Build or buy

[Steamer]

Originally Posted by Sea Frog

-Privilege ... It is a quality custom (not production) built cat ...l

-Privilege is very much about luxury, yes. Quality stuff, no shortcuts, built to last and to give comfort. ...

-disagree
-disagree

Above is based on personal experience, sorry.

[Catbuyer]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Define fast and define comfort.


You can have any two of fast, comfort or reasonably priced.

We tested a outremere 5x which we loved the performance but Blevins talking with different owners it seems we will need a 3 person to sail it "Safety" reasons and the 51 the hulls are to narrow and low since I'm a tall guy 6'3" and wide as well we have tested the catana 59 lovely cat but seems to be more a comfort cruiser the alibi is presently our favorite great in almost all areas expect the helm position hard to make a good bimini for shades while sailing boom to low and access from hull to cockpit is to low specially worried in rough seas about hitting my head when going in and out... For the gunboat I'm not a fan of the helm position inside but we will go to look at. And older g55 in Phuket to get a feel of it

Nautitech we both love the cabin , cockpit helm position "just seems to heavy "

But we haven't had the chance to see the schoonings yet hope we will see some in Phuket if not go to Australia and look at them

But a cursing speed in high teens to lower *twenties " would be optimal



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[Cottontop]

Originally Posted by Catbuyer

We tested a outremere 5x which we loved the performance but Blevins talking with different owners it seems we will need a 3 person to sail it "Safety" reasons and the 51 the hulls are to narrow and low since I'm a tall guy 6'3" and wide as well we have tested the catana 59 lovely cat but seems to be more a comfort cruiser the alibi is presently our favorite great in almost all areas expect the helm position hard to make a good bimini for shades while sailing boom to low and access from hull to cockpit is to low specially worried in rough seas about hitting my head when going in and out... For the gunboat I'm not a fan of the helm position inside but we will go to look at. And older g55 in Phuket to get a feel of it

Nautitech we both love the cabin , cockpit helm position "just seems to heavy "

But we haven't had the chance to see the schoonings yet hope we will see some in Phuket if not go to Australia and look at them

But a cursing speed in high teens to lower *twenties " would be optimal



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High teens to lower twenties is cursing speed. Have you looked at Tag Yachts?

[Dave852]

Originally Posted by Cottontop

High teens to lower twenties is cursing speed. Have you looked at Tag Yachts?

I think you could find or build a boat that would hit those speeds on occasion but if you want it to cruise at those speeds you will need to increase your budget. Your talking 480 miles per day. You will need a 60'+ water line using all carbon for that and the more comfort you want the more you will need to get near 70' to carry the weight.


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[Cottontop]

Originally Posted by Dave852

I think you could find or build a boat that would hit those speeds on occasion but if you want it to cruise at those speeds you will need to increase your budget. Your talking 480 miles per day. You will need a 60'+ water line using all carbon for that and the more comfort you want the more you will need to get near 70' to carry the weight.


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And some big engines, for the almost all the time you don't have the wind for those speeds.

[UNCIVILIZED]

You'll get a LOT more that's on your checklist (you do have several of these, right?) if you go with a custom. Particularly if you want good numbers in terms of polars.
But like the man said, earlier in the thread, with your kind of $, get in touch with a couple of designers, & ask'em hard questions. Including what they'd budget for a build... and not just for a US based build mind you.

One aspect of going custom, is that you can decide where it's built. As well as how much of it by whom, & what parts of it, are built where. Thus saving yourself a good bit of coin, even when factoring in the $ for a professional project manager/skipper (AND Lloyds inspections at certain build checkpoints - a handy item to ensure quality, plus in terms of upping it's resale value).

The nice thing, once you've "finalized" your checklists (such are never really "done"), including your realistically, ideal polars. You can also run this info past both production builders, & those who build semi-custom boats also.

It'll quickly rule out what obviously wont work, & a good number of maybe's too. But with other maybe's, it'll provide enough detail to put them in to either the keep, or discard pile. Given the costs of the changes you'd have to make to them, to get them to fit your criteria.

For more info on tuning your checklists, here are a few places to start. These sites have examples of what goes into doing the prelim's of what one wants in a custom boat.

A few can be found on Kurt Hughes site, starting here:
Kurt Hughes Multihull Design - Catamarans and Trimarans for Cruising and Charter & going to here Kurt Hughes Multihull Design - Catamarans and Trimarans for Cruising and Charter amongst other places on his web page. That, & if you look @ the weights of his boats, vs. a production boat, it'll give you some ideas as to the why's on speed differences. And I've got some other empirical data on such, needs be.

