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Old 07-16-2012, 08:01 PM   #1
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Krogen Manatee - Seaworthy??

My wife and I are thinking of purchasing a Krogen Manatee 36 and we were wondering if anyone has any experiences, good or bad about how a Manatee handles rough weather? We understand that most trawlers are going to roll in a beam sea but we are a bit concerned about the windage and rounded hull. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
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Old 07-17-2012, 03:37 AM   #2
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There is one in our marina but it never seems to go anywhere. Based solely on its appearance I wouldn't want to go anywhere in it eiither if I knew the weather was going to kick up.

But regardless of what it can or can't take we wouldn't have one because of the limited access around the outside of the boat. No side decks and no direct, fast, easy access between the fore and aft ends of the boat. In this area we believe both of those are extremely beneficial and we wouldn't have a boat without both of them.

In other boating regions they are perhaps not as important.
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Old 07-17-2012, 05:00 AM   #3
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Seaworthy ?

If to you that means going out in blue water and taking what comes , no way.

If you mean how much will you get banged around in some open sound or bay when the wind kicks up to 45K and there is enough fetch?

The boat will survive , but with the top hamper increasing the motion , and no lower helm your ride will verge on exciting.

Perhaps excruciating.

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Old 07-17-2012, 07:56 AM   #4
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I know of a couple who have cruised the Great Loop and all the way down the Exuma chain with a Krogen Manatee. Just pick your days.

For a retired couple living aboard, the Manatee makes the best use of space I have seen. It should be fine for cruising between stopovers. Gobs of space on the main deck. The back porch is really good. Just pick your open water cruising days.
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:14 AM   #5
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Here's a link that includes information on Manatees.

The Krogen FAQ Page
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Old 07-17-2012, 09:37 AM   #6
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Just about every boat you see in people avatars that post in this forum (as long as they are maintained) are capable of extensive Caribbean cruising...including the Manatee. For the West coast... I'll leave it up to those with more experience out there for the where the biggest limitation is...but I doubt "no" is the absolute answer.

Yes the boat has to be in good shape and the skipper well seasoned...and many of these boats shouldn't plan on crossing a thousand miles of blue water...but several hundred between legs isn't out of the question with proper planning....including the Manatee.
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Old 07-17-2012, 12:15 PM   #7
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....but several hundred between legs isn't out of the question with proper planning....including the Manatee.
I agree with this. Compared to some of the boats we see out on the water here doing just fine the Manatee is more than capable of cruising our inside waters. The weather forecasting here is quite good, at least in terms of what's going to happen if not always exactly when it's going to happen, and there are a bazillion places to duck into when the weather or water is not compatible with the boat (or its crew).

My dislike of the Manatee (beside its almost total lack of aesthetic appeal) is its lack of outside access. Up here with the type of docks we are typically using and the currents and winds we are sometimes using them in the Manatee's very limited and constricting access would be a real detriment, at least to us who are used to the advantages of a wide and full-walkaround main deck. One could certainly make it work after a fashion but with so many other types of boats available that don't pose the challenge, why bother? Unless interior volume was the most important criteria to a person, in which case the exterior limitations of the Manatee might be worth the trade-off.

But the best people to comment on the Manatee's pluses and minuses are the people who have them. There are a few on this forum so perhaps they will chime in and give an answer to the original poster's question based on actually operating the boat rather than assumptions based on what it looks like.
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Old 07-17-2012, 12:26 PM   #8
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But regardless of what it can or can't take we wouldn't have one because of the limited access around the outside of the boat. No side decks and no direct, fast, easy access between the fore and aft ends of the boat. In this area we believe both of those are extremely beneficial and we wouldn't have a boat without both of them.
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Old 07-17-2012, 12:33 PM   #9
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Searched "Kincardine, Canada" and saw this photo on the Wikipedia site. Boat has less interior space than a Manatee, but it has pilothouse-accessible walk-around decks and would seem to be more seaworthy.

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Old 07-17-2012, 12:57 PM   #10
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Probably would be considerable pounding in head seas but if the boat stays together it should not be considered unseaworthy My father pounded the windows out of a light plywood cruiser in Alaska but her lightness kept her on top out of serious trouble.
Barges are wide and flat and they take terrible poundings regularly up the PNW coast. Never heard of one lost. High beam to length ratios shouldn't mean unseaworthyness in itself but the seaworthiness issue is quite complex and seaworthiness issues are often just (or largely) discomfort. A wide flat boat may broach more easily (especially one w/o much keel) but the serious trouble comes from capsizing. That IS a seaworthiness issue.
The Manatee's bow won't help directional stability much but her full disp stern and fairly high Quarter Beam Buttock Lines will definitely put her ahead of MANY boats on this forum w flatter sterns and much lower QBBLs.
In certain beam sea conditions ther'e may be some fairly strong, quick and uncomfortable "snap" rolling motion from her wide beam and hard chine .... again ..... discomfort.
So I see the Manatee as a boat that is probably quite seaworthy but very uncomfortable at times in the nasty. I think your concern is probably greater than it needs to be. In rough stuff it would be very good to have a lower helm. But I've never set foot on a Manatee. Something that I personally think is a sizable pluss is that the Manatee IS a Krogen.
So there's some plusses and minuses
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Old 07-17-2012, 03:44 PM   #11
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If the Manatee appeals to you and can control your exposure to wind and waves, then you might want to look at Benford's "Florida Bay Coasters". The home page has a rotating image that says that the 35' was the 2005 Trawler Fest "People's Choice - Best in Show", and there's a graphic in the corner saying "Now For Sale".

