Making the Cut: Should You Choose a Cutwater Boat for the Great Loop?
November 12, 2024
I completed the Great Loop in the Water Weaver, a 2016 Cutwater 30 Sedan built by Fluid Motion in Washington State, USA. It took 371 days to complete the Loop (starting on Lake Ontario and following the Great Lakes route), and a total of 429 days to continue down the St. Lawrence River to our home port of Saint John, NB. Overall, we were on the water and mostly running for 350 days covering about 7,200 nautical miles. I garnered some intimate knowledge about Cutwaters. Spoiler alert – the answer to the title question is yes, maybe, and no.
The Water Weaver displaced 10,300 lbs coming out of the factory, so closer to 11,000 lbs in real time. She is 30’ long at the water line and 34’ LOA when adding the swim platform and bow pulpit. These lengths make a difference in many marinas, including dockage cost which is always by the foot. The beam is 10’. Her single screw is a 4-blade bronze propellor on a shaft that creates a meager 2.5’ draft. This is a few inches deeper when the boat is fully loaded and varies by an inch between fresh and salt water. There are bow and stern thrusters which becomes particularly important for solo boating. She also fits on standard trailers that most boat haulers use making any overland transport relatively easy.
Let’s begin with the most critical question, seaworthiness and the answer to the title is an unequivocal “yes”. The Water Weaver endured sea states to 10’ on the Atlantic Ocean and 6-8’ on the Gulf of Mexico and across the sounds of Georgia and the Carolinas, Chesapeake Bay, and lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan. Importantly, this includes rodeos of short wave periods (wave lengths) where we could only make 4 knots along with winds gusting to 30+ knots. I never picked these sea-state conditions, in fact I religiously avoided such, but the water world often alters its being, deviating from the predictions of weather apps, experts, and even locals. For the most part, we kept rough seas on our nose, but there were many hours of waves and wind on every point of sail. Add to this, periods of strong river and tidal flows. There wasn’t a moment under power when the Water Weaver wavered or triggered uncertainty in the captain. These extreme sea states are not the common, everyday conditions of a Great Looper, but extremes will occur, and the Cutwater scores an A+ on seaworthiness for captains contemplating boat options.
About the boat’s running power. It took the builders a couple of tries, but increasing the engine size to the Volvo Penta D6-435 diesel created an excellent match for the boat design and displacement. It has the power to move the boat up to 23 knots (when conditions are good and overall boat weight isn’t too heavy, i.e., full of fuel, water, and people) and it cruises at 15-17 knots which is its sweet spot turning at Volvo’s recommended 3,000 rpm. Fuel consumption at <8 knots can be 5-6 NM/gal which is as good as it gets among boats this size and larger. This drops to around 0.8 NM/gal with increasing speed until that sweet spot is reached (3,000 rpm) when consumption drops to 1.2 NM/gal. That drop may seem trivial, but when you are running long hours, a 50% improvement adds up. The boat functions as a displacement hull until it gets up on plane when fuel economy starts to improve. Basically, she is a “go fast boat” in Looper speak. Diesel fuel was available everywhere on the Loop. She is a definite “yes” for boat speed and fuel consumption, but of course the former depends on your looping goals and the later depends heavily on your budget.
The hull design, engine powerhouse, and bow and stern thrusters create a very nimble boat that went many places that a typical Loop boat would never consider. The only time she felt the bottom was at dock on two spring tides, and there are many places where 2-3’ pinged on the sonar. We docked in all manner of configurations because of her size and ability to spin allowed access to narrow and/or shallow slips. The anchor was a simple Bruce-type claw with 60’ of chain and 200’ rode. She dragged once in the Gulf Islands when the overnight wind rose significantly and swung the boat 120o, but she reset herself. She slipped one other time when forced to anchor in heavy weeds and a thunderstorm blew us loose. Otherwise, she held solid through a variety of heavy winds, waves, and tides. As a plus, you can access shallow anchorages most Loop boats avoid. One challenge was controlling boat direction in reverse because the rudder doesn’t provide proper control (a design issue), but you learn to steer assisted by the thrusters. There will be few places along the Loop that you can’t take this boat, and many more places are open for you to access and explore, so it is another solid “yes” on accessibility along the Great Loop waterways.
