'Beautiful Catamaran' - An Oxymoron?

[henryv]

Snort - love my PDQ - fun to sail - easy to single hand- quite fast - very comfortable to spend time on. I wish someone would expand the design another 10 feet so I could have much the same boat in the Carribean.

[farotherside]

I used to think that catamarans were the most beautiful boats on the water - serene but aggressive, like a predatory animal at rest.

...but then I fell head-over-heels for a trimaran.

[Aussiesuede]

Originally Posted by Jmolan

Nick I agree. A sail boat should be designed to sail.

This here I think goes straight to the point of just why one is on the water. If it is for the enjoyment factor of sailing, then I agree with your sentiments. But if one is on the water primarily to explore the world in a reasonably fun and economic fashion - and would like to be comfortable while doing so - then I think that person would make a different choice in vessel as his primary objectives are different.

When I was a teenager in high school, I use to ride a skateboard to school. I had no interest in doing tricks and the like - so the small sporty skateboards were of no use to me. For my intended purpose, a nice long easy ridding skateboard was best. If I had to use the short little sport model boards that the guys who liked to do tricks used - then I likely would have just given up skateboarding all together (as those guys on the little boards suggested I should) Interestingly, those skateboard purists thought my big long board was ugly as well. They said it didn't look like a skateboard should, and would be useless in the skate parks. It sure was good fun watching those kids try to keep up with me on the skate to school on my big ugly improper under-performing board though.

[donphall]

I have owned several cats and two tris. I agree completely, the lagoons and particularly the new small ones are not pretty it is a box with a sail on top. That being said your 410 has a better interior than my 48 foot cat. However, I love to sail and I rarely sail below wind speed. The real question is why are more people not honest about the sailing capabilities of these small cats lagoons in particular. There are very few monos of equal length that will not walk away from a lagoon 410 on almost every point of sail.

[schoonerdog]

I used to have a PDQ too and always kept my eyes out for something that sort of resembled it. The Schionning cosmos 43, the Fusion 40, and the Perry 43 all have that sort of clean finish, cabin overhang, galley down thing that PDQ has, but I've never really seen a bigger catamaran that had the simplicity and easily replaceable outboards of the PDQ except maybe the Kelsall.

Originally Posted by henryv

Snort - love my PDQ - fun to sail - easy to single hand- quite fast - very comfortable to spend time on. I wish someone would expand the design another 10 feet so I could have much the same boat in the Carribean.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

I used to have a PDQ too and always kept my eyes out for something that sort of resembled it. The Schionning cosmos 43, the Fusion 40, and the Perry 43 all have that sort of clean finish, cabin overhang, galley down thing that PDQ has, but I've never really seen a bigger catamaran that had the simplicity and easily replaceable outboards of the PDQ except maybe the Kelsall.

Plenty of the 45 ft down Schionnings have the outboard option, in fact I think all do .

Same for Oram and some others.

Might even find its not so much an outboard option, but a diesel option.

Dave

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Next is that purple thing...
;-))
cheers,
Nick.

Different tastes, I drive a 30 year old Valiant and have a red headed chick as well.

Dave

[catty]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

I used to have a PDQ too and always kept my eyes out for something that sort of resembled it. The Schionning cosmos 43, the Fusion 40, and the Perry 43 all have that sort of clean finish, cabin overhang, galley down thing that PDQ has, but I've never really seen a bigger catamaran that had the simplicity and easily replaceable outboards of the PDQ except maybe the Kelsall.

Didn't the pdq start out as pretty blatant Simpson 10.2 clone, before all its transom extensions?.

[Robertcateran]

Beuty is in the eye of the beholder.
I reckon the visionarrys, Blind Date and Rare Bird are beautiful boats,
regards
Robert

[Factor]

Originally Posted by catty

Didn't the pdq start out as pretty blatant Simpson 10.2 clone, before all its transom extensions?.

Which simpson Catty - Andrew or Roger

[catty]

Originally Posted by Factor

Which simpson Catty - Andrew or Roger

Roger.

This is testing my memory Factor, but when Slater introduced the pdq in the late 80's it had no transom extensions and was around 34 feet. The Simpson 10.2 was designed in 85 and also originally had no transom extensions. There was a lot of murmurings in the Oz multi-hull community at the time of the pdq's release. Obviously subtle changes to the Simpson's cabin profile etc could only be an improvement.

Did Slater come from a catamaran design background? What other designs did he produce prior to the pdq. Was his first attempt the pdq? Maybe someone can shed some light on this.

[xxuxx]

Obviouslythe thread originator has never seen a new Leopard 46.
ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS

[Pelagic]

I think this song says it all

YouTube - Crosby, Stills & Nash "Love The One You're With"

[beiland]

I'll just quote an excerpt from a letter I wrote to Soundings a number of years ago concerning an article about the designs of Ray Hunt:

"with reference to your article about Ray Hunt in the June issue of Soundings, I wanted to write and let you know how much I truly enjoyed the article.

You captured not only the factual history, but more importantly, some of the essence of being involved with yachts and yacht design itself….. “the measure of total understanding of the nature of a boat.”

And most importantly, you included the oft forgotten element, the sheer line. What a terribly important factor! Romantically stated, but oh so true, “it is simply her sheer … sheer beauty that is. She enters the harbor like a beautiful woman entering a room. Her sheer is the line we try to get right when we doodle boats.” So many of today’s boats lack this beauty, and correspondingly, some of the essence of yesteryear’s yachting.

Your article brought some of that feeling back to me…some of that feeling that first inspired me to want to learn of sailing yachts and their design ….that had me (virtually a non-sailor at the time) putting together a scrapbook of designs, both good and poor, for future reference.

Now it so happens that I got quite heavily involved with multihull craft because here is where free thought and innovation abounded, and here it is even tougher to create a pretty sheer line. Probably a couple of the best examples I might reference would be Peter Wormwood’s 60 ‘Indigo’ design and a few of Peter Spronk’s cats. With Spronk’s designs, you would have to invoke your French observation, “you must suffer to be beautiful.”

...more photos here:
RunningTideYachts, Ltd. Photo Album of Design References Page 2
RunningTideYachts, Ltd. Photo Album of Design References Page 1

[Laidback]

Every time I see these of Lagoon windows it puts me off cats ---

Until I see one of Schionning's designs