Catamarans - Current Market Situation

[High Tacker]

Will be back in Whangarei, New Zealand in a few days. Anybody interested, get in touch through

DAMSL — Catbird Suite

Will leave you a few more pics showing yet another advantage of A-frame rig, like, wow, there's no mast stuffing up the view from cockpit or saloon, and no boom. See below of Barbara at the wheel:

[High Tacker]

And there's no danger of getting bashed by a boom when you poke your head out for an even better view:

[D&D]

Originally Posted by Barra

PS im with you Dragonlady - if I do go french then the FPs look way better performance wise than the lagoons which seem so heavy or am I missing something?

"way better performance wise" may be a matter of conjecture or a matter what how one defines "performance"...or, as you say, missing something.

We were never performance-driven on our search, BUT it was an important objective for us to end up with a vessel that sailed well in light air...and we certainly acheived that objective.

In general, however, we sailed a LOTof cats (including multiple FP's and Lagoons) during our 4-year search and found very little difference in performance, or at least between the broad group of 'cruising' (built for comfort!) cats. Perhaps one notable exception was the Seawind 1250 which seemed to sail better into the wind with a better (by 10 degrees or so) tacking angle. The Seawind was/is a supereb sailing/cruising vessel, but the hulls were too cramped for our liking.

Well done in your 17kn top speed DL. As you say, we are not supposed to brag here, BUT our beautiful CatNirvana hit 21kn -- 15-17kn was the range for surfing big waves generally -- going down 5m swells north of NZ. We moved so fast on the record-breaking occassion that we actually ran down (or were thrown into!?) the wave ahead. It was certainly an exhilarating (and LOUD!) experience, but it was also one we hope never to repeat!

[dirkdig]

Well Don there is our new benchmark for Pathfinder 21 knots, well no more reefing then.

[D&D]

Originally Posted by dirkdig

there is our new benchmark for Pathfinder21 knots

not recommended Pete...thrill seekers only, a category we would prefer to observe from a safe distance!

Hope you're well?

[High Tacker]

Ahoy deckofficer,

Are you there? Uh, is there any there there? I just noticed that you are in northern and southern California. Commuting, are you? Ages ago I did that for a while in the music biz, several times a week between SF and LA, i.e., from NoCal to LoCal. Culture shock! LOL, the airlines made more money out of the deal than I did, and it just made me schizophrenic. And in those days in LA, you could see every breath you took in, so, what the hell, why not smoke a few ciggies, or somethin'...

Also I see that you apparently have too many boats. Did you read what I posted a few days ago, that I would consider trading down to a smaller boat and some cash, especially if the boat has a berth in the SF Bay Area?

Then we could sail this too-big-for-me bitch of a boat (see Catbird Suite at DAMSL — Catbird Suite) back to SF and you could make money hiring her out as a fantastic spectator boat for the America's Cup.

I'm back aboard in New Zealand now, but a few weeks ago was in Sausalito visiting my daughter, and I started looking around at the marinas...oops, it occurred to me that that place is gonna be chock full of boats soon, so difficult to find a home for her. But, of course, she is entirely self-sufficient, could just keep moving, with paying guests...

Cheers, High Tacker

[deckofficer]

High Tracker,

Just means I have two residences, one near Tahoe, and one off the I-15 north of Lake Elsinore. Too many boats really meant too many ships, which of course are owned by the shipping company like Sea-Land, Matson, etc.

[High Tacker]

Some of the recent comments here have reminded me that cruisers typically are more interested in good performance in light winds than they are in setting high speed records. So I'd like to point out some advantages of proa canted sail geometry on a catamaran, specifically on my cat, Catbird Suite. See DAMSL — Catbird Suite for details.

The mainsail and staysail on Catbird Suite are on soft furlers so that they can be easily moved around and the tacks of the sails attached to different positions on deck, not just on the centerline of the boat as with conventional, vertical rigs. I use them on the centerline for short tacking. But they can be moved and their tacks attached to either side deck so that the sails are canted into or away from the wind.

On a long, passage-making tack, for convenience, safety in high wind speeds, and efficiency in very light winds, I attach the mainsail and staysail to the windward side deck, so that, in combination with the genoa attached to the windward bow, the 3 sails are all canted away from the wind. The entire width of the boat is then available for sheeting, so that no booms or poles are needed in order to maintain ideal sail shape, all the way from close hauled through reaching to running.

Cat sailors know that big cats are very unforgiving, i.e., the rig and sails suffer a lot of shock loading in gusts because there isn't the shock absorbing effect of heeling and spilling of wind as with a monohull. With the sails canted away from the wind as described above, the sails are already heeled even though the boat is not heeled. See DAMSL — Catbird Suite and on the welcome page look to your left and click on A-frame Rig and you'll get my longwinded explanation of all the advantages. See also the link below to another forum. Scroll down that page for a detailed discussion of proa canted sail geometry.

