Advice About a Good Cruising Catamaran and Kit Materials

[catdreamer]

Hello everyone. First of all, please forgive my English. I'm Spanish and when I was young I studied French...

As one friend of mine says, I'm currently in the "dreaming" phase, regarding my project to change my life and travel around the world in a good cruising cat. My friend finally did it! Even if he finally bought a little 26' monohull.
Currently I'm looking for all information I can find about bluewater cruising cats. Another criterion for me is durability and maintenance.

I follow this forum and read several blogs, designer webs, etc. and it's usual to read about the lack of true cruising capabilities of most bought cat brands.

I'm more inspired by designer cats. I'm considering to buy and build a kit, as it's more affordable (less than 200K$ for a well equipped cat), and it also allows to know what we have, and then make more repairs by oneself.

I read about Schionning cats, that seem to perform very well, but I'm a little afraid about balsa cored hulls, as I guess that any leak can lead to important damages.

I'm also very very interested by ABMarine kits (http://www.abmarine.fr , someone knows them?). They seem very affordable, beautiful, and promise good performance. They also promise a building time of about 1 year!! They are also nearest from me (Spain) than Australia, and I understand French better than English.
But as long as I could see, their hulls are partly built using fiberglassed plywood. I read a lot of critics about plywood maintenance, durability and resale.
Do I have to turn myself to designer preowned fiberglass foam cored cats?

I really appreciate any expert opinion about those subjects.

Thank you very much!

[barnakiel]

Hola:

I have sailed a Schionning cat and would not recommend one to anybody. You can send me a PM if you want any details.

Unless you are a keen boat builder already, I would not go for building the target boat now. In fact, I would rather look for a good sample of a clean and proven second hand mass market boat.

If you are really going for it and building your own, then probably build something small, learn, and sell it. Then decide if your skills are up to the job.

Remember Spain is very dear for boat building materials (Epoxy, foam, etc..) so you will probably spend much more than Australian or US estimates. The good thing is that in some locations you can build almost all year round (e.g. Canary Islands).

You must also consider the fact that you may find it immensely problematic to register a home built boat in Spain.

Abrazo,
barnie

[rberrey]

If your going to build look at builder friendly designs. Richard Woods designs are one, and would give you some advice.