Best cat for extended cruising

[Therapy]

44' Maverick.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by SamFrederick

We do want something comfortable with a good finish as we do plan on some higher end chartering for a few moths a year to help with costs.

The moths we sometimes have on board have never contributed anything toward our costs.

Moths are freeloaders.

[SamFrederick]

I'm a fairly experienced sailor. I grew up on an island sailing smaller boats with a lot of experience racing and teaching. I've worked on private yachts for the past 12 years and have put in a few miles at sea.
As I mentioned in my original post, I've always been a monohull sailor so am not very familiar with cats. Never gave them a second thought until now!
With that being said, we will still be doing a lot of coastal cruising to start out so we can get to know the boat and the differences and little tricks of cat sailing
Charters will just be a supplement. I work on charter boats now, so definitely understand how difficult it can be depending on where you are located. That's one of the things we will be sorting out before we go is where we can make charters work and where we can't and will plan accordingly.

[AussieCat]

We get to a lot of the boat shows and have spent a lot of hours drooling on the decks of some beautiful cats. Top two in order of (our) preference are a: Leopard 44 or the 48 would suit your req. b: Lagoon 42 or 45. c: Fountain 44 or 50. These are all beautiful bluewater boats and as always it comes down to what suits best and budget. What impressed me with the Leopards above the others was the 1; the quality of finish was immaculate and 2: Much more boat for bucks at least here in Oz. Recent show had all three on display so was a great opportunity to compare boats. The Leopard 44 fully optioned was over $100k cheaper than the Fountain 44 without a lot of the options. Again I stress only personal preference and I'd be very happy sailor with any of the above. Only advise I'd give be cautious of ex charter boats. Not saying don't buy but be prepaired to spend a few dollars. A lot are getting up to the 10 year mark which means a re-rig or you wont get insurance and usually lots of hours on the engines. Good luck with the search and be interested to here what the final decision is.

[navy davy]

I also have been looking at cats, word is that 60 ft and over gives a noticable better stable ride, also carbon fiber with a kevlar coat for impact resistance is new technology, Gunboat and the new Sunreef are state of the art with their load meters on the stays for a safer passage knowing if you are pushing the loads on the rigging to safe limits only. This will keep the boat from failure of the rigging during extreme conditions and high winds. Both websites have videos that will make it even harder to decide what cat to buy. Price is the deciding factor for me as just about all the average priced boats will be nice to own. Don't miss the new catana's. I always liked the tri fold salon door that opens the aft cockpit with the salon to a super big living area. see the advantages of Gunbout helm in the video of the Gunboat 66 in the exumas. Heck i have spent many hours watching videos marketing just about every brand, along with the pre-owned older boats. If i had the $ I would take a Gunboat 70 with all the goodies, Dem Gunboats is fast !

[navy davy]

one other note, If you plan to make some expense money by offering paid charters, a unique way to generate some extra cash is to offer crew positions during races where people pay you to be the crew during a race. Believe it or not, this is becoming a popular way the average joe can experiance first hand the thrill of being in a sailboat race. Now don't expect these people to be top notch crew but just the fun of being on the boat is enough for some people to pay for the chance to crew. Fun for them, $ for you. Hopefully fun for you also.

[SamFrederick]

I definitely like the looks of the Leopards. I'm going to see if I can schedule an apointment to see one in person! I've heard the Fountaine's are a bit more pricey. I need to check some out as a comparison though.
Good tip on the rerigging at 10 years. Never would have thought about that. I will definitely keep it in mind... As far as other wear and tear, I can do most of the work myself and have some good connections for pricing on parts, so I'm okay picking something up that needs a little TLC if I can get a good deal on it...
Those Sunreef's are very nice looking boats! There don't seem to be a lot of used ones available on the market... I'd rather buy something used than brand new. I think the Gunboat is a bit to minimal for what we are looking for. One of the things that got me turned on to the lagoon to begin with is they look like they have a lot of cabin space for their size. For our plans, I'd rather have comfort than speed at this point
I think we are going to be shooting for something closer to 50'. Good to know 60 is the magic number where things really smooth out... Hopefully we will be able to upgrade in a few years!
Good idea on the racing as well. Kind of like a dude ranch on the high seas! Put em to work and make em pay!