Monohull verses Multihull powersailers / motorsailers - Page 15 - Boat Design Forums

It is also advantageous in very light airs to have the tacks of the sails attached to the windward side and thus the sails are canted away from the wind so that they set into proper aerodynamic shape by the effect of gravity when there's not enough wind to lift them into shape. You remember when sailing a little dinghy, when there is very little wind you move your butt over to leeward to heel the boat a bit so that the sail will fall into shape. So in very light wind, as soon as I unfurl a sail I'm away, while all those vertically rigged boats have sails hanging like so much laundry, all drag, and going backwards. Also, my sails don't come flopping down in the lulls; they're already down and so maintain their shape, ready for the wind to come back.

[High Tacker]

Duh...I neglected to mention in that last post, just here above, that Catbird Suite is for sale. There's an ad in the classified section of this forum, with more pics, including the interior, here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ran-70486.html

We're back in Whangarei, New Zealand now, in Town Basin Marina, and will be here for the next 6 months or so (except January cruising in Bay of Islands) if anybody wants to have a look.

I think my asking price is reasonable, only 20%, if that, of the replacement cost, and she's a much better built boat than any production boat you'll find, and is still in very good shape. But, what the hell, the market is lousy and I really need to sell this year. So make me a crazy offer.

[Barra]

Originally Posted by D&D

"way better performance wise" may be a matter of conjecture or a matter what how one defines "performance"...or, as you say, missing something.

We were never performance-driven on our search, BUT it was an important objective for us to end up with a vessel that sailed well in light air...and we certainly acheived that objective."

Thanks D&D when i say "look way better performance wise" what i mean is on paper using the builders specs all that weight on the lagoon vs the FPs must surely have a cost in terms of performance? Likewise in light air the higher weight, begger wetted surface and more windage must mean its going to need signifiacntly more sail area to get going right?

Clearly im missing something cos ill take your word it performs in light air - im just not sure how it does it - please can you elaborate as im still in the research phase and havnt had a chance to compare similar size lagoon to FP on the water in similar conditions (and probably few easily will)

thanks

[Kiwi.]

Here's a link from a Yachting test that includes a Lagoon and FP: Cruising Catamarans On Test – with surprising results! | Multihull Solutions

[Barra]

Originally Posted by Kiwi.

Here's a link from a Yachting test that includes a Lagoon and FP: Cruising Catamarans On Test – with surprising results! | Multihull Solutions

Thanks Kiwi pretty handy read though take all mag articles with a grain of salt!

I got a chuckle from the FP plug "surprising results!" as in i dont really think its all that surprising the FP outpointed and outsailed the lagoon given the specs of the 2 boats.

Maybe the surprising bit is that none of them once in cruising trim would have outperformed a similar length mono (at least according to the authors)?

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Kiwi.

Here's a link from a Yachting test that includes a Lagoon and FP: Cruising Catamarans On Test – with surprising results! | Multihull Solutions

That was an excellent read. Many thanks!

Amazing how grudgingly the editors praised them all. If you don't get the attraction of live aboard comfort you will never come to grips with the "looks." I look at a cat and don't think, my that is ugly. I think, "man that must be huge inside"

I felt they were seemingly upright about the speed/performance questions. I don't think I want a cat in order to go 18 knots. 7-10 is just fine and arriving a bit less worse for wear.

I was also pleasantly surprised they didn't hold any punches on the broadblue even though it is a UK maker. And when I got to the end I started to think, "well yeah, but what about all the other cats. And they responded with a brief summary of other available choices.

Lipari and Lagoon nave been on my short list. I just hope some owner of a 2012 model is interested in selling at a 30% depreciation in 5 years os so :-) oh, and while they own it they will need to add lots of solar, a capable watermaker, a genset and a kick ass dinghy. (one can dreram, can't one...)

[D&D]

Originally Posted by Barra

please can you elaborate as im still in the research phase and havnt had a chance to compare similar size lagoon to FP on the water in similar conditions (and probably few easily will)

We never participated in any side-by-side testing of the sort attempted in the article linked by Kiwi. We did, however, sail a LOT of cats (on both test sails and charters) during our own "research phase" over the past 3-4 years. Relevantly for your purposes we sailed two Lagoon build types (twice on 380's and once on a 440) and four (Mahe, Lipari, Orana and Venezia) FP's...plus a whole bunch of other cats, both production and one-off builds.

So we're not experts...and don't hold ourselves out as such. We're cruisers. We like sailing, including long distances, in comfort. So we can agree with what the article suggests about Lagoon's relatively larger volumes...and we liked that. We also, however, do not like to listen to the diesels while we're underway...so we're happiest just to keep moving in silence, even if it's not particularly fast...although of course one must maintain some pace just for passage-planning purposes. Hence our priority on light-air 'performance'.

The L440 suits us, perfectly. That said, we are also quick to acknowledge there are other cats whose performance was as good (or better) than the L440. For comfort and performance together, we chose the L440.

As for the article's suggestion that Lagoons are somehow deficient in big seas, we say "absolute b------t!"...and we back that with >14000nm and plenty of very heavy weather on our L440, plus we know first-hand of others who sailed Lagoons even further. No doubt FP's can very honestly and appropriately make their own claims to safety in big seas, but after being out there amoungst it on CatNirvana, we know she is a VERY seaworthy vessel.

[D&D]

Originally Posted by D&D

we sailed two Lagoon build types (twice on 380's and once on a 440)

Oops...my bad...make that three Lagoon build types, adding twice on 400's...