Are Cats that Great?

[GMac]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

It was asserted that for a given amount you could always buy a faster monohull than a cat. I don't think so. In fact I'd say the opposite is true. If you set out to find the fastest available mono or cat at any given budget, I'd say the cat will always be the faster boat.

Totally agree but the downside is the mono will be bigger.

$ for $ Cats are quicker but you get more feet of Mono.

Looking around at the moment and down this was for around US$250K you can get some very nice 35-42ft Cats but for the same bucks you can get some very nice 45-55ft Monos. Obviously there are exceptions but that's a reasonable guide. Right now for the same bucks you can get a 55ft short handed Mono that would blitz most of the Cats for the same price, but that is a slight rarity I will admit. I think some are forgetting many of the newer monos are far from 4 knot shitboxes these days.

Why are we all still trying to compare apples to hotdogs here still eludes me but it is fun I suppose.

Cat, over distance I'd have my money on the Mono sorry. Unless it was a short inshore thing and then it's a 50/50. Around an Olympic course the mono easily. Probably not the best 2 choices there

Here's an interesting set of verified records. Until this year the 24hr run record for a Mono was 600mls, for a Cat it was 766mls. The mono was 70ft, the Cat 120ft. But that Cat record was trashed by a Tri this year and now stands at 900mls. The Tri was 131ft. So the Tri was 87% larger but only 50% faster than the Mono.

So the moral of the story is Cats are just slow and big Tris aren't as fast as they should be 'foot for foot' than a mono

Gotta just love statistics don't ya

[Ex-Calif]

Cat Man - As usual specificity is the problem. My defnitoin was not perfect but I think GMac interpreted it the way I intended. There are always outliers and I suspect that average forum member here doesn't have 2 million for a gunboat or 4 million for two gunboats.

Call it middle of the market - whatever that is. Consider the average cruising couple - whatever that is. People with $150 to $250 to spend.

All things considered, including speed you get more for your mono.

If this were not the case there would be a heck of a lot more cats sold. The cat builders get it completely. The market for cats is 38-55 feet or so. The market encompasses the people that can afford that boat.

A 42 foot cruising cat is more expensive than a 42 foot cruising mono. But comparing them to each other is not useful - that is my only point.

[Joli]

But...how do explain the Gunboat 48 being beaten in the Caribbean 600 by Yeoman? An off the shelf production 46 foot mono. Or the Gunboat 62 being beaten in the 2008 Chic Mac by by most of the J120 fleet? Or look at the Caribbean 1500 results or the ARC results.

The bottom line is, the boats that most of us want to sail and can afford will sail to .85% of slr when in cruising trim. And I think this is the point of $ to boat speed as posed by a previous poster.

Cheers Joli
smily face and all.

Originally Posted by cat man do

Oh goody, more silly games

How about this one?


62 foot Gunboat for $2,290,000 USD

or


72 ft Reichel Pugh for $4,408,864 USD

Which one is more comfortable and faster, bearing in mind the gunboat video floating around of this boat flogging an 80 ft Reichel Pugh, which I assume would be more expensive and possibly faster than a 72 fter.

I'll have 2 gunboats instead thanks, or $2.2 mill in the bank earning me $175,000 a year for doing nothing.

[Tropic Cat]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

If this were not the case there would be a heck of a lot more cats sold.

We're wandering back to price again. If Cats were more reasonably priced, a lot more folks would buy one.

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

The cat builders get it completely. The market for cats is 38-55 feet or so. The market encompasses the people that can afford that boat.

I wonder about this. On the face of it, charter fleets want 4 cabin 2 bath catamarans, and have historically driven the European market and catamaran design. This is the 38ft+ catamaran you mentioned. Yet, look inside the stats and a completely different picture emerges. The two largest runs of catamarans to date have been Catalac (600 boats) and Geminis (1000+). Both built smaller cats. If FP releases data, I think we'd see the 36' Mahe as their biggest seller.

The market has never been 38' plus catamarans for cruisers Ex-Calif. It's that size boat that's been available for sale.

Just who is it that 'requires' the equivalent of a 60' + mono to cruise on?

Nobody. (unless of course you're a polygamist, and have more than one wife .... upon reflection, a 60'+ boat might not be large enough in that case)

[Fishman_Tx]

I got to tour on an old Solaris Sunrise a couple weeks ago and I definitely am more inclined to Cats. I like the room and that life is lived more "upright" than heeled over.

[Strygaldwir]

So, comparing generic monohull to generic catamaran is probably a futile endeavor. There are such large differences in characteristics within each of their respective classes that most examples will have exceptions. Additionally, there are differences in what one individual will find important and another may not. The order of precedence will be completely different.

For me, any catamaran that has a galley up is an abomination, and should be outlawed, any that has 4 cabins and 4 heads should be outlawed, nobody is that full of ^&*(! Some folks think the Gunboat, or Lagoon is pretty!? The are.... well esthetically challenged!.

Joking aside, yes, many cats are great (depending upon what's important to the individual), and they can be great without diminishing monohulls being great, trawlers being great, Megayatchs being great, etc...

[Canibul]

I like boats.

[zeehag]

i like my boats to look like this....

and my kats to look like this ....
.....LOL!!!

and we dont care about boatspeed most of the time--if we are concerned we plan accordingly....

