Another Broken Lagoon

[BurnitBlue]

No I didn't. I said that with a huge wave hitting us on the beam we slide sideways. This way was circa 25ft and breaking.

Sorry. In that case you were very lucky. Cats have the reputation for the ability to slide sideways from wind action. I thought that ability was what you were talking about. A large breaking wave is a totally different game. In theory it will lift the windward hull and cause the leeward hull to dig in then over she goes. If the wind is strong enough. I have been in 50 knot winds but they were short lived in squalls so no sea to speak of. The cat slid sideways.

Why is it when any points are made against Catamarans the stock reply by just about everyone is to say that monohulls sink.. BS. I don't think anyone would rather be in a catamaran rather than a monohull in a severe storm. These storms, from data records are getting quite common.

Please stop nit picking everything I write. Catamarans do capsize, you cannot deny that. Even with no sail up in a sheltered anchorage. There are plenty of witnesses. Nit picking mode temporarily ON. You mention multihulls doing cartwheels in a Grenada anchorage. Do you think that this could not happen in mid-ocean. Holy Mary. You write that a multihull needs looking after, whereas a monohull will look after the crew. This brings up fatigue and seamanship problems on a multihull. I agree with all this and it forms the basis for my assertion that multihulls are intrinsically unsafe. You think I am wrong, I think I am right. When I look to buy another yacht it is my opinion that counts.

Nobody mentions the difficulty getting insured for a transocean multihull. I am not sure of the present situation but I would bet that the premium is pretty expensive.

 

[BurnitBlue]

My last post was upside down. I was quoting geem. But this is fun.

 

[geem]

Hurricane Ivan was a cat 5 hurricane. The island of Grenada was devastated. The boatyards were absolute carnage. I know as I was there shortly after. Any boat left at anchor was destroyed. No distinction between cat or mono.
It's clear that you have made up your mind that cats are not as safe as a mono in bad whether. My experience would suggest that like many things it depends. A good rule of thumb is that you need a breaking wave twice the beam of any boat to capsize it. No distinction between mono or cat. If we had been sailing a mono in 2004 when we had the rogue wave hit us, it is possible we could have sunk. We may have had the companionway hatch open and filled up. We may have been rolled tripping over the keel. We will never know.
Look at the evidence. Cats don't sink any more frequently than monohulls.
I have owned both mono and a cat and sailed both across the Atlantic and I don't have the same view as you.

 

[BurnitBlue]

Hurricane Ivan was a cat 5 hurricane. The island of Grenada was devastated. The boatyards were absolute carnage. I know as I was there shortly after. Any boat left at anchor was destroyed. No distinction between cat or mono.
It's clear that you have made up your mind that cats are not as safe as a mono in bad whether. My experience would suggest that like many things it depends. A good rule of thumb is that you need a breaking wave twice the beam of any boat to capsize it. No distinction between mono or cat. If we had been sailing a mono in 2004 when we had the rogue wave hit us, it is possible we could have sunk. We may have had the companionway hatch open and filled up. We may have been rolled tripping over the keel. We will never know.
Look at the evidence. Cats don't sink any more frequently than monohulls.
I have owned both mono and a cat and sailed both across the Atlantic and I don't have the same view as you.

Fair enough. One situation that i have not mentioned on this thread is that I have sailed Single handed for the last ten years. I need a boat that will look after me not the other way round. For me, the dangers are blindingly obvious like a constant toothache. In my insistance that a catamaran is basically unsafe I also project the little known appreciation that a two handed crew by themselves or with children are in the same position as a single hander as one of the crew is asleep or feeding the baby. A catamaran gives no warning one minute it is under control, the next it is cartwheeling across the ocean. (Thanks for that geem) I now have another mind boggling vision to play with. I really do understand where you are coming from but I cannot follow you there.

 

[BurnitBlue]

Incidentally nobody has reacted to my theory about the effects of a high wind going through the tunnel of two hulls and a closed bridge deck. I am thinking Ventury action. Will the hulls be held down by suction and low pressure. Or the opposite, like a spoiler on the back of a car. Would it make any difference if both ends of the tunnel are open. Maybe the folk on PBO would know.

