330 Sea Trial Results and Questions

Spyderweb

Had Hull Survey and Sea Trial today on 2008 Rinker 330.  (This same boat was rebadged 340 by Rinker for the next several years and most recently I think was rebadged 350). I am potentially moving from my 285 Bayliner with 5.7 Horizon, Bravo 3 drive to this one with twin 5.7 350 MAG Mercs.  Not sure what to expect with performance.  Have a few questions regarding expectations about this boat. 

1.  Sea trial had 5 adults on board, 3 sitting aft, 2 near helm, little over 1/2 full gas tanks, and 1/2 full water, fairly calm seas.  No way would boat want to get on plane with tabs full up and drive tucked in.  Bow pointed way up.  Dropped tabs and she came up fine.  Is that to be expected?

2.  Tachs were not working.  Starboard was all over, sometimes 6500 and not full throttle, port seemed a little closer to what I expected, but not always.  Boat had weight aboard as mentioned above, plus full canvas and bottom paint.  WOT was 42.1 mph on the gps (unknown rpm).  Gas is over 1 years old.  Does that speed seem to be in the ball park for this boat and these conditions?

3.  With tabs full up, I tried to find cruising speed.  Again, rpm's unknown, but boat seems to want to run 31-35 mph to be comfortable.  Back at 28-29 it starts running bow up some, like possibly approaching the lower limit before starting make a bigger wake and become inefficient.  Can drop to lower speed with tabs down.  Is this typical for this boat?  My thought is that in calm seas you shouldn't need to use tabs other than to level hull.  So therefore cruising speed seems to be 31-35.  Any idea what rpm's I'd have at the 31-35 speed?

4.  Boat had 4 batteries, 1 cranking and 3 deep cycle.  1 deep cycle was on generator, 1 on port (?) engine, and 1 for house.  Is it common (or beneficial) to use deep cycle as starter battery?  Salesman and surveyor didn't seem to think that was a big deal.  Salesman even said they no longer carry starter batteries because everyone wants deep cycle.  (This marina is primarily all cruisers).

5.  Generator (5kw) trips when AC and 2 burner stove are on at same time (battery charger and fridge were also on).  Is that to be expected? 

Thanks for your help.

Paul

Liberty44140

Hi Paul, if you read through the forum there is a lot of discussion on boats coming on plane. Most on here will tell you that with 5 adults and loaded like you had it needing tabs down to get on plane is normal for these boats. I had a 310 that needed full tabs to plane with 5+ adults whereas my current 342 planes fine with no tabs and 5 adults. As you'll also read some have made drastic improvements by purchasing $2k or so in 4 blade props which is not too bad considering the extreme performance benefits they see. On the tachs it's not at all unusual for faria tachs to go Cookey. On both of my rinkers I've had to tap one or two tachs with my iPhone to get them to work well. After a tap they work fine so make sure to tap the gauges. On an 08 you can get a Bluetooth harness for about $500 for the engines and get digital rpm on your iPhone or iPad. Others can chime in on that, I've not done it yet. Overall it sounds like this boat may have been neglected. May just need a good tune up to come on plane faster and your generator tripping could just be lack of use. They need to be ran and ran a lot to keep running. How many hours on the engines and generator? I wouldn't run from the boat if it's a good price but I would want to see the service records and get comfortable with how well or not well it was maintained. If you need a tune up on each engine and some generator work along with fresh bellows and seals on the drives it could get to $6k easily so make sure you know what you are getting in to. May be worth paying a merch and Koehler tech for an hour of time. Oh and a wot of 42 is fine for that boat, cruise will be around 30, so you are not way out of whack. Good luck!

pault1216

As for the battery part, I never had an issue using a deep cycle as a starting battery. Just be sure it has plenty of amps. I used group 27s and 31s without a problem.
-Paul

Spyderweb

Thanks Liberty.  Hours on the engines are 335. Don't know about the Gen.  Did tap the Tach gauges a lot.  Sometimes one would drop to a more expected range, other times to a different goofy number.  My Bayliner (faria) occasionally needs tapping, but after a couple taps, will be fine the rest of the day.  These never really settled in consistently on reasonable numbers.

Could not come up with service records from broker.

Am planning now to try a get a Merc tech to run compression tests and ecm readout.

LaRea

1. Yes, it's normal to launch better with tabs.  I always launch with tabs full down to get a faster launch and reduce the load on the engines.  (10 years in a 342 and 5 years in a 370)

2. Faria tachs?  Yes, normal for them to act flakey after ten years.  Also 42 mph is typical.

3. Yes, normal that the boat wants to cruise 30+.  Your friends in Bayliners and Sea Rays might not keep up, so get used to it!  The boat will go slower without a huge fuel penalty, but you'll need tabs as you've seen.  Look for ways to relocate weight aboard the boat.  Find something heavy stored astern that could be moved under the v-berth for better balance.  The boat is big, but not so big that weight balance doesn't matter.  My 370 ran much better after I added an extra 30' of chain to the anchor rode.  

4.  The typical battery layout is two starter batteries for engines/genny and two house batteries.  I've never seen 1+3.  Personally, I'd rather have two starters.  

5.  If the genny is running fridge + charger + AC + water heater + cooktop, I would expect to throw a breaker.  Not unusual.  

Stodge

Agreed with all above.  I had a 280 with twin 4.3s and she needed tabs to get on plane just like our 342 does now.  These boats are big girls (weight and beam).

I've heard of a couple folks having a battery for the genny.  I have 1 port starter which feeds port and genny, 1 starboard starter, and house with 2 batteries in parallel.  

I've taken to cruising around 28 to help with gas consumption.  That's running the engines at 3450 RPM.  Depending on conditions I can get from just under 1MPG to around 1.2MPG.

Dream_Inn

Ditto exactly what LaRea stated. Although, I have seen the 1+3 batteries, but I too would want two starter batteries.  Not a big deal to change over.