What Catamaran: Suggestions from the Community

[Factor]

Buy a Chris White atlantic is my thought. This one looks okay at your money.

RESOLUTE A 48

[Intentional Drifter]

Lagoon 440's are wonderfully comfortable cruisers. Perform pretty decently, too. But, that flybridge configuration is, IMHO, ridiculous. Fine on a nice day for a few hours. On passage? In bad weather? No, thanks. A delivery skipper friends calls them, "riding the camel." Plus, the flybridge requires a high boom, which raises your CG and required Lagoon to spec out the boom with no room for error. I've heard from one 440 owner that he crumpled his boom when he put on a preventer that was too close to the middle and then put too much force on it.

Just depends on where you put your priorities and what you're willing to compromise. Lots of happy 440 owners out there.

If I had $700K, though, and it was a choice between a very nice 440 (which you could get for $700K) and an Atlantic 48, it would be the Atlantic, no question. My wife would go with the 440, though.

We could probably compromise on the PDQ 44, a boat that I like a lot, although it would be a much harder choice between that and the Atlantic. Left to my own, it would be the Atlantic.

ID

[solarbri]

The only thing that would get my vote ahead of the Chris White Atlantic 48 would be a.......












































Chris White Atlantic 57!

[Intentional Drifter]

Absolutely! Don't think either of us are likely to find one for $700K, though.

ID

[solarbri]

Here is a 55 for $795k.-Chris White Designs (S. Dartmouth, MA)
Whataworld, If I were you, I'd take a serious look at that Chris White 55.
55 feet of long legged, lean, mean, mile eating, fast ocean crossing, ideal cockpit/interior steering station super seaworthy machine!
And take a look at her interior. While she may not have the super voluminous hulls of the Lagoon's, She sure appears to have PLENTY of well thought out, nicely built, live aboard designed space!
Been for sale for at least a year also!
Happy Hunting.


PS- I am in no way affiliated with ANY boat for sale.

[Intentional Drifter]

Another way to think about those "super voluminous (i.e., fat) hulls" on a catamaran: BRAKES.

This is not a trivial matter for an open ocean cat, either. Monohulls deal with wind gusts by heeling; catamarans by accelerating. The more drag you put on a cat, the more you impair its ability to accelerate. Consequently, the more stress you put on the rig, sails and everything else. Those big fat hulls let you have queen-sized island berths, sure. Built in brakes, too; and that's not a good thing.

ID

[smj]

Originally Posted by solarbri

Here is a 55 for $795k.-Chris White Designs (S. Dartmouth, MA)
Whataworld, If I were you, I'd take a serious look at that Chris White 55.
55 feet of long legged, lean, mean, mile eating, fast ocean crossing, ideal cockpit/interior steering station super seaworthy machine!
And take a look at her interior. While she may not have the super voluminous hulls of the Lagoon's, She sure appears to have PLENTY of well thought out, nicely built, live aboard designed space!
Been for sale for at least a year also!
Happy Hunti

PS- I am in no way affiliated with ANY boat for sale.

Maybe I'm a wuss but 55' seems like a lot for singlehanding!

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by WhataWorld!

The boat I'm looking for will be used basically as a floating condo.

Here you go, should do everything you want and more


Information on Brady 52' Passagemaking Catamaran

[Agility]

Originally Posted by smj

Maybe I'm a wuss but 55' seems like a lot for singlehanding!

When you have a Chris White you need to rethink the length. It's really a light boat considering and handles like a much smaller boat in many ways except performance. The issues become the sail handling and such but you could raise a fraction on the sails and still outrun a much smaller production boat. I suspect that a A55 is as easy or easier to handle in general that an typical 44' production cat. Every Chris White I know of personally is sailed by two folks and for the most part there is only one strong sailor for crew. Except of course my wife, she's a strong sailor.

I'd sail a A47 single handed without concern. I don't think I'd be comfortable sailing 44 foot production cat.

