Opinions Sought

[fbchristo]

I am in the process of planning for phase II of my life, cruising. My wife and I have been bare boating for the past three years with the idea that will try as many cats as possible before we decide on which one. The biggest problem with this plan is we are limited to what is in a charter fleet and so far that has been ok but I am afraid we are overlooking something just because we haven’t chartered it. We are looking for a cat in the 38-41 foot range, not necessary new, and capable of crossing either the Atlantic or Pacific with a lot of island hopping. We have sailed a Main Cat 41 & 30, Island Sprit 37, and a Lagoon 380. All with their plusses and minuses (I would not take the Main Cat 3o beyond costal cruising.) What else should we be looking at; and by the way, I am 6’7” tall with no desire to spend all my time hunched over or scraping what little hair I have left off my head.
Thanks for the opinions!

[slomotion]

Probably not much help - but just about any modern catamaran available for charter in the Caribbean is capable of crossing oceans because that's how just about all of them got there. Do not trust factory specs. With your height, you must physically walk, bend, stoop, etc. your way through any boat to really see how well you fit.

[laser]

Wow, quite a challenge. I went through the process of dealing with headroom but I am "only 6' 3". I have been on them all in your size range and I dont think you are going to find any to accomodate your height comfortably. Personally I wasn't interested in the open living concept of the Maine Cat but perhaps the larger Maine Cat provides you with enough headroom. I only found 2 Cats that accomodated my height in all areas throughout in the 41 foot and under range and they were the Lagoon 380 (which surprised me) and what we decided to go with, the Admiral 40.

Here is a post titled Catamarans For Tall People that I started a couple years back that you might find helpful

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ople-2900.html

Slomotion is spot on...do not trust any of the headroom specs from the manufacturers.

God luck with your search!

[Pblais]

Headroom is going to be the deal maker. You need reasonable head room in the main areas. You probably can't get it everywhere but if you find a boat that fits I would say it's the one. Above 6-3 it does get hard.

[Woods Designs]

You might like to look at the Transit 38. You can see one on the Preowned page of Woods Designs Sailing Catamarans

Lots of headroom shown, even though the builder reduced the designed headroom.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

[smj]

I believe the Dolphin 46 can be custom built with extra headroom. A.J.

[irayone]

Hi
Has anyone had experiance with the purchase of a charter... IE; Lagoon 380 from the Moorings after the charter period was over????
Second question...Has anyone purchased a Cat and put into charter?