Fluid Motion has made a robust, high end, luxury vessel with the Cutwater. The hull and deck/superstructure were solid as we ploughed through rough waters. The living space is very well-designed and appointed with high quality wood working that is solid throughout. The plumbing hardware is high end. The head is near perfect in design and appointments, although the porthole windows need a redesign to keep rainwater out. The appliances, seating, table, are all top quality. The electronics are higher end, in my case, solid Garmin-ware. There are few if any complaints on these fronts. Another unambiguous “yes” for an enjoyable Loop experience with these designs, builds, and appointments.
Next let’s consider the ‘space’. The outside has plenty of deck space on the bow including 3 chair-like places with removable cushions (but this also means they need to be stored somewhere). The gangways fore to aft don’t have a lower rail, just an upper rail along its length, and the gang is relatively wide. If you are mobile, getting around on deck is a non-issue, and I’ve been out there working in heavy seas and darkness. The cockpit is quite large and includes a table (removable but again it needs storage space) and bench, a large hatch to the cabin that creates a seat (reversal of the inside table seat), and two pop-out seats port and starboard which creates a very spacious and comfortable place to enjoy the outside. There is a hardtop over most of the cockpit so you will need to consider designing an enclosure – I used a simple tent fly to protect me from the sun and rain while not underway. In the cockpit I carried a folding lounge chair, BBQ, extra fenders, a large water container, and my foldup bike and I never considered it cramped. So, when it comes to outside space, the Cutwater is a definite “yes”.
The builder claims that the inside space can sleep six people. While that is mathematically possible, in reality this boat is perfect for the solo Looper and two Loopers if and only if they are deeply in love. I had crew join me off and on for days at a time, but you really need to like each other because there is no escaping being constantly in each others face. In addition, the space must also accommodate boat gear like seat/mattress cushions (I put these in a carrier on the roof), your gear, dry goods, and those of your crew. Your space management will require a Lego-like imagination. While each captain will have their own personal space tolerance, my very high tolerance would have been tested after 30 days of togetherness. On the inside space question, the answer is “maybe” because it depends on the captain, first mate, transient crew (they will want to join for the warmest legs of the journey), and desire for any furry family members onboard.
Now a few realities about the boat. A single engine is a major weakness in your critical redundancy portfolio. If your Loop route keeps you within site of shore, away from remote places, running with a buddy boat, and you have boat towing insurance (I used three – SeaTow, BoatUS, and C-Tow in Canada), then you will feel secure traversing the basic Loop. If you are deviating from these criteria, you are taking a risk because an engine failure will put you in peril. I would not do the Loop again in this boat if it didn’t have two powerhouses. That is doable because Fluid Motion is producing models with two outboards and there are modifications to single engine designs that add an outboard off the swim deck and connected to the helm (that link would be a necessary design). About my title’s question, the answer is a solid “maybe” depending on the powerhouse configuration.
The next considerations are issues hidden from most boaters, and often from sight. These boats are built for recreational users that use the boat infrequently with minimal hard-running hours. Once you push the boat beyond these expectations, issues begin to arise. Some issues relate to short-cuts taken during the boat’s build that have a lower probability of emerging as issues for recreational users, e.g., a lack of labels on wires and meaningful wiring maps or diagrams. I quickly surmised this challenge from the owner forums where each boat has a different wiring configuration which forces owners to share ideas about each other’s wiring pathways. There are Fluid Motion technicians online, sort of, but you won’t here from them for weeks and by then you have moved on to new onboard problems and solutions. Luxury translates to more boat components, e.g., two chart plotters, stereos and TVs, fridges, solar panel, etc., which translates to more stuff to fail and fix. It is a boat and thus everything must endure heavy pounding (impacts) and perpetual moisture which are stresses that guarantee failures of these components, in other words, there will be a perpetual list of things to fix. Finding parts for the Cutwater is challenging too because it is not mass produced and factory parts are hard to come by. You will be far from your home port, local West Marine store, Amazon deliveries, and a technician to come onboard to assist, and therefore you will have to fix these problems and often imagine and “duct-tape” a solution until a part can get delivered to a marina or friend somewhere along your future route. If you are handy and prepared to take on any mechanical, electrical, or structural repair challenges with less than adequate manuals and sometimes spotty internet to chase solutions, and you will need the ability to voraciously scour the internet, then you can survive the Loop in the Cutwater = a solid “maybe” for this boat choice. My Looping friends and associates all faced the similar challenge of perpetual repairs, so it is difficult to know if the Cutwater is better or worse as a Looper boat on this question.
