Seeking Cats with Daggerboards and Protected Helm

[BigBeakie]

For a true liveaboard bluewater capable cruiser, see

FreeFlow Catamarans

Seriously good sailing performance in all wind speeds and plenty of room.

[UNCIVILIZED]

A few ideas for the OP, as well as corrections to & or fixes for some misconceptions:
- My $0.02, find a boat that you like, which has outboard steering stations, & then have some custom weather protection built for them.
Given your budget, such is an easy fix. And mod's like that are something that yards, especially those which do semi-custom & custom work, build all of the time.
Heck, other than custom shaping the glass (or Acrylic/Lexan), I could build such a station for a mid-sized to big cat in a weekend, but for the paint.

One just knocks out the temporary mold stations, made out of particle board. Aligns & mounts them. Mounts the core's on'em, & laminates on the reinforcements. Pulling the stations at the appropriate time.
It's a small matter/job. As, realistically, there's more complexity involved in properly installing the windows, & doing/matching the paint on the additions, to that on the hulls.

A Good yard can do the Whole job, including designing things. But if you're not sure about the yard; so long as you pick a quality place, they wont at all be insulted if you bring in the designs for such, drawn by an NA. Especially as he makes life easy for them in that the lamination sked's, build sequence, & such, are part of the plans.

- As to Daggerboards: Any decent boat should have well designed Crash Boxes. Meaning that, the board trunks will have built in space for high density foam or foam/composite crash blocks, running from keel to deck level. And that it should be a fairly simple job to swap these out when you hit something solidly with one of your boards.
Given that they should already have been pre-finished, & trial fitted, etc.

That way, while yes, it's a small PITA. If the designer at all did his homework, there should be little real damage to anything of substance in such a collision. As the math's just not that complex.

Also, given the loads that boards see on a fast multi, they should be rediculously stout. Just so that they survive the normal service loads.
It's a semi apples to oranges comparison, but only semi. But think about the kinds of loads which the foils on the AC boats see.

IMO, on a properly designed cruising boat with daggerboards, they should be strong enough to handle the loads placed on them when you're blasting along with only one hull in the water. As, in the real world, intentionally or not, this is a realistic scenario. And in fact even the sailing world's darlings, Gunboat, has sent a few designers back to their drawing boards, when the foils on some of their designs failed this test. Which, to be blunt, is inexcusable, given the cost of those boats. And how much FEA goes into them, or Should. ESPECIALLY for their foils.
Particularly given their penchant for self aggrandizement.

So, ask your designer for the numbers delineating both what it takes to ding your foils/crash blocks, & also to break them. Ditto on the board cases.
If he's hesitant at all. Either get someone else to re-design them, or more properly, go find a comptent designer to work with, Period. As, if he can't come up with these figures (in easily describable layman's terms) then he's fudged things on the design in a number of other (key) places as well.

AKA, not something that you want or which is confidence inspiring in boats costing 1/4 - 1/2 million $. And for that kind of coin, there should be little about the boat that you can come up with to ask the designer/design team, which gives them pause.
*** Also, BTW, when you're asking them such, it'd be wise to bring your own (unknown to them) expert with you. So that any (engineering) BS on their part can be spotted.