[axel&andie]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

Then trust me, I know cats, and have been on every model made from Shuttleworth, Atlantic, to the more common production boats for over 15 years. You can stop your search with PDQ 44. There are more performance boats on the market, but their amenities stop way short of PDQ, and there are more Condomoran boats, but they don't have the thoughtful fixtures that PDQ does (italian lighting, wonderful galley storage, etc) and are meant almost exclusively for charter, despite some superficial restructuring of fiberglass. PDQ is one of the few that was never intended for a charter, it's exclusively designed for an owner, but is not a more of a bare necessities performance boats of an Atlantic, Shuttleworth, or Outremer. Don't get me wrong, the performance boats ARE great boats, but in the world of compromise of comfort versus speed, they move strongly to speed. I'd think of throwing in Dolphin as well, but they are a galley up model, and for a live-aboard boat with entertaining and business as a primary goal, there's no point to having half of your main room in the catamaran (bridgedeck cabin) taken up by the galley.

I second what schoonerdog wrote about the PDQ/Antares 44i. 700k budget is only 100k or so short of the new one, and there should be a few recent builds in the market in good shape.

[xxuxx]

Originally Posted by axel&andie

I second what schoonerdog wrote about the PDQ/Antares 44i. 700k budget is only 100k or so short of the new one, and there should be a few recent builds in the market in good shape.

Wait just a gal darn minute here....you can't second it, you have to third it, I already seconded it in my post #9. Jeeze, guys tryin to rob my seconding it......the nerve

[axel&andie]

Originally Posted by tsmwebb

Thoughtful fixtures? What do they think? Italian lighting? Just for the record my A42 has Italian lighting (gold electro-plated at that). I'm not sure if our galley storage is "wonderful" (I've yet to see any galley storage that filled me with wonder) but there is plenty of it, it is accessible and it looks pretty good. Did you have anything beyond the cosmetic fluff and your favorite performance compromise to recommend the PDQ? Nothing against the PDQ. It is a nice design generally well executed. But you sound like a salesman. There is a world of good boats out there. And, lets face it with a 700K budget you could do a lot better than any production 44 footer.

Tom

well, maybe what he meant with thoughtful fixtures was not cosmetic stuff alone. we've been looking for something in that range, with similar expectations for a long time, and the 44i ranks very high because of things like location of engines, shaft drive, the way lines are managed to the cockpit, etc. and the definition of a "production" cat is somewhat a gray area in this case, i think. fp/lagoon/rc production is truly industrial on a large scale, while old pdq/new antares and a few others like it (st. francis for example) are small enough that owner involvement during the building process seems much more welcome/possible.

[axel&andie]

Originally Posted by xxuxx

Wait just a gal darn minute here....you can't second it, you have to third it, I already seconded it in my post #9. Jeeze, guys tryin to rob my seconding it......the nerve

LOL. Ok, then, I'm "thirding" it!

By the way, for the 700k price range, I saw some really nice looking (one is owner's version -not chartered they say) FP Marquises 56s out there, too.

[Sebastian_W]

Hey WhataWorld. Why are you looking at the Lagoon 440 (you know it is being replaced by the Lagoon 450?), and not the Lagoon 400?

I have sailed on many boats, and will complete my RYA Yachtmaster over Christmas. How ever I have never lived on a boat for longer than 2 weeks at a time. While I think I have the a good idea of what I need and what I like, I still think that instead of going for what I could afford, I should look at going what is sensible. For solo-sailing why is a Lagoon 440 better than a 400? Is the little bit of extra space really worth the markup?

To be honest I have a feeling that no matter what boat I end up with, none will be perfect. Maybe after 1-2 years cruising and full time living aboard I will really understand what I need and want. So instead of going all out on the first boat, my logic is to buy something I can easily afford and eventually upgrade or significantly modify 1-2 years later. So I want a boat that has decent re-sale market and is good enough for the beginning.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Sebastian_W

... I have a feeling that no matter what boat I end up with, none will be perfect. Maybe after 1-2 years cruising and full time living aboard I will really understand what I need and want. So instead of going all out on the first boat, my logic is to buy something I can easily afford and eventually upgrade or significantly modify 1-2 years later. So I want a boat that has decent re-sale market and is good enough for the beginning.

Seems a pretty reasonable approach, to me.