 

[geem]

Fair enough. One situation that i have not mentioned on this thread is that I have sailed Single handed for the last ten years. I need a boat that will look after me not the other way round. For me, the dangers are blindingly obvious like a constant toothache. In my insistance that a catamaran is basically unsafe I also project the little known appreciation that a two handed crew by themselves or with children are in the same position as a single hander as one of the crew is asleep or feeding the baby. A catamaran gives no warning one minute it is under control, the next it is cartwheeling across the ocean. (Thanks for that geem) I now have another mind boggling vision to play with. I really do understand where you are coming from but I cannot follow you there.

The cats that cartwheeled were huge with massive under deck clearance. In winds well above a hundred miles per hour they simply acted like an airplane wing and took off. They were at anchor so pointing into the wind. They weren't in the middle of the ocean. The wind and sea condition that created the situation that got them airborne sank the monohulls. Not really a lot to choose between the demise of either type of vessel. Just to be clear. Cat 5 hurricane is wind speed over 157mph. How do you think you would fare in your monohull?

 

[Tranona]

Fair enough. One situation that i have not mentioned on this thread is that I have sailed Single handed for the last ten years. I need a boat that will look after me not the other way round. For me, the dangers are blindingly obvious like a constant toothache. In my insistance that a catamaran is basically unsafe I also project the little known appreciation that a two handed crew by themselves or with children are in the same position as a single hander as one of the crew is asleep or feeding the baby. A catamaran gives no warning one minute it is under control, the next it is cartwheeling across the ocean. (Thanks for that geem) I now have another mind boggling vision to play with. I really do understand where you are coming from but I cannot follow you there.

You have a very fertile imagination! Maybe you should just stay in bed!

Where have you found any evidence of singlehanded sailors in catamarans suffering the fate that you seem to think is inevitable? We can imagine all sorts of things that MIGHT happen, but to get through live we need to pay attention to the things that DO happen (or not).

 

[BurnitBlue]

You have a very fertile imagination! Maybe you should just stay in bed!

Where have you found any evidence of singlehanded sailors in catamarans suffering the fate that you seem to think is inevitable? We can imagine all sorts of things that MIGHT happen, but to get through live we need to pay attention to the things that DO happen (or not).

If I was about to buy a boat (any boat) for over a million pounds that I could not insure, I would certainly explore things that MIGHT happen.

 

[geem]

If I was about to buy a boat (any boat) for over a million pounds that I could not insure, I would certainly explore things that MIGHT happen.

Who says you can't insure it? I know lots of skippers on £1M plus boats fully insured

 

[Tranona]

If I was about to buy a boat (any boat) for over a million pounds that I could not insure, I would certainly explore things that MIGHT happen.

What has that got to do with things being discussed here? I was responding to your musings about the imagined dangers of a catamaran flying out of control while you are asleep on the job. I just asked for any concrete evidence that this has ever happened.

Of course if you are spending £1m you carry out a risk assessment and try and insure against the known perils. Most of the boats that geem talks about were indeed insured which is one of the reasons why marine premiums have shot up - to help recover the losses and match premiums to expected future losses.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

What seems obvious to me is that there are a nmber of multihull designs that, in spite of being rated for offshore conditions, aren’t really suitable for ocean cruising. Equally, a far greater number of monohulls with offshore ratings are unsuitable too. Far greater because there are more monohull designs. About 99% of the buyers aren’t going to ocean cruise anyway, and the 1% who do, only 1% or less of them have trouble with their boats, regardless of type.

 

[noelex]

About 99% of the buyers aren’t going to ocean cruise anyway, and the 1% who do, only 1% or less of them have trouble with their boats, regardless of type.

I presume you mean structural problems rather than system failures, even so I disagree.

Structural problems are not usually reported on sailing forums or on YouTube. Structural problems require professional help, this is beyond the type of advice available on a forum. In addition owners are reluctant to acknowledge these failures on social media for obvious reasons. This creates the impression that these problems are rare, but this is not the reality.

Full time cruising boats experience a hard life. Structural problems are nowhere near as rare as you suggest.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I suggest they’re nearly as widespread in any boat that isnt specifically designed for the task in hand. Its tough on boats as you say

 

[Rappey]

Structural problems are not usually reported on sailing forums or on YouTube

I would have thought the opposite as a disgruntled owner now has the opportunity to share their view and find others with the same issue ?
Parley revival said he received emails with around 90 other catamaran owners with the same structural problem as his own boat.
Without social media he might have thought it was due to previous hurricane damage and never found out the scale of the problem.

 

[westernman]

The bulkheads in question look really really flimsy. Really scary.

