Sybarite
Well-known member
Laurent Bourgnon is currently taking his family around the world in a 70’ Sunreef motor catamaran because it is cheaper than sailing !
His reasoning is as follows :-
• About 50% of the costs of a large sailing catamaran are directly related to sailing : hull reinforcement, mast, rigging and sails; say, an additional 500,000 to 1,000,000 euros.
• Large sailing catamarans pass anyway about 50% of their time under motor.
• A catamaran hull requires much less power to drive at a faster speed than a monohull.
• His catamaran has expeditionary tanks (20 tonnes) which gives him a cruising range on both engines at 10 knots of over 10000 nm at 2 litres to a mile. On a single engine, it’s even further. This allows him to fill up in places like Libya or Venezuela where the fuel is dirt cheap.
• You can travel a direct route to where you are going. Eg you don’t need to go south to find the trade winds for an Atlantic crossing.
• Even if you count a litre at 1 euro, ie €20000 to fill up, he could travel between 250000 to 500000 nm (using the above assumptions) before absorbing the difference in the original purchase price.
• On 70’ sailing catamaran, with his young family, he would probably need additional crew members.
• A catamaran has a large surface area for solar panels and these together with wind generators and a 1200 amp battery bank means that he never needs to use a generator in port.
• He uses less fuel than in his Swiss home.
• He has recently bulbs to the bows to make the boat even more efficient.
As far as the thrill of sailing is concerned he says that he gets that from racing catamarans, not from cruising ones.
Some large motor catamarans also use auxiliary kite sails for downwind sailing.
I suppose this reasoning only holds good for the larger catamarans but it is interesting to look at the real costs involved in boating.
His reasoning is as follows :-
• About 50% of the costs of a large sailing catamaran are directly related to sailing : hull reinforcement, mast, rigging and sails; say, an additional 500,000 to 1,000,000 euros.
• Large sailing catamarans pass anyway about 50% of their time under motor.
• A catamaran hull requires much less power to drive at a faster speed than a monohull.
• His catamaran has expeditionary tanks (20 tonnes) which gives him a cruising range on both engines at 10 knots of over 10000 nm at 2 litres to a mile. On a single engine, it’s even further. This allows him to fill up in places like Libya or Venezuela where the fuel is dirt cheap.
• You can travel a direct route to where you are going. Eg you don’t need to go south to find the trade winds for an Atlantic crossing.
• Even if you count a litre at 1 euro, ie €20000 to fill up, he could travel between 250000 to 500000 nm (using the above assumptions) before absorbing the difference in the original purchase price.
• On 70’ sailing catamaran, with his young family, he would probably need additional crew members.
• A catamaran has a large surface area for solar panels and these together with wind generators and a 1200 amp battery bank means that he never needs to use a generator in port.
• He uses less fuel than in his Swiss home.
• He has recently bulbs to the bows to make the boat even more efficient.
As far as the thrill of sailing is concerned he says that he gets that from racing catamarans, not from cruising ones.
Some large motor catamarans also use auxiliary kite sails for downwind sailing.
I suppose this reasoning only holds good for the larger catamarans but it is interesting to look at the real costs involved in boating.