[AussieCat]

One of the big attractions for the Leopard for us is the forward lounge accessible from both he main cabin and bow.

[D&D]

Lots of good comments here. Our experience FWIW...

We spent ~4yrs looking before we bought our now much loved and enjoyed CatNirvana. Like the OP, the Captain here was a fairly experienced sailor, including ~30yrs and some (altho not a lot by comparison to others here) 'blue water' miles, but virtually all on monohulls and no ocean crossings.

We attribute the success of our eventual decision primarily to (1) taking our time and sailing on as many vessels as we could and (2) undertaking formal, maritime commercial training and qualification. If the OP is already happy with his/her maritime skills and experience, then (2) may be optional (altho we certainly gained a LOT of useful knowledge in that step!) but our experience suggests that (1) is a 'must do'. If we had bought a vessel at the start of our search, it would have been a very different vessel...and most definitely not the vessel for the life we now love!

We happily recognize there are lots of great vessels out there...and we sailed on quite a few of them! For us, however, the L440 was the proverbial 'category killer' for everything we wanted...blue water safety; well designed deck and rig layouts; good light-air performance; lots of storage ability in terms of both space and flotation capacity; and very, very comfortable inside. Using the OP's terms and based on our experience now on CatNirvana (>20,000NM, including crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific...and the Med, the Caribbean, and the Tasman seas) we would strongly recommend the L440 as the "best cat for extended cruising"...for us, anyway.

We wish the OP well in the search. Enjoy the process!!

[svfraidknot]

i guess if you have unlimited funds the sky is the limit ,, me i had 70,000 my 42 foot solaris e most comfortable boat i ever spent any real time on ,, and i live in panama ... 1978 built like a tank ..

[mbuckner]

Originally Posted by RichinBoca

Antares 44i

I vote for the Antares 44i

[2Hulls]

After determining one's budget, a comparison of boats within that budget should include a frequently overlooked attribute: tankage. How much fuel and water can the boat carry? How much freezer and refer capacity does it have? Does it have a hot water heater on each engine? These are attributes that have little variability amongst copies of the same models and many boats fall way short in these categories. Things like power production/storage can be added on to individual boats, e.g., solars, wind gens, extra alts, and extra batts. But tankage seems set by the factory/builder with little variability available absent lining the deck with jugs. How monohull.

2 Hulls Dave

[downunder]

+2 2 hulls re tankage. Particually as the Op mentioned cruising/chartering in Patagonia and the the Pacific.

I know of a couple of 46-50ft cats builtfor cruising those areas in Australia (Crowther) and M&M in NZ that had 1200-1400L built in. Aftermarket fitting of adittional tankage in production cats is not ideal. Biggest issue for the standard production vessels whilst its not an issue in the med or carribean.

For those areas I believe 1200L is the minimum for what the OP wants to do.

The FreeFlow 46/52 can easily have that quantity of fuel storage built in during the build.

cheers

[SamFrederick]

Tankage has been an issue I was wondering about. After I narrowed down my choices a bit I was going to ask about efficiency for some of these models. At this point, without actually seeing any of them in person, we keep coming back to the Lagoon 45. What kind of fuel consumption are people getting with these on extended trips. I know it will depend on wind and weather, but on a flat day with now sails up, what are people finding is the optimal cruising speed/consumption? (GPH or LPH?)
What about consumption with the generator running? Does anyone have any idea of what they would typically burn just with the generator for a week long trip with a full boat? I'm thinking of a charter scenario where we weren't being quite as conscious of power usage as we would be if it were just the two of us or just friends....

As I say, once we narrow down our choices a bit more I'll dig into this a bit deeper to help with the final decision...


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[DavefromNZ]

Once you have been on a Lagoon 450 you will never look back :-)

I cruise with one engine at 7 kts and about 5.5 litres per hour. I think the generator uses 2 ltrs per hour. With 1000 ltrs fuel would very rarely be a problem and range on engines only say 1,500 nm. Engines and generator very quiet running.

I would argue the with the vertical windows the L450 would have the same internal saloon volume as any 50ft cat with sloping windows and sun glare is not a problem.


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