New dargel hdx kat

[Slow Ride]

Has anyone heard anything about the new Dargel HDX Kat? Its big, its a kat and its expensive! Dargel Rep. claims it can float in 9 inches and run offshore in heavy seas. Going on a sea trial tomorrow on the Texas Gulf Coast bays and out the jetty for a while. 20kt winds predicted which should produce some choppy conditions by afternoon time. I'll keep you posted! Let me know if any of you have any info on this model please. I'm seriously considering this boat but it has almost no history and that scares me! YIKES!

Check it out here if you want! http://www.dargel.com/kat/default.html

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: New dargel hdx kat

Never heard of them, but I will say I am curious to how your ride goes tmrw. 20 knot winds should make it interesting. I don't think I would be doing to much offshore stuff with that short a bow. Take a video camera and show us how she runs in the nasty stuff. The boat may take the pounding, but in will definately pound you in the process. Personally, I have seen some really sweet set-ups on some other flats boats. Good luck

Here is a couple videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK-F3U5GeQ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfzpdeHy0Pw&feature=player_detailpage

 

[Slow Ride]

Re: New dargel hdx kat

Ok guys, here?s the deal with the Dargel HDX 25 Kat. Keep in mind I'm not an expert, just a guy who loves boating and has spent time on many, many different boats over the years. This is only my opinion and observation from today's sea trial.
First the good! This boat is BIG! There is easily enough room for 5-6 people to fish comfortably from this wide stable platform. It would certainly make a great guide boat! It ran very smooth in 1-2 foot chop on Corpus Christi bay in 15-20knt winds with little or no bow hopping or jumping out of the water. I did however feel every wave that his the second half of the enormous 25 foot hull. The back half of the boat is flat. It?s a Kat and that helps but I couldn't help but notice the jarring of my legs and spine when a wave made it past the bow. The aluminum work on the T-top is fantastic! Beautifully designed with great curves, the T-top is unique and functional. The chines in the bow completely eliminated any ?Kat sneezing? out of the front. The boat runs really shallow. We ran across less than a foot of water and I felt no dragging of the motor or hull. It was able to launch out of the whole in a respectable 1.5 feet of water although we did do some damage to the grass during this maneuver. When drifting the boat turns sideways to the wind. Some people don?t like this but I have found that it offers the best position for fishing from either end of the boat. When you have several friends with you this turns out to be a plus. Besides, it?s nothing a drift anchor or good trolling motor can?t correct. The boat we used had the larger console option and I liked it. This thing is huge and offers room for both the driver and one other person to get completely out of the wind. The standard console ice chest was a nice touch and will keep the decks free of loose ice chests.
Now for the not so good; I?m not sure what the purpose of the stepped hull is on this boat. I know why they are used on high speed boats but this boat was slow by my standards. Equipped with a Suzuki 250ss the boat had a max speed of 52mph. That?s not bad but at 4000RPMs the boat was barely maintaining 34 mph. In my experience on other bay boats of this size and quality I would have been traveling right at 40MPH+-. It just sounded like a lot of noise and effort on the part of the motor for the speed we achieved. Back to the step, I noticed spray coming out of the steps in the hull. It appeared that as the water regained contact with the hull on the trailing edge of the step it was forced out of the step by air pressure and shot straight up the side of the boat. On the windward side of the boat it was like standing in a sprinkler. This phenomenon subsided as soon as we hit the rougher water, but on smooth water it happened throughout most of the test. We were able to get it to stop doing this at really high speeds (almost wide open throttle) when the boat was in full tilt and trim and lifted high out of the water. The transom has a small inset for the motor as do most shallow running bay boats. I noticed spray shooting up between the motor and the transom at almost any speed. I cannot tell if this is a hull design flaw or a characteristic of the Suzuki motor but it is something I will look for if I?m ever on another Dargel KDX Kat. And lastly, despite the YouTube videos and all the statements about how well it could handle rough water, I couldn?t get the Dargel rep. to go out of the jetty in 5-6 food seas. It really didn?t matter because I had already seen what I needed to see. During the time we were in the roughest part of the bay, which was 1-2 foot chop, I noticed that the bow came very close to diving under the waves. It did not happen and the boat did handle those conditions amazingly well, but I will bet you my next paycheck that a day on the gulf in 2-3 foot waves 6 seconds apart (the norm down here) would have caused us to bury the bow repeatedly. Fit and finish was OK but the rolled gunnels and sprayed in nonskid reminded me of the Carolina Skiff I owned several years ago.
All in all this is a great bay boat with tons of potential. However, I?m not sure all the bugs are worked out of the hull just yet. If you?re reading this and you work for Dargel, I hope you will take this into consideration. I?m not bagging on the boat. I simply stated the things that caught my attention today. Having owned a few boats with the performance of a cinder block I have learned what I don?t like in a boat and the negative things I listed today would cause me not to purchase this boat??not yet! With a sticker price around 60K or more I expect near perfection and hoped for something along the lines of a Shearwater or Pathfinder in quality, finish and performance. While this boat can compete with the middle grade boats; it?s still a ways from being in the top class in my opinion!

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to give credit and crticism where warranted!

 

[Slow Ride]

Re: New dargel hdx kat

UPDATE

I was recently invited to test another dargel cat and had vastly different results. So here is the deal. As it turns out, the first boat was way heavier than it should have been. The deck was raised higher than normal and caused the boat to have extra tall stingers and additiional floatation foam. As a result, it was at least 800lbs to heavy according to the salesman. That alone can change the performance of the boat. Additionally, the new boat had less aluminum which would have acounted for a few lbs becasue the first boat had an extravagant leaning post with a built in cooler holder and additional seating. The new boat stepped up to a 300hp Etec also! Anyway, the second boat ran like a dream. It was fast. I saw 52 mph on the speedo but I believe we were going faster. No GPS available on this rig but I would guess we were in the 60+-mph range. No spray at all coming from the steps and the water that was so obvious between the transom and the motor on the first boat was not seen on the second. Again, the boat handled heavy chop in the bay like a dream, but offshore duty is a stretch due to the shallow bow. After this test ride I have two things to say. First the boat is much better than it originally demonstrated. If you have one built (three month waiting list as of now) stay away from the raised deck and extra weight and buy all the motor you can afford. You may not need it all, all the time, but the boat can handle virtually any production outboard and not be overpowered due to its massive size. Second, I'm not really familiar with Suzuki outboards. I have run one or two on some friends boats, but never really had much to compair them to. In this case, I had very similar hulls, other than weight and the Etec was far superior in every aspect! This boat still lacks a little in the fit and finish department, but thats not important to many of us. What it lacks there, it more than makes up for in functionality! It is still pricey and I'd like to see it in the high $40ks or low $50ks before I pull the trigger on it. However, with a three month waiting list I doubt there is a price reduction coming any time soon. I will be looking for this hull again in 2-3 years to see how the held up and to find a good used hull if possible.