 

[Tranona]

Structural failures, capsizes, pitchpoling, rudder and rig losses etc are just a fact of life in ocean sailing. Just read your Smeeton, Guzwell, Barton et al from the early days and you realise this is nothing new and will always be the same. What has changed is that the overall numbers of ocean sailors and boats has increased exponentially, but the incidence of failure has not kept pace. It is still the exception and of course hits the headlines and forum doom mongers because the vast majority who do not experience any of these issues are simply not news. I remember Paul Heiney who sailed to the tip of South America and back in a Victoria 38 remarking that his biggest problems were keeping the boat moving and dealing with the chafe on the gear.

 

[geem]

Structural failures, capsizes, pitchpoling, rudder and rig losses etc are just a fact of life in ocean sailing. Just read your Smeeton, Guzwell, Barton et al from the early days and you realise this is nothing new and will always be the same. What has changed is that the overall numbers of ocean sailors and boats has increased exponentially, but the incidence of failure has not kept pace. It is still the exception and of course hits the headlines and forum doom mongers because the vast majority who do not experience any of these issues are simply not news. I remember Paul Heiney who sailed to the tip of South America and back in a Victoria 38 remarking that his biggest problems were keeping the boat moving and dealing with the chafe on the gear.

He did sail a rather nice robust boat though. Good ballast ratio, skeg hung rudder, small windows and quite traditional in terms of a seagoing layout. Strongly built helps if you are contemplating that kind of voyage. Your right about chafe. Years of coastal sailing in the UK and it never happens. 5 or 6 days in to a long voyage and stuff is chafing.

 

[Tranona]

He did sail a rather nice robust boat though. Good ballast ratio, skeg hung rudder, small windows and quite traditional in terms of a seagoing layout. Strongly built helps if you are contemplating that kind of voyage. Your right about chafe. Years of coastal sailing in the UK and it never happens. 5 or 6 days in to a long voyage and stuff is chafing.

Right about his boat - however expect similar comments would apply if he had, say a Bavaria Ocean 38 or Moody 38. If you read the whole book there is nothing he experienced that would phase any modern well sorted boat of similar size.

 

[noelex]

I would have thought the opposite as a disgruntled owner now has the opportunity to share their view and find others with the same issue ?
Parley revival said he received emails with around 90 other catamaran owners with the same structural problem as his own boat.
Without social media he might have thought it was due to previous hurricane damage and never found out the scale of the problem.

Would you buy Parlay Revival or any Lagoon after seeing the videos documenting the construction techniques used And the problems encountered?

The reporting of these problems on social media has reduced the resale value of these catamarans substantially.

Kudos to Parlay Revival for the transparency, but most owners with structural problems prefer to keep the information private. There is usually little point seeking advice on forums and other forms of social media as repairs are beyond the scope of most owners. Proffesionals such as surveyers and structural engineers is needed to plan the repair . As a consequence there is little reporting or publicity of the problem and the false impression is that these problems are rare.

Boats that rarely encounter offshore conditions seldom experience any issue unless they are damaged from grounding etc, but when talking to owners that cruise full time, serious structural problems are not unusual. Catamarans suffer these issues much more than monohulls in my experience. I suspect the desire to keep the construction weight as low as possible together with higher twisting forces on the hull structure are to blame. Delamination rather than bulkhead problems seems to be the most common fault, but the tremendous forces at work in rough conditions create a range of issues.

 

[geem]

Right about his boat - however expect similar comments would apply if he had, say a Bavaria Ocean 38 or Moody 38. If you read the whole book there is nothing he experienced that would phase any modern well sorted boat of similar size.

Would you buy Parlay Revival or any Lagoon after seeing the videos documenting the construction techniques used?

The reporting of these problems on social media has reduced the resale value of these catamarans substantially.

Kudos to Parlay Revival for the transparency, but most owners with structural problems prefer to keep the information private. As a consequence the impression is these problems are rare.

Boats that rarely encounter offshore conditions seldom experience any issue unless they are damaged from grounding etc, but when talking to owners that cruise full time, serious structural problems are not unusual. Catamarans suffer these issues much more than monohulls in my experience. I suspect the desire to keep the construction weight as low as possible together with higher twisting forces on the hull structure are to blame. Delamination rather than bulkhead problems seems to be the most common fault with catamarans.

I am aware of three cats that arrived in the Pacific with broken bulkheads. I have seen several Lagoons with saildrive problems in Curacao Marine last time we were there. The guys in the yard said they were high mileage problem as the spent so much time engining