Catamarans - love them or hate them?

Halcyon Yachts

Halcyon Yachts

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Years ago when I was cruising around Greece I developed a bit of a hatred for catamarans. The harbours are only small and we'd often arrive finding that there was no space at all on the quay... If there were any catamarans then there would be even less space!

It's fair to say that with such a low starting point my opinion could only improve as I started out as a delivery skipper. Various Prouts, Outremer, Nautitech, Catana etc and of course when I get a chance the odd Hobbie Cat or Dart! All good fun and with excellent space on board in relation to the length I have slowly but surely become a convert. No wonder then that I jumped at the chance to hop on a new Lagoon 400 for a sail from Les Sables d'Olonne to Gibraltar.


What do you think though - are two hulls better than one?

Pete
 
I have never actually sailed one, so I wear my prejudices with pride. My problem with them is that with exception of the venerable Iroquois they all look like contraptions rather than yachts, and I have memories of sad-looking people crawling along in Catalacs and Heavenly Twins while we romped past in what were then very modest craft. They are probably brilliant in many ways but I can't see myself being converted.
 
Have very fond memories of sailing a Prout Quest 31 back in my teens. The owner had the essentials on board, but apart from that didn't load it with gear (this may have been more a question of economy than anything). - As a result she was PDQ in anything over about 7 knots of breeze., so much so that her performance, and chocolate brown gelcoat (a la many a 1970s bathroom suite) earned her the affection nickname of the 'The Flying Turd'.

She didn't point to windward terribly well and I remember tacking through some big angles (although this was no doubt in part down to a suit of sails very much 'past their best'), but she was fleet enough at a freer angle not to disgrace herself against monohulls of a similar size on the wind.

A lot of modern Cats look a bit blocky to my eyes, although the kind of boats produced by Outremer and Darren Newton are pretty slick looking.
 
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Help, can't see the video on my desktop, just a black hole - this has only started the last few days.

Cats then, are great at what they are good at but I have never been tempted. Anchorage to anchorage is some hot place, perfect.
 
Hi, I have previously owned some lively monohulls and I do like, lets say "spirited sailing". Being based on the east coast you are limited in relaxing local cruising if you have a fin keel with a draft of 2m as you are always conscious of depth. I was always interested in either lifting keels or bilge keels to make local sailing more enjoyable as you don't need to be so focused on always having sufficient depth available, unfortunately performance is compromised in most affordable versions IMHO. I then started looking at Cats, they have good performance (off the wind) draw less water and can take the ground, coupled with a stable platform and tons of room. There are a few downsides (don't like going to wind) but after you get used to the different sailing techniques, like me I think you might be surprised.:encouragement:
 
johnalison said:
I have never actually sailed one, so I wear my prejudices with pride. My problem with them is that with exception of the venerable Iroquois they all look like contraptions rather than yachts, and I have memories of sad-looking people crawling along in Catalacs and Heavenly Twins while we romped past in what were then very modest craft. They are probably brilliant in many ways but I can't see myself being converted.
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That's a bit strange ...... because the fastest sailing boats that the world has ever known are all multihulls. ;)

So the answer to the OP's question is that cats are faster, roomier and safer so what's not to like ..... other than the cost! :o

Richard
 
johnalison said:
I have never actually sailed one, so I wear my prejudices with pride. My problem with them is that with exception of the venerable Iroquois they all look like contraptions rather than yachts, and I have memories of sad-looking people crawling along in Catalacs and Heavenly Twins while we romped past in what were then very modest craft. They are probably brilliant in many ways but I can't see myself being converted.
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But then again, I have recollections of being passed very handily by catamarans when sailing my Dad's Halcyon 27 - no slouch. It depends a LOT on what point of sailing they're on!
 
I have many happy memories of helping a friend deliver his new FP Casamance (43') from La Rochelle to Gibraltar.

- borrowing boss's King 200 to take crew from Paris to La Rochelle
- 5 supermarket caddies full of food
- having a restaurant owner along for the trip
- 12 doz oysters ...
- largest ever pod of dolphins : 100's if not 1000's.
- blowing out both main and spinnaker (owner always wanted to see how fast his boat would go - up to 18knts)
- Gale off Portugal
- turning into wind to take down ripped main - took 45 mins with both engines at full throttle.
- one crew member who was so green for 3 days we thought he wouldn't survive. On return he ordered a catamaran for himself.
- arriving at Gibraltar where the fleet was returning from the Middle East. The crew of the aircraft carrier was lined up on deck. So we did the same as we motored past and inspected them.

Life on board was very comfortable but helming was no pleasure.
 
We had our first experience of catamaran sailing this Christmas - on a Lagoon 400 S2 which we chartered from Dream Yacht Charters out of Langkawi. Although we were only 4 of us on board and didn't need such a big boat (we had a cabin with en-suite each), knowing that most of the Malay and Thai islands we'd be visiting were uninhabited and without restaurants, we figured that to have space and comfort at anchor made the extra expense worth-while.

I have to say that we all really enjoyed the experience. We were all very comfortable, the open galley on a level with those lounging in the cockpit made the whole business of cooking and eating on board much more social for whoever was slaving over the galley, and the lack of rolling at anchor made the nights very restful. 'Er indoors very much liked the whole business of sailing in an un-tippy way.