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Tropic Cat

We're wandering back to price again. If Cats were more reasonably priced, a lot more folks would buy one.

I think they are reasonably priced. As you point out a 40 foot cat probably eqauls a 60 foot mono. Your smaller 30-36 foot cat compares better to the 40-45 foot mono. There are reasonably priced 30-36 foot cats.

Originally Posted by Tropic Cat

I wonder about this. On the face of it, charter fleets want 4 cabin 2 bath catamarans, and have historically driven the European market and catamaran design. This is the 38ft+ catamaran you mentioned. Yet, look inside the stats and a completely different picture emerges. The two largest runs of catamarans to date have been Catalac (600 boats) and Geminis (1000+). Both built smaller cats. If FP releases data, I think we'd see the 36' Mahe as their biggest seller.

That may be tue but I suspect the demographics are changing as well. The boomers and tail end boomers, recession aside, are more affluent than previous retiring generations. They are used to their McMansions and seem to want to retire in a big dockominium. I admit that I certainly do.

It is romantic to live in tight quarters. It is realistic to live on a 40+ foot cat. It's bigger than the last apartment I lived in.

This as it happens is also what the charter fleets are demending. I am pretty sure that's why we see so much choice in the 38-42 foot new cat market.

Originally Posted by Tropic Cat

Just who is it that 'requires' the equivalent of a 60' + mono to cruise on?

Nobody. (unless of course you're a polygamist, and have more than one wife .... upon reflection, a 60'+ boat might not be large enough in that case)

I personally think that this boat - 40 foot cat - is completely livable. At least I hope so cuz that's my plan - LOL...

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Joli

But...how do explain the Gunboat 48 being beaten in the Caribbean 600 by Yeoman? An off the shelf production 46 foot mono. Or the Gunboat 62 being beaten in the 2008 Chic Mac by by most of the J120 fleet? Or look at the Caribbean 1500 results or the ARC results.

I never mentioned a gunboat 48

How do you explain the vast majority of the monohull fleet being beaten by a 30 ft catamaran in the 308 nm Brisbane to Gladstone race?

[Tropic Cat]

Well the ARC started 2 days ago. Volvo 60's and Maxis as well as 15 cats.

Welcome to World Cruising Club: ARC

We can argue about the race results in a couple of weeks. To date, the surprise is 3 young women in a 31 ft mono who averaged 142 miles yesterday and are now in the middle of the pack of 200 boats. Most of which are 15-20 feet larger.

Their web site is:
http://www.cantare.se/

[FSMike]

Multihull designer Dick Newick said it best many years ago-

Everybody wants three things in a multihull:
1)High performance
2)Luxurious accommodations
3)Economical price
You can have any two.

[GMac]

Originally Posted by cat man do

How do you explain the vast majority of the monohull fleet being beaten by a 30 ft catamaran in the 308 nm Brisbane to Gladstone race?

The same way a 43ft Cat finished 40mins odd behind a 100ft mono maxi racer and a 50ft Cat finished many many hours behind both (and a huge pile of monos) in our recent 130ml Coastal Classic Race. The 45ft Cat was a stripped out racer not a cruiser like the family crewed 50fter. And this year the wind was very multi friendly. Last year the weather was yuck and the vast majority of Cats didn't even finish (I think none may have), mind you neither did a lot of the monos.

In reality racing Cats are bloody fast by anyones standards but Cruising ones aren't so. Racing Monos are fast and these days as fast as or faster than many Cats especially cruising ones. And cruising boats of both types are generally slow by most standards. It's just the nature of the beast.

At the end of the day you have a boat be it one, 2 or even 3 legged. Just be thankful you aren't one of the billions who don't have any boat at all. I'm damn sure there are millions of people who would be over the moon just to have some nasty 4kt shitbox with any number of hulls.

Originally Posted by Strygaldwir

For me, any catamaran that has a galley up is an abomination, and should be outlawed, any that has 4 cabins and 4 heads should be outlawed, nobody is that full of ^&*(! Some folks think the Gunboat, or Lagoon is pretty!? The are.... well esthetically challenged!.

In there with you on that all the way. How bloody lazy do you have to be to not be able to walk 20ft to have a pee. 4 heads on any boat less than 100ft is indeed an abomination. I do like that word

You don't get 4 dunnys on a 50ft mono hence I'm going to call many Cat sailors lazy buggers and mono sailors a more hearty breed Not that I would ever dream of stirring anything up of course

On a brand spanking new (3 days old) 50ft Cat this afternoon and it was pretty damn sexy I must say. But it had 4 dunnys and I still couldn't spread my arms fully wide in the hulls. So would that be more correctly called a 'skinny abomination'? Yes, I'd have it tomorrow if they wanted to give it too me. Turn one dunny into a giant beer fridge and one other into a man cave just for me. Nothing a bit of mono sensibility loving wouldn't fix

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by GMac

At the end of the day you have a boat be it one, 2 or even 3 legged. Just be thankful you aren't one of the billions who don't have any boat at all. I'm damn sure there are millions of people who would be over the moon just to have some nasty 4kt shitbox with any number of hulls.

I beg your pardon. Relax Lah! is a 5kt shitbox - LOL...

(And yes I am over the moon to have her...)

[barnakiel]

A picture of Titanic should follow now. Anybody?

;-))))

I love cats and monoes and their cruisers.
b.