Catamaran Myths

Slow_boat

Slow_boat

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I went to the multihull show in Emsworth at the weekend and was chatting to a very helpful chap, (I didn't get his name) He told me that the main objections people put to buying a cat are myths;

1 They don't capsize.

2 They are no more expensive in marinas than a mono. In fact, some marinas love them because they can get into difficult shallow berths.

3 They go to windward as well as a twin keel cruising mono. Even the older long keel Prouts, which is what I was looking at.

4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter.

Can anyone confirm or deny any of the above?

What are the 'cons' of catamaran ownership ( I liked the Prout Event 34)
 
1 - given the right conditions, they can and do capsise ... highly unlikely though - same chance of me capsising my mono ....

2 - cannot comment - it's getting blummin expensive for a mono ....

3 - some mono's cannot point either ... doesn't mean a cat points better ... even the racing cats cannot point as well to windward as a racing mono - but they don't half shift - with the right amount of sail!

4 - less sail = less power = less ability to sail to windward! Someone is feeding you porkies! Well - it does depend on the model you're looking at - but less sail = less power available but does also equate to smaller deck gear - but don't expect it to go the same as a similar length mono... you've generally got more wetted area than a mono = drag ...
 
They do say in some parts that folk who sail these abominations go a bit funny in the head.

I bet he had no answer to that one. ;)

Tim
 
1 They don't capsize. No more likely to capsize than a mono is to sink. It does happen but it's very rare

2 They are no more expensive in marinas than a mono. In fact, some marinas love them because they can get into difficult shallow berths. Some marinas only put a surcharge on if you take two berths between fingers but in my experience, most charge 50% or 100% extra - even when alongside when you take no more space than a mono.

3 They go to windward as well as a twin keel cruising mono. Even the older long keel Prouts, which is what I was looking at. Performance to windward is comparable to an equivalent mono by which I mean a boat of similar length aimed at a similar market, it's no good comparing a heavy cruising cat with a lightweight cruiser/racer, nor a fast cat with a heavy bilge-keeler. Off the wind it's a different story.

4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter. For a given size, a cat is lighter, largely because it's not carrying half its weight again slung underneath. That means it needs less sail to give equivalent (or much better) performance. Winches on cats are a lot smaller than those on a similar sized monos. Winter work, e.g. scrubbing, painting etc is a lot more than a mono, after all, a 34 footer has 132 ft of topsides!

Can anyone confirm or deny any of the above?

What are the 'cons' of catamaran ownership ( I liked the Prout Event 34) With a Prout 34 you won't get the performance advantages that some cat owners enjoy, all Prouts are near the heavy end of the spectrum. You'll keep pace with a mono with the wind ahead of the beam or dead downwind but will easily pass them on a reach. You'll have more space, maybe 50% more than a mono but certainly not double. Headroom is very limited on the bridgedeck and the hulls are very narrow. I'm writing this aboard a 42 ft mono which has 80% of the space I have on my 40 ft cat.

The main cons are the space needed in harbours and the motion. As SWMBO puts it 'cats don't roll, they bounce'. The motion can be pretty lively especially into a short head sea.

My main advice is to ignore silly prejudice from either side of the fence and listen to those who have done a lot of miles in both types.
 
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snowleopard said:
4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter. For a given size, a cat is lighter, largely because it's not carrying half its weight again slung underneath. That means it needs less sail to give equivalent (or much better) performance.
Click to expand...
A Prout 34 has the same displacement as a Bavaria 34 (4500kg).
 
I'd agree with virtually everything Snow Leopard says except about the size of hardware. Admittedly our cat (Iroquois) was an old design but the winches were as big (if not bigger) than an equivalent length of mono. The standing rigging was bigger than an equivalent mono, it doesn't get the benefit of a mono's ability to heel.
Costs are as SL said but remember that also relates to winter storage ashore.
Maintenance is more expensive and, at times, demoralising because once you've finished one hull you then remember you've got to do the same all over again.
Capsize can happen, we sailed for 12 years without ever coming near it, the new owners capsized first time out...
While we had kids sailing with us the cat was the ideal cruising boat. Once the kids found their own pastimes the costs (berthing, storage and maintenance) outweighed the benefits so we moved back to a smaller mono.
We do still miss the speed and sheer amount of deck and cockpit space though.
As SL says, ignore the hype (on both sides) and think carefully about what you want to do with your yacht..
 
Slow_boat said:
I went to the multihull show in Emsworth at the weekend and was chatting to a very helpful chap, (I didn't get his name) He told me that the main objections people put to buying a cat are myths;

1 They don't capsize.

Some will indeed capsize in extreme conditions but if you are looking at Prouts or similar cruising boats its vertually impossible to do unless you are really stupid.
The counter argument against monos is they have a gert bug lump of iron stuck on the bottom and when they get holed they sink rather quickly......

2 They are no more expensive in marinas than a mono. In fact, some marinas love them because they can get into difficult shallow berths.