We enjoyed the sailing too. It was mainly me and our younger daughter who sailed the boat, and it proved very easy to manage with two people. The boat doesn't really wouldn't progress at closer than 50° off the wind; on all other points of sailing it went pretty well. The North East monsoon was blowing, so we had decent wind every day (between 18 and 32 kts over the course of the week) and off the wind it seemed to romp along everywhere at between 7 and &10 kts. Once I'd got to grips with the business of manoeuvering on the throttles rather than with the helm, it seemed pretty easy to park.

I agree with the provisos about cats being unsuited to cruising grounds where there are lots of interesting little harbours you'd like to get into, but for areas where you'll spend most of your nights at anchor, a catamaran is absolutely the business.
 
I've been fortunate enough to sail both monohulls and catamarans and have been happy on both. However i would differ on the comments that cats look like contraptions rather than yachts and as an infrequent poster I hope that I can attach some photos to show why. IMG_20180417_0003.jpgIMG_20180417_0004.jpgIMG_20180417_0004.jpgI don't think anyone could say that this Peter Spronk designed boat, a cruiser rather than a racer, does not look like a yacht. It was/is a 67' length with a design speed of 30 knots although I will admit that we chickened out at 20kts as in a lumpy sea off Lowestoft we all needed a change of underwear. I doubt that a modest craft would have romped past.
Intriguingly, with comparison to the Iroquois, this boat was also built in Brightlingsea and one lazy afternoon an Apache came alongside and a gentleman aboard introduced himself as Reg White and asked if he might have a look around. Deferring to the great man I spent a happy half hour showing him the boat and he was, to say the least, very complimentary. Going back to the OP I've had some happy sailing in a number of cats and a variety of monos, from AWBs to Ocean racers and I think it just comes down to what floats your boat, or horses for courses
 
Malo37 said:
Depends on whether you prefer a raft to a yacht.
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Ouch. At least I admitted to being biased.

I can see that afs67's craft looks sleek from the side but I would need to see it in the flesh to judge whether it has 'presence' or not. The idea of a cat has excited me since I first saw Shearwaters sailing in about 1957. They appeared to be skimming across the water as I watched from the shore at Studland.

Personally, as well as going places, I take great pleasure from the sensation as my boat heels to the wind and digs her keel in when going to windward. I think that cats come into their own when they exceed a certain size, which puts them outside my pocket, boat and mooring-wise. They sometimes make good spectator fodder. I recall sailing off the German Coast a few years ago when a large cat came by. It didn't at first seem to be going very fast and it wasn't until I saw that the bow wave had been atomised that I was impressed.
 
I crewed a Fontain Pajiot Belize from Lefkas to Barbados last year, first extended cruise on a cat for me. I loved the space and stability, especially on the Canaries - Barbados leg. Easy to manage and all the extras that made life comfortable for an extend trip. However, I couldn't justify the additional expense of a cat in comparison to our monohull for our usual cruising. Even a small cat would represent a much larger initial cost plus the additional berthing costs. So I'll stick to a monohull but happily take any chances of long trips on friends cats....
 
Scolly said:
About as often as a monohull
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Ah but how many more monohulls are there?
The incident I posted a link to made no reference to any sort of material failure on the cat. Any half decent monohull will not fail to right through the actions of weather and sea alone- you need the keel to fall off.

The incident happened quite close to where I live so it made quite an impression on me. I'd always known that in theory cats could be flipped by big breaking waves or strong gusts, but I had been reassured that this was only really possible with very small boats. The one that flipped was 52ft, though, and given the location of the incident I presume it would have been due to wind rather than wave action. So you can simply overpress a cat until it goes over, it would seem.
Maybe I'm being paranoid but I would find it hard to get that thought out of the back of my mind every time I saw a squall approaching. And maybe that incident was really very unusual.
 
I think it's a little unfair to lump "Catamarans" all together, in much the same was as it would be to do so with monohulls. Most boats are designed and built with a purpose in mind and there will have to be compromises made. The Lagoon 400 is primarily built for the charter market so it is roomy, heavy and very conservatively rigged. I helped deliver one from the factory to Greece a little while back and was quite impressed with it's level of comfort and accommodation (four double cabins all with en-suite facilities) and off the wind it sort of sailed OK, but you could pretty much forget trying to go to windward effectively and you just resort to motors, which of course it did extremely well with it's two inboard diesels. It's designed to be chartered out to potentially inexperienced multihull sailors who are going to hop from port to port on a daily basis. I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone buying one if they are looking for any kind of sailing experience.......
 
The one thing that struck me in sailing on the cat last year was the mechanical approach to reefing. At this wind speed, reduce sail to such and such, down to the final reef setting of a third of the foresail. On most other boats I've sailed, the boat itself will tell you when to reef by the way it handles: the cat didn't. It'd carry on without any handling problems, just stressing the rig further and further. Hence the need for set wind speeds for reefing - weird experience for a monohull sailor to be romping along, boat feels fine only to look at the wind speed indicator and realise you needed to put a reef in.
 
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