost / weight / performance issues, as Tashmoo pointed out, really preclude the 200s and the 225s. That surprised me -- I figured that the 200s would be the right solution.
We are pleased with the 150s. The boat is well-powered, and maneuvers well at all speeds. I saw a 275 with the 250s -- they certainly looked larger on that transom.
We got the full canvas set, including the aft curtain, which covers the entire boat while it's sitting in the slip. I'd strongly encourage you to consider it, if you go with the bimini (probably works with the hard top, too). The boat stays cleaner.
PM me if you'd like to see our boat, of if I can answer any questions. I'm always looking for a reason to take her out.

 

[grantmey]

275

How is the XM weather package? Any thoughts on Sirius?

 

[gregsteph]

When we made the decision (and it may be today, too), you either went Garmin / XM Weather or Furuno or Raymarine and Sirius. So, our deciding factor was first and foremost the electronics. For ease of use and cost, Garmin won hands down for our use.
From a radio perspective, we've had both and they are both very good. The channels differ a little, and there's alway something to listen to.
We like the XM Weather package, and am particularly keen on the automated warnings. The radar is fine, and provided -- for my use of the boat which is mostly fair weather and close to shore -- a good alternative to a radar package. There are a lot of strings on the hull truth regarding the weather package's use and value (bluewaterpirate is a particularly valuable contributor on this topic).
I don't think you'll go wrong. The 5000 Garmin series is sweet, and definitely competitive to the Raymarine systems.
From an installation perspective, we used the pre-installed Kenwood system on the 275. They ran the Garmin 3210 output into the aux jacks for the Kenwood. There is discernible signal loss -- so the volume needs to be higher to compensate (if we move from CD to XM, we need to turn up the volume substantially). There's no quality loss, so it's just a bit of a nuisance on the volume. An amplifier could resolve this, and it's possible that there are better inputs into the currently installed stereo system.
More information than you wanted, I suspect. . . .

Good luck with the decision!

 

[Tashmoo]

We went with the Raymarine C120 in large part due the fact that Raymarine is in our back yard up in southern NH and installation support around here is very good. I also figured from the literature that the Raymaine Sirius package would drive the Kenwood satellite radio so we did not order the GW satellite package. Jury is still out on that decision, lots of conflicting information from Raymarine on the ability of their system to supply the signal to the Kenwood without giving up functionality of the remotes and the base station. The system has just been installed and the antenna feeds both the weather and the sat radio function. The current belief of my installer is that he can feed the radio from the Raymarine module without another black box from Kenwood (actually two) and without loss of functionality in the radio with a special splitter cable from Raymarine. To get to this point was way more effort than it should have been. Raymarine product support, not impressed, grade D-.

 

[gregsteph]

As usual, Tashmoo raises excellent points, and highlights several of the tradeoffs between the various systems from stereo perspective.
We ordered the standard Kenwood system (with the associated remotes and speakers). We did not order the satellite system from Grady.
The XM radio plugs into the Kenwood system through the aux jacks (which is why it loses some signal, I assume). So, there is no XM-specific functionality at the radio or the remote sites. They still can control volume, mute and change to CD or regular radio. The selection of XM radio channels occurs at the helm on our 3210 screen.
This is a sweet set-up in some regards. I can see all of the favorite channels, and all of the currently-playing songs on those channels, and switching between channels is easy. There's even a split screen where we can always see the channel and 'what's playing.'
There are other set-ups, and it's possible -- at least in theory -- to run a combination of XM and Sirius solutions. Though, it would add substantially to monthly expense.
It affirms in my mind the importance of seeing several installations in person, and walking through your personal use. I'm happy to walk through ours, if it's of any help.
Garmin customer service has been strong, as has XM Radio's.

 

[grantmey]

I'm thinking about the Garmin 5012 or the 5212 with XM. I would like to try something different than XM radio, as I have it in my vehicles, but it sounds like they have the jump on Sirius with the a better weather package.

The boat I am purchasing has the Kenwood stereo system, but not the satellite stereo for $675. Should I have the dealer add this? I do not want issues with volume and something that has to be rigged or adjusted on a regular basis, especially on a $100K boat.

 

[Tashmoo]

Your option is to buy the GW Sirius package for $675 or by the two Kenwood black boxes from Crutchfeld with the special cable to the back of the Kenwood base unit for a couple of hundred bucks. Be aware that if you buy from Crutchfeld you need to call Kenwood for the proper part number as Crutchfeld tried twice to sell us the wrong parts. By taking ether of these options this eliminates use of the aux inputs and the signal loss. In this case you have the Sirius radio which in my opinion is better than XM from a radio programming point of view. This also leaves you open for the use of the XM for weather which is reported to be better, you will not have the radio going through your display but you will have full functionality of the head + control pods.

If you can wait for a week or so until the special cable shows up from Raymarine I can tell you if the Raymarine solution of one antenna one Raymarine black box (no Kenwood black boxes) running both the weather & radio works without compromise.

 

[BobP]

Wow, ! How about the $100 plug and play Sirius unit at Radio Shack and elsewhere , plays right through the FM radio, no wires to connect (?).

I have the plug and play unit in the hardtop box and the radio is in the box on the console, no problem at all. Have a mushroom antenna on hardtop.

 

[grantmey]

still not sure what to do, but I am checking into the new Furuno NavNet 3D which uses Sirius. So, I will purchase the unit from the GW dealer with the rest of the Furuno package.

One another note, do you have any problems with the boat rocking side to side while at cruising speed? I sea trialed the F350 and felt that from time to time. I'm sure I didn't have the trim tabs set correctly and trimming the motor up a little may help.

 

[Tashmoo]

On the rocking side to side, no we did not notice that at all. I was looking for any sign of chin walking however, that said I did not bring the rpm's over 4,500. I did run the boat with lots of tab and no tab with engine up and engine full down and did not experience the rocking. I did notice that the tabs were not very effective until speeds of around 25 mph but I think that was mostly me. On our trial we had calm conditions inside the sound and 2-3’ outside, what did you have.

How pronounced was the rocking and did it coincide with any type of sea?

PS good choice on the Furuno, did you go with twins or the single on the engine?

 

[gregsteph]

We haven't noticed any rocking at cruise speed. The boat is sensitive to the trim tabs, and I'll end up fiddling with them a bunch as passengers and the dogs move around. It's amazing what a couple of kids moving from one side to the other will do! I have found a little use of trim tabs , even in calm seas, to be helpful in keeping the bow down a bit and increasing efficiency, even with the motors trimmed correctly.
The Furuno is a nice solution. Good luck!