Mechanically, the engine room is relatively spacious which is boat-speak for not entirely impossible to access for maintenance and repairs. The change to a bigger engine was great for boat power, but it placed the engine block up against the cabin’s hull structure creating challenging space issues for accessing the belts, alternator, transducer, and the bilge pumps. Here are some of my highlights:
1) I replaced the belts twice (regular maintenance) and quickly realized it takes two paid technicians to do this job. You and your first mate may be able to do it, but you will likely face a mutiny. I lost an alternator and again, I needed a paid technician to complete a job I might have done myself. This replacement was the 3rd on the boat with the original two lasting <500 hours. I haven’t figured out why because there is 1,000 hours on the current unit.
2) Finding your transducer location can be a challenge because placement also varied among boat builds. The Water Weaver’s transducer is buried in the tight forward space and requires a long reach and flexibility to access. More on the captain’s flexibility is coming up.
3) More on the recreational vs. working boat challenges. Fluid Motion installed the smallest of autopilot pumps at 1.2L. On my second replacement, Garmin was adamant the problem was an undersized pump for this size of boat. I got a lecture I’d heard before: “the small pump size approaches the minimum requirement for this boat, but it would be only a matter of time before it fails” – in my case twice. I’d been fighting with my autopilot since Day 1 of ownership, so I upgraded to a 2.0L pump and 800 hours later everything is working great. This is another case where the everyday recreational boater may never notice the undersized autopilot pump issues, but once you work the boat heavily with the autopilot pump running for 6-7 hours every day, you will realize it is underperforming, and it will eventually fail.
4) There are two bilge pumps in the engine room, and these are your most critical protection from water ingress which by design will find its way to the hull and into the engine room. The forward bilge should never be triggered into action; only a serious water ingress jeopardizing your boat’s integrity would cause this pump to kick into action. It is however, buried under the engine block and belts where it can’t be accessed unless the engine is not running, not scorching hot, or the engine is removed. “Accessing” is a misnomer because it took another paid technician a day to replace the unit which had failed, and which needed an imaginative enclosing structure solution for the new float that was never going back into its original space.
5) The principal bilge sits farther aft in the lowest cavity of the boat under the propeller shaft. My Cutwater still uses a stuffing box to lubricate the spinning shaft and therefore there is a constant drip of water into that cavity to be expelled overboard by the bilge pump. This pump is a critical piece of equipment. I replaced it twice and rewired it another time. The first pump was too small for the workload as boat hours accumulated beyond typical recreational use and the pumps burned out. However, a bigger pump doesn’t fit in the confined space afforded the unit. I did get a slightly larger flow unit in, but it lasted just a hundred hours or so. The last replacement is hanging in at 100 hours. I installed and rewired these pumps except the last one. The young marine technician who worked on the two bilge pumps at once looked ready to seek an alternative career after that job. These are critical components of the boat’s integrity yet very poorly designed to support their functionality. Again, this relates to recreational vs. Looping adventure workloads for the boat; a recreational captain may never encounter this issue.
The engine room is sufficiently open for undertaking the most common jobs without issue, e.g., filters and such. Overall, working on the Cutwater’s engine requires your body to be flexible, nimble, and relatively strong to access the spaces, you must be able to work blind - by feel only - and you need patience to overcome the many attempts it will take to do simple tasks. I am pretty sure I could get a job as a Cirque du Soleil contortionist after a year of working on the Cutwater. And I’ll add that doing these jobs away from a stable dock, which will happen, takes on another dimension of agility and perseverance.
Beyond the engine room you will need the same skill sets. For example, replacing a wiper motor is a blind operation that can take two people the better part of day – both were replaced on the Water Weaver. Its curious that these motors fail given their critical importance, but that is a question for the manufacturers on another day. On the matter of mechanical maintenance of the Cutwater, the decision to be a Looper gets another “maybe” answer because it depends entirely on the health and perseverance of the captain and/or engineer onboard for your Loop adventure.