Total Bollix. Many marinas charge extra but also there are many that don't. You can however anchor places where others can't go and dry out pretty well anywhere.

3 They go to windward as well as a twin keel cruising mono. Even the older long keel Prouts, which is what I was looking at.

True enough. And will sail quicker to windward than many, but wont compete with a fin keel to windward. Tacking is also a lot slower.

4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter.

Bollix! There are two of everything!

Can anyone confirm or deny any of the above?

What are the 'cons' of catamaran ownership ( I liked the Prout Event 34)
Click to expand...

Comfort, stability, room, sails on wet grass, superb downwind with a spinnaker or shute,
Easy to sail single handed, dry, anchor anywhere. Meet other cat people (we are a sociable lot really!) Sleep comfortably at night. Cook big proper dinners on level stove and oven (no more gimbals) Watch telly. Have parties. Very few people find the motion conducive to throwing up (no rolling)

In fact everything else is just half a boat...
 
Slow_boat said:
4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter
Click to expand...

I think I remember reading somewhere that for the same sail area they need stronger rigging because a monohull will heel, taking off some of the stress, whereas a multi won't to the same extent.

Boo2
 
Your wife has it so right Snowleopard. In the first season of sailing we felt like someone had forgotten to tell us about the new strange motion of a cat. It just felt like there were four points of bouyancy and any one of them may cause the boat to bounce.

However, having made the transition, there's no going back to a monohull for us. The stable platform encourages us to anchor out more too.

As for costs, yes it's more. However, having just searched Solent marinas for a new berth, it is difficult for marinas to fit cats in, so there is limited berthing opportunities if you want to go in a marina, and most do charge a premium for multihulls. However, given the space that we take, I guess there is business case for charging more than a monohull rate.

Do they capsize? If you step on board a modern one, it would be hard to imagine. Most cats now seem designed for accomodation rather then speed. But in the wrong weather, and if you fail to sail in a manner suitable for the conditions, then of course, yes.

Definitely try before you buy because it is a transition which does not suit everyone.

Cheers

Garold
 
I've never really bought into the cruising cats are significantly faster downwind than cruising monos idea. Mainly because I don't recall ever being passed by a cruising cat of a similar length, but also because of race results.

The last RTI with decent weather, 2008, turned up some interesting results in the monohull fleets, not least of which was that it favoured boats that were fast downwind due to the availability of big breeze and big waves to surf on the South of the island.

However, when we look at the results of the bridgdeck catamaran class we see that they weren't all that quick, and were hardly any quicker than many monos of a similar size.

The quickest Bridgedeck cat, a 33 footer (or so google tells me), went round the island in a minute under 8 hours. The next, a 30 footer, was 50 minutes slower, and third place finished in 9 and a half hours.

Compared to the ISC (cruiser class) 8A (which seems to be populated of boats in the 25-35 foot range in the main) a hunter channel 32 was third, behind a half tonner (which we'll disregard for being too racy) and a trapper 500.

The trapper went round in 8 and a half hours, only half an hour slower than the first placed multi, and faster than all the others, and the Hunter finished in under 8 hours and 40 minutes.
And in the "fat cruiser" category, a Southerly 115 went round in under 9 hours.

To me this does pour at least some cold water on the idea that catamarans are much faster downwind. If they were they should have been finishing in under 7 hours.
 
Off on another transat at the end of the week, also on a cat. Stability-wise - you would really have to try. I've *felt* it might go over but it never has, nor even come close. #

I reckon that flipped-over catamarans would be quite newsworthy - but haven't seen many if any pics. After big wind I saw a fontaine pajot 46 with snapped mast - so the rig came down before it flipped. Smaller ones are less stable than big ones, of course.

Cats are great either as lightweight whizzy things ( actually, the big ones like Gunboat.com are *relatively* light and hence they go like stink even tho big) OR as heavyerweight long-term cruisers - I sleep on board the boat more than i do ashore, and at anchor for just over 6 months a year - so stabililty at anchor, space etc are important. 49 foot mono wouldn't have space for 30 in the cockpit (yep, or course we have a disco ball...) 12ft/25hp dinghy, washing machine, deck big enough to drive a motorbike around the deck (not recommended as tyre marks take a bit of washing out) and mono wdn't have single-level galley, saloon and cockpit.

Utter flattness at anchor even in some sea means fewer if any aargh waking up at 4am whatwasthat experiences. We had a nice snoozy time anchored out one afternoon in the middle of the Anguilla Channel - 3 miles offshore.

If i was a more occasional sailor, coastal stuff in solent frinstance, and working full time or nearly full time and hence on boat a weekend here and there, a week or more a copuple of times a year, well, i would probably have a mono - regardless of mono sikmilar or slower speed, it's more of a fun feeling to sail, motorbikey instead freight trainish.

