Northshore's 'Catfisher'...any experience, here?

Greenheart

Greenheart

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I like catamarans, for their unconventional layouts, advantages, idiosyncracies and design characteristics...although they've been around long enough now to have ploughed their own field of conventions.

I also like wheelhouse sailing cruisers very much.

There must have been a happy day when the chap with the peanut butter met the chap with the chocolate, and it struck both of them that the combination was better than either in isolation...(thanks to Seth McFarlane for that thought :))...

...but when the wheelhouse cruiser met the catamaran...the result was...the Catfisher. (Two versions? 28' and 31'?)

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Not exactly a thing of crowning elegance and beauty. I've never actually seen one, though they were built in the seventies, I believe. Very heavy in spite of being unballasted...so presumably enormously rugged...and rather pedestrian.

I'd love to hear all opinions on this singular design (if I may put it that way!). Does anyone know how many were built?
 
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fugly exercise in weight & drag

botheras said:
There was one for sale at Tollesbury over a year ago... fugly....
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I have to agree with botheras !

They used to make these things locally to me, but I can only remember seeing one Catfisher, coming into Chichester in what looked heaps of trouble in a big following gale, very down by the bows apparently flooded forward.

They got in OK but I didn't hear any story as to what happened.

I think you'd need a couple of Pegasus jet engines to shift the thing, and suspect the rig was mainly there for steadying effect; I don't think you'd need inertial dampers or 4 point harnesses to withstand the speed & acceleration.
 
about nine years ago, there was one for sale in the Med, which I looked at very carefully. The concept is great, accommodation fantastic, construction very solid, but she really fell down on the sailing performance, especially as the owner has installed 2 200 gallon water tanks and loads oif other liveaboard kit.

If there were a 'clean' one around, I'd still be interested.
 
I can't speak from first hand knowledge, but last year I went to view a Heavenly Twins Cat. My wife and I didn't fancy it, and the broker said he wasn't at all surprised, after hearing that my present yacht is a Moody 31.

However, it may interest people that the broker immediately suggested that if we were interested in a catamaran, then the CatFisher might well suit us. And, no, he didn't have one on his books.

I have no idea what the performance is like; I'd imagine it is like the other Fishers; really a MOTOR-sailer, only performing under sail off the wind (but perhaps faster on a broad reach or even slightly to windward than a monohull Fisher). But if you want a good standard of finish and comfortable accommodation, then I think this is a good choice.

PS, I'd regard most of the modern cats as being ugly!
 
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Loved by their owners and kept for a long time. The 28 has issues though, serious hobby horsing partially cured by plates at the aft end of the hulls. The cabins are a bit squashed in and require some origami to construct the beds, quite cramped but many owners have modified theirs to sort this out. Personally I think three cabins and a saloon on a 28 foot yacht are too many to make them work. The bridgedeck helps though.

The larger Catfisher is as rare as anything, built for the US market and all the 28's problems were addressed. It sails well and is much better laid out.

Personally I like the looks of the Catfisher and don't write off their sailing performance, remember these things have a long waterline length and no ballast.

As for an inside steering position - I'm biased - but it's an excellent thing for a UK based yacht, and the Catfisher has a cockpit as well.
 
They certainly are an odd combination of looks - I get the feeling this is the pregnant mother, which pops out Hobie Cats!

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I can't help thinking, if the design had worked with any proficiency in sailing terms, Northshore would have had plenty of orders for the cat. It is an oddity, but like the Heavenly Twins, it has a sort of unique interesting appeal as a result. Although the HT is prettier.

But...since it's as rare as can be, I'm guessing it wasn't a good sailor. Pity.

Interestingly, the example above had a prop in each hull, but just one centrally-mounted engine. The hydraulic drive was called 'ARS'. :D
 
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Gemini Magic / Seahorse of St Lucia

In 1996 I bought the above Catfisher 28. I had always liked to look of the boat & accidentally came across one in Kip Marina when looking for a motor sailor. My wife fell in love with it as soon as she saw it, & after a trial sail with a sweet talking Kip salesman who shall be name less, we bought her.

I decided to move her from Kip to Largs which is when I found what a pig it was, wouldn't sail for toffee, when motoring the noise inside the wheelhouse was horrendous. The fuel & water tanks were buried in the hulls, the fuel tank was leaking into the bilge. Eventually I designed a new 40 gallon tank, made by Tek Tanks, cut hole in the rear heads bulkhead & sited it in there & covered the hole with a mirror.

After three months I decided she wasn't for me, sailed her to Troon, then on to Pwhelli via Loch Ryan Isle of Man, Holyhead. Put her up for sale, first guy to see her bought her, but the survey showed crush damage & extensive osmosis, so I just about managed to get my money back. I have pictures & video of her if you are interested, if you are thinking of buying one my advise, forget it. The only good thing about the design is the accomodation, stick it on a caravan site & pretend you are at sea. PS I'm the one with the grey hair in the pics, do you wonder.
Stearman65
 
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I think it's rather telling that multihulls which work go the light displacement route.

Catfishers were pretty much two heavy displacement draggy Fisher motor-sailers bonded together, instead of doubling the performance they halved even that !

Same goes - well quite not as badly - for the Heavenly Twins, a couple I knew on a mooring next to me had one - they were both keen sailors so I was surprised they bought the thing saying " it's got a really good galley and space " - within a few months they sold it as it wouldn't go anywhere, horrendously slow, something like a 3 knot average.

They then gave up sailing to anywhere and bought a Shrimper to potter about; that was the death knell, very frustrating as cruiser sailors, now they don't sail at all.
 
stearman65 said:
I have pictures & video of her if you are interested, if you are thinking of buying one my advise, forget it. The only good thing about the design is the accomodation, stick it on a caravan site & pretend you are at sea. PS I'm the one with the grey hair in the pics, do you wonder.
Stearman65
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Wow! There's nothing like personal experience, particularly an admission of mistaken high hopes, to pour a jug of the cold stuff, over foolish optimism.

Many thanks for the post, and pics...as you advise, I'll forget it! :)
 
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