One public listing, worked against the published record from the desk, before any deposit or travel money moves.
On the listing's own numbers she clears every hard gate on the Loop: an 18-foot bridge clearance, a draft of 3'4" and twin diesels. What follows is the homework a buyer would do before paying for a survey, starting with what that 18 feet was measured to.
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Credit where due: this is a thorough listing. It names the engines, twin Caterpillar 3208TA diesels at 435 hp each, with 2,754 and 2,719 hours, and the gears, Twin Disc MG 502s with new coolers in 2019. It states all three tanks: 540 gallons of fuel, 140 of water, and two 40-gallon holding tanks. It gives the bridge clearance, both drafts, the beam and the dry weight. It lists recent work: a new electrical panel in 2026, house batteries in 2025, hoses and seacocks serviced in 2025, and fresh bottom paint in 2025. It describes both staterooms and both heads in detail. The one number it doesn't give is a fuel burn.
Air draft: the listing states a bridge clearance of 18 feet. The Loop's one fixed bridge you can't get around is 19'6" on the Illinois River, so on paper she clears it with a foot and a half to spare. At 18 feet she would take the Cal-Sag Canal around downtown Chicago, where the river clearance is 17 feet, and the Oswego route rather than Lake Champlain. What's worth pinning down is what the 18 feet was measured to. The listing's photos show a radar dome on the aft hardtop, and an older photo shows a tender and a radar up top. Our library record for this model notes that the as-rigged height on these boats usually lands above the bare hardtop number, and that what gets one through is whatever folds or unbolts. Ask for a measurement to the highest fixed point, and another with everything down. Water draft: the listing gives a maximum of 3.33 ft, which is 3'4", and a minimum of 3 ft. Our library record calls the shallow draft a real strength of this hull. Twin engines: yes, stated.
This is the check to make first on any boat sold as this model. Our library record notes that Tollycraft's 45 designation arrived in 1994, with a reverse transom and a longer swim platform. Before that, the same Ed Monk hull was sold as the 44 Cockpit Motor Yacht, and listings mix the two up. The two share the hull and most systems, so this is about knowing exactly what you're buying and insuring. The hull identification number settles it, and so does a look at the transom.
The 3208 is the engine everybody argues about, and the argument attaches to the turbocharged, higher-output ratings like these. How an engine was run matters more than the hour meter. The listing gives a cruise of 20 knots and a top speed of 25, and no fuel burn, so ask what she burned per hour and at what rpm, and get an oil analysis. The listing shows engine two as a 1996, so ask about its history as well. Our guide to high-hours boats works through why the fuel burned says more than the hours shown. Range is the same question: 540 gallons is generous tankage, and range is that tankage times a measured burn at the speed you'll actually run.
For a couple living aboard, this is where she shines. The master is aft, down three steps, with an island queen you can walk around, a cedar-lined hanging locker and its own head with a separate glass shower stall. The guest stateroom is forward with a head of its own; in the listing's photos, that head's shower is in the head behind a curtain. The listing describes reverse-cycle air conditioning, a separate electric heating system and separate climate controls in the master. Aft there's a covered aft deck under the factory hardtop, and a cockpit with a swim platform and boarding stairs, which the listing names as a pet boarding point.
The prop in one photo is stamped 26 by 27.5, and the listing says the spare props aboard are 24 by 24, so ask whether the spares fit this boat. Ask when the sea strainers were last opened. And the underside of the aft hardtop shows a number of open fastener holes, likely from gear mounted there over the years, so ask what was mounted and how the holes were sealed, and have the surveyor check the hardtop with a moisture meter and a hammer.
The hull identification number. The air draft to the highest point and with everything down. What the engines burned per hour at cruise and at displacement speed, and the history of engine two. The oil analysis. And the hardtop's history. Then, with the boat in front of you, the sea trial.
It's not a verdict, and it's not a knock on anyone. We have never seen this vessel. She may be exactly the well-kept boat her listing describes. Every question above is one a seller who knows the boat can answer in an afternoon.
Shopping a boat yourself? Send us the listing link at support@caniloop.net and it may become the next teardown.
Opened and read on 2026-09-25: the Boat Trader listing (the boat's own advertisement and its photos, read with every section expanded; every "the listing" above is its words or its pictures), and our library record for the Tollycraft 45 Cockpit Motor Yacht, which carries its own sources.
If we've got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — support@caniloop.net. A correction from someone who has actually run it is worth more than anything we can write.