The smallest Florida Bay Coaster currently on www.yachtworld.com is a 45', so it might have sold.

I had a chance to tour a 60'-something Coaster in Camden back in the 90s - it was a very impressive vessel.
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Old 07-17-2012, 06:20 PM   #12
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My dislike of the Manatee is its lack of outside access.
This is the exact same argument I have with the Hatteras LRC. It might be very "seaworthy", but to tie up, you have to go thru the pilothouse, down thru the salon, and reach around the outside bulkhead to tie of the stern. Silly.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:12 PM   #13
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This is the exact same argument I have with the Hatteras LRC. It might be very "seaworthy", but to tie up, you have to go thru the pilothouse, down thru the salon, and reach around the outside bulkhead to tie of the stern. Silly.
On big boats configured like that..often I have the lines rigged so after I get a spring on...I jump to the dock and pull the lines off with a boathook if I'm singlehandling so I don't have to run through the boat.
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:32 PM   #14
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...I jump to the dock ...
Jump?! I'm only capable of stepping off.
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:36 PM   #15
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I figure I'll quit junping around 80 yoa...if the knees last that long..
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Old 07-18-2012, 09:53 AM   #16
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I think Eric (Manyboats) has a good handle on the capability of the Manatee. There are owners who have had these boats for 20 years or more, and that may say something to you. I've got caught in a 6 ft. short chop in an inlet about two years ago and this is exhausting after about an hour or so. The experienced Captain with me said the boat handled it much better than his own Hatteras 43, but this is not the kind of sea-state I'd recommend. In rollers off-shore, no problem. In a following sea, it's a thing of beauty. Beam seas find the boat initially resistant to roll, but sideways to one of those huge, speeding sport-fisher wakes will have you holding on for the first two hits. It's all relative.

The boat is not a blue-water design, but I say that principally for the occupants. I've already seen the the boat has no problems with conditions that I do have problems with. It's fat and has a low center of gravity. A con-caved bow entry helps with chop, and with a fully cored hull it's very quiet and devoid of the typical condensation problems. Marin has an important point about deck access for line handling, but at least here in the Southeast I've never found this a challenge.

On our short list of boats, we found the Manatee to have the least number of compromises for "us". The other boats on our list were powercats, mostly due to the shallow draft. The Manatees appreciated in value till the downturn in 2008, but have continue to demonstrate good investment value (if there is such a thing for a boat). I'm told that many of the very good ones never reach the classifieds.

Find a good hull first. A peal and re-glass job on a saturated hull would be big bucks.
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Old 07-18-2012, 09:21 PM   #17
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Seaworthy?

I don't know how seaworthy they are. I wouldn't want to go outside in more than 15 knots in one, and that might be too much. What I have noticed in cruising from Cape Lookout to Melbourne, is that every single skipper who was in a Manatee drove it like a pure idiot. It could have been because of old age, or perhaps the fear of the crew, or just maybe they were having such a good time watching TV. Roomy boat, yes. Ugly too. Seaworthy I don't know.
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Old 07-18-2012, 09:26 PM   #18
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Ugly too.
Havent' you ever heard the expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? I, for one, can appreciate a form-follows-function aspect to these boats. And it really makes me uncomfortable when a forum member criticizes other members' boats in that way.
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Old 07-19-2012, 04:32 AM   #19
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"And it really makes me uncomfortable when a forum member criticizes other members' boats in that way.

The question does remain, what happens if a wave crashes aboard , sweeps the deck, or picks the boat up and tosses it on its side?

Offshore on a bad day requires contemplation of reality.

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Old 07-19-2012, 05:52 AM   #20
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I don't know where, when, how or why a lot of you guys cruise but I have been boating/professional mariner a long time and have friends that have cruised around the world many times and/or lots of blue water experience. Some of you make going out in the ocean as a death sentence. There's a huge difference in a hundred mile overnighter and an ocean crossing. You can get to a lot of cruising grounds with only or less than 100 miles of blue water to cross.

I have NEVER had a wave sweep the deck on a recreational cruise....check the weather reports. There's no such thing as "unexpected storms" and even "pop up thunderstorms" are reasonably predictable.

15 knots of wind too much for a Manatee....YA GOTTA BE KIDDING ME .....then it would be too much for most of our boats...which it's ...NOT....
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