Also, there's loads of good info on Eric Sponberg's site Articles And snag it fast, as he's retiring by year's end.

Plus, if memory serves, John & Amanda Neal @ www.Mahina.com have put together some foundational boat buying/design checklists also. Their resume's make them pretty qualified to hand out suggestions on this kind of thing.

[Redreuben]

And.

Schionning Designs | Leaders in Multihull Design and Kit Development

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Catbuyer

Hi all



I'm in a mix zone pressently and was wondering the following we are a couple who plans to retire in 3 years time and go sailing we are both around 40 and have been looking in to catamaran in the 50' range

We have looked at alibi 54 ,outremere 51 and 5x the catana 53 and 59 plus the nautitech 542 but there are features in each boat we like and some we don't like .... So here comes the question .... What would it cost to design our own catamaran roughly and what would be the cost of building one I know. It is not easy to say ... We have a budget from 1.5. To 2.2 million Euro



We are looking for a fast crusing cat but still with comfort

I'd like to have a problem like that!


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[Catbuyer]

Originally Posted by Cottontop

High teens to lower twenties is cursing speed. Have you looked at Tag Yachts?

Hi cottontop

We have looked at the tag 60 but we did not like the design in the hulls but we would like to see the new 50 it is on our look at list as well

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[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Cottontop

High teens to lower twenties is cursing speed. Have you looked at Tag Yachts?

High teens and low twentys make me smile, not curse.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by monte

Unfortunately fast and comfort are opposite ends of the design spectrum ....

Can't entirely agree. Boats are most comfortable when in a nice snug anchorage, and the fast boat gets there sooner...

[44'cruisingcat]

For that budget you could have something seriously special built here in Aus. That's nearly 3 million Ozbucks.


Or designed here and built in SE asia for even less.

[Catbuyer]

Originally Posted by Dave852

I think you could find or build a boat that would hit those speeds on occasion but if you want it to cruise at those speeds you will need to increase your budget. Your talking 480 miles per day. You will need a 60'+ water line using all carbon for that and the more comfort you want the more you will need to get near 70' to carry the weight.


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Hi Dave

We are aware of it but we believe we can find something that goes at similar speed as the 5x we tested the alibi in 6-8 knots and we did reach speeds which was 1-1 with the wind and we do recon 15 knots of wind we can go at least 300 nm per day of course. With the right winds

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[Catbuyer]

We are aware of the famous names who makes cats like vplp. M&M but we would preffere to work with less famous designers who is willing to go the extra miles .. we came from nothing and we got lucky had people believing in us to reach where we are today ... So if you can suggest some who would be interested in talking with us about the boat design we have made a list with what needs to be on it but we are always open for inputs

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[monte]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Can't entirely agree. Boats are most comfortable when in a nice snug anchorage, and the fast boat gets there sooner...

Yes 44, my comment was a bit simplistic, and of course comfort is relative to the sailors perspective. For many it's a good sea motion and speed and ease of single or short handing, for others it's having air conditioning, washing machines, lots of storage with cupboard doors, large 'kitchen', generators and all the comforts of home. Obviously the lighter the boat, the better the performance. Also narrower lighter hulls will equate to higher performance and to some "less comfort", but purely from a storage and volume point of view. The OP didn't explain what he meant by comfort so perhaps he carify. Most 50'+ cats would likely have enough comfort for most crushing couples, and some enough for six guests as well. The OP did mention that he liked the outremer 5x but the hulls were too narrow and it might be too much for a couple to handle after speaking with other owners. This raises a good point in that any cat capable of causing at 15-20kn doing over 300M days will require more than 2 crew to manage comfortably and safely. Those speeds that you occasionally see in test sails or short crossing excerpts are always accompanied by full racing crews, with the helmsman hand steering and other crew trimming sheets and at the ready to release the sheet loads as required. That's fine for a fully crewed cat or for occasional busts by a couple, but definitely not 'comfortable' for your average cruising couple to maintain 24/7. I was chatting to an outremer 50 owner yesterday who just crossed the Atlantic. On departure he asked his crew if they wanted a fast or comfortable crossing and the 2 crew voted comfortable, so they crossed under jib alone and averaged around 160M days. This is a pretty common scenario where skipper and crew opt for safe comfortable short handed passages and don't expect to be pushing too hard. Of course it's nice to have the option of powering up and increasing the miles per day with an experienced crew available as well.
The OP might want to take a look at Thor while he's in Thailand to get a feel of the shionnings.
http://www.boatpoint.com.au/boats-fo...=0&pss=Premium