Another important example of the difference between a boat built for short-term recreation vs. extensive expeditions is the exhaust system. Mine failed. The factory people said that the design and system meet the minimum requirement for Volvo’s specifications. Well, a recreational boater is unlikely to endure seas >3’ for very long or stop the engine during such times and thus, the Cutwater’s minimalistic exhaust system may be unlikely to fail for a recreational user. However, a marine engineer and exhaust specialist described the Water Weaver’s system as one facing only a matter of time before it failed - a story I heard a few times along the way. The issue is the lack of a sufficient check on the ingress of water via the exhaust where water will flood the muffler and back-fill into the engine. It only takes 3’ of waves without the engine running and fighting the ingression for this to happen; that was my story, and upon scouring the forums, the story of a collection of Cutwater owners during anchoring and towing. This is a major design fail that Fluid Motion knows about and I hope they have plans to rectify in their Cutwater design. I solved the issue by installing an exhaust line check valve and a drain valve for the wet muffler. After these installs, I checked the muffler for water on some rough anchor-outs and there was no accumulation of water in the muffler. So, the Looping question get a solid “no”, unless you can overcome the exhaust system challenge in your Cutwater.
Another challenge with the boat design is the scuppers in the cockpit - your open aft space. To slough water entering the cockpit, there are 4 small diameter drain holes (connected to hoses and through-hulls) covered with typical strainers. When significant amounts of water enter the cockpit, e.g., every heavy rain and when water travels over the bow into the cockpit via the gangways and the hardtop roof, the ability to drain the cockpit can become compromised. If the drain strainers are not cleaned constantly, then everyday debris (dust, dirt, etc.) accumulates, blocking water flow. Once cockpit drainage stops, then the water overflows the three hatches into the engine room. That water will make it to the bilge pumps. However, it also spills onto some important electronics located below the starboard hatch and without protection from water exposure – the autopilot system, charger/inverter, solar power controller. Again, a recreational boater may never experience these conditions and this water ingression, but a Loop boat will enjoy many days of water in the cockpit. A better design is necessary, but without it you can manage as long as you are diligent about daily water management in the cockpit. So, the answer is a “maybe”; it depends on the focus and planning of captain and crew.
One last consideration about the Cutwater design. The engine fuel system has the standard, 2-filter process – the Racor followed by an on-engine filter. These are easily accessed. They are managed with the Volvo computer, which itself seems to be very well designed and durable. All mechanics I worked with along the way reaffirmed my original decision that Volvo-Penta is the best engine on the water today for this application. When you get a “Water in Fuel” alarm, the steps are to shut-down the engine and drain the Racor. Water in the fuel is normal especially with the repeated filling of the fuel tank in places without guarantees about the quality of fuel or delivery system. Draining the Racor is a straightforward task for calm waters and cold engine conditions. But an alarm happens when the engine is running at 180oC. You can manage this, if the seas aren’t threatening to fill the cockpit where the engine hatch is now wide open, and the boat isn’t wallowing without engine power. I experienced these impossible Racor drainage conditions and the stress of the computer throttling back the engine, “to keep it safe”, twice in one day. The engine stopped later that day and the computer refused to allow it to restart – a longer story you can read here. This challenging and dangerous situation was a coupled Cutwater and Volvo-Penta design issue. First, the boat design doesn’t allow the Racor to be drained in anything but a stable sea state. Second, that engine needed to keep running to “protect the humans” and not shut down by the computer to “protect the engine”. And had I been able to overcome the computer and restart the engine later during this event, and we tried every diesel engine trick known, I likely wouldn’t have had the water ingress via the exhaust line mentioned before. This situation is major fail for the boat and engine control designs. It is likely that this is a low probability situation for most recreational boaters, but still a very real and dangerous predicament for a boat captain. I was lucky, but the builder and Volvo could find themselves in serious hardship if their design choices lead to the loss of a boat and crew.
Should you choose a Cutwater for the Great Loop? Structurally, the Cutwater is solid with an amazing seaworthiness. It is small and nimble which expands the places a Looper can explore and stay. But these boats are built for recreational users, so it isn’t surprising that hard use and rough conditions pushed the boat beyond its mechanical, electrical, and inside hardware expectations. Choosing these boats requires preparation for persistent challenges: I had three perpetual, revolving lists of work to do: Today’s, Tomorrow’s, and Later. You will need to be mobile and agile plus inventive, unnerved, and unrelenting to navigate the maintenance and repairs on this long journey. I saw many boat makes and designs in action among my Looping associates, and I am certain that the Water Weaver was the “perfect” vessel for my solo Great Loop+ expedition. Clearly the boat wasn’t perfect, but experience tells me that no such vessel exists regardless of the depth of the owner’s pocket.
Your final boat choice will come after considering a long list of Looping constraints. Hopefully my insights about Looping in a Cutwater will be useful if you are thinking about these boats, and your Great Loop adventure more generally.
Be safe out there,
Allen
Hamilton, ON