Long-term cruisers in around and to/from the caribbean though - they want a catamaran, unless they're brits with us in the ARC in which case they often have a teak-deck blue-hulled mono and hence a ****e dinghy which takes ages to get places, not enough sleep on transat cos the boat rocks around, and have to be in marinas where it's a bit hot and sweaty and expensive, and/or have to be tight into the shore at anchor hence get bitten to bits and cramped with other boats. They also have a glerk godawful rolly time downwind, hence they often just do one transat.

Cats, monos, racers, fishing boats, powerboats, all float, all different machines, different applications. Choose what you want to do, then choose the boat type i suppose
 
PRICE

Ive noticed a few posh marinas and some in the med now charge by the length and the beam, so a 9m catalac would probably be the same price as my m38!
 
There's as much variety with catamarans as with monohulls.

As for the rig size, the rig on my Catana 40 is approximately the same area as that of a First 40. However the mast is only supported by two shrouds and a forestay, so the standing rigging tends to be stronger.

Catamarans get rid of gust energy by accellerating rather than heeling. If they are prevented from accelerating by being too heavy, more power will dispersed into the rig and then into wavemaking, leeway etc..

Any catamaran will capsize if operated by the incompetent. Carrying too much sail for the conditions is dangerous, but the catamaran doesn't usually show any sign other than speed that reefing is required. Monohulls suffer from a heavy helm, tendency to broach, and excessive heel; catamarans tend to get quieter. Reefing late it plain stupid. Apart from Outremers, I can't think of a current production cruising cat that is rigged to allow it to sail on one hull. Most catamaran capsizes are due to extremely steep seas rather than pure wind action.

Expenses: With a 40 ft cat you have the space of a 50-60 ft monohull ..... and you're paying for that. You have 2 engines, lots of topsides and deck area. If expense is calculated on useable area basis, catamarans are probably cheaper. However they are more limited as to boatyards that are able to accomodate them. Marinas ..... I tend to be put on an end T and not charged extra unless the marina is full when they would usually allow monohulls to raft. However most of the time I'm anchoring out ...... even in anchorages that are too rolly for monohulls.

Windward ability. Depends very much on the catamaran. Lagoons, Wharrams, most Deans and Prouts, don't do well; but Catanas, Outremers, Dels, etc would outperform all but the fastest monohull cruisers.

On all other points of sailing, most catamarans will out perform cruising monohulls.

I probably won't be taking my Catana around the Horn, but then there's many monohulls I wouldn't do it in either.
 
There are a very few old cat designs that can capsize, mainly the Iroquois and the Mk1 Hirondelle. A Prout won't capsize from wind force alone, it will dissipate the energy by making leeway. Lots of monohulls capsize but from wave and wind and the difference is that they will probably right again of their own accord. I would be incapable of capsizing our Heavenly Twins, it's just not possible. Only one went over but it was in a F12 off northern Scotland when the skipper fell asleep with the autopilot on - he survived. What chances any sub 40 foot monohull not capsizing in those conditions???

I've cruised for 5 years in our catamaran and have only ever been charged extra in a marina when I stayed at Swale marina. Don't know how they justified that when they never have any water :eek:

The accommodation is outstanding; it doesn't heel and the family love it. It works for us.
 
Slow_boat said:
I went to the multihull show in Emsworth at the weekend and was chatting to a very helpful chap, (I didn't get his name) He told me that the main objections people put to buying a cat are myths;

1 They don't capsize.

2 They are no more expensive in marinas than a mono. In fact, some marinas love them because they can get into difficult shallow berths.

3 They go to windward as well as a twin keel cruising mono. Even the older long keel Prouts, which is what I was looking at.

4 They are cheaper to maintain as they carry less sail than a similar length mono, so the deck gear and rigging can be lighter.

Can anyone confirm or deny any of the above?

What are the 'cons' of catamaran ownership ( I liked the Prout Event 34)
Click to expand...

One by one, and I'm an ex cat owner.

1/ Of course they capsize as every boat can do, but stability is far greater than a same length mono so they are less likely to get to the point of no return. When they do get there, they are metastable ie as stable upside down as right way up, whereas a decent mono will right itself.

2/ When I had my cat I never paid more that the nomal length rate in a UK marina but I most certainly did in France and Spain. I believe that has now changed and you will get charged more - rightly so for the 20/25ft beam French cats.

3/ yes that's about right - maybe a bilge keeler of the Centaur era rather than the last ones from Moody.

4/ Can't say I noticed a difference one way or the other with a Prout with one engine. And the rigging cant be lighter - that's an engineering nonsense

Cons?
1/ not a lot of fun sailing - you wont be fighting over the helm
2/ a motor sailer to windward in a chop
3/ more difficult to handle in a marina and in bad weather
4/ more grp to keep clean
5/ less load carrying ability

Pros
1/ much more comfortable at anchor
2/ better ride than a mono
3/ lighter and can see out easily
4/ 15% faster on average.
5/ internal space

The Event is a good boat ( a Quest is even better being lighter and faster according to the Prouts themselves) and I certainly enjoyed my Prout. But it depends on your type of sailing - day sailing / pottering = mono, whilst distance cruising / liveaboard = cat. IMO of course
 
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