Would I be crazy to cross oceans on a 32' LWL, 11' beam catamaran?

[fish53]

Your heirs will thank you, after seven years of course.

[jmorrison146]

Originally Posted by Ike

Dreams are a wonderful thing. They are even more wonderful, if you can accomplish them and live to tell someone about it.

I am a retired Coast Guardsman. I have traveled the oceans, not crossed (except from Cal. to Hawaii, but have been in the North Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific and even a little bit of the Bering Sea and Labrador Straits. This was of course in a 327 foot ship. But I have been out there in smaller stuff. I would echo most of the advice you have been given. These people know whereof they speak. The ones who don't are the ones the Coast Guard has to lift off their boats (oddly enough the boat usually survives just fine) or direct someone else to rescue them. You cannot begin to imagine what it is like at sea until you've done it. I have seen everything from flat calm to hurricanes (3 of them) and they scared me spitless. Thank God (I mean that literally) I was on a ship specifically built to weather storms like that. As some one said on this thread you can't imagine the power of wind and wave. I've seen it rip steel ladders off the superstructure and stove in 1/2 inch steel plate and tear away a lifeboat. Anyway,

The mention of Steve Callahan is a case in point. (Stephan Callahan's book Adrift. ) I know him and have read his books. He was an experienced sailor. But the unexpected can happen. Fortunately he was fairly well prepared. Read Adrift! You will learn a lot.

Listen to these people. Take their advice to heart. Get a boat that will survive despite you. See my comment above. Often the boats are found months later drifting along just fine by themselves. It's the people that are the most in peril. I've lost count of the number of times a CG Helo has lifted someone off a boat at sea, and the boat survived just fine.

Last but not least, if you do this, buy an EPIRB, a Marine radio, a good self inflating liferaft, and when you figure out how much food, water, fuel etc you need, double it. as someone else said 100 days is not unreasonable. Last but not least, before you go, tell someone you trust, someone who loves you and will miss you when you do not arrive, or go silent, what you are doing, your sail plan, a good description of you and you boat, what equipment you have and when you plan to arrive at your destination. It is far easier for the Coast Guard (or anyone else) to find you if things go bad.

Sound advice from a fellow Coastie.

[Jim Cate]

Lets see if I've got this right:

You propose to cross oceans on a boat designed by an inexperienced amateur, propelled with an untried electrical system designed by an inexperienced amateur with minimal grasp of even the basic requirements of such a system, and with no backups... and you are asking if the prospect is crazy?

Well, if I do have it right,, yep, crazy.

Jim (who has crossed oceans in boats designed by experts, built by experts, and with several layers of redundancy and who has been humbled by the events on the passages)

[catman]

Can be done but i would hedge my bets by istalling one large longboard windsufrfing sail on each bow.
Pop a socket in each bow drop in unstayed mast sheets to cockpit.
The bauty of these are many fold ; low center of force, easy to take down in bad weather,
cost effective, they actually are quite efficient.
A frien of mine built a 20’ sport cat and was impressed at how well they worked.
Cheers

[robert 56]

crazy ? whats crazy ?i know i wouldn"t do it . i saw a short film about yvan bourgnon sailed around the world on a 21 ft catamaran . great film by the way . while in ponape ,microniesa in the 80"s i met an englishman his name was terry sailed from england on a 16 ft boat . i am just saying

[Shaneesprit]

i thought about this for a while, not about the idea but about convincing you, i know you wont die because you wont get far enough from the beach.
However there is always the how i treat situations in my work where i don't agree with someones ideas, Never dismiss them only seek to prove them wrong, to this end, may i suggest you carry out a test.

buy the cheapest floating thing ( boat ) you can find, fit your 500 watt outboard to it, with some batteries and a solar panel, and go out on it early in the morning somewhere safe, motor on full power and you will see its not possible by the end of the day.

[sailores35]

Originally Posted by dustman

According to calculations the boat should do about 6kn on 500 watts and about 8kn on 1000 watts. It would be powered by an electric Torqeedo outboard fed by both solar and generator power. Of course I would have several backup options that would allow me to limp along if my main systems failed.



The advantage in my mind is primarily safety. Not having sails seems like it would yield a much more stable ride without the possibility of being knocked down by high winds. Also, trying to deal with sails single handed during a storm seems quite dangerous. Setting up and balancing all the sails, rigging, and associated strong attachment points adds up to serious complications in construction and limits the simplicity of the layout options. I also imagine navigating in tight and/or shallow places would be much easier. Overall it seems like a much more enjoyable way of cruising.

Actually sails are the number one safety factor for offshore cruising. Think you need to rethink your plan.

[CFS Klopas]

The trolling motor on my 7.5' inflatable dinghy draws 400-500W. It will do around 2.7 kt with 400 pounds or so in the dinghy.

[hellosailor]

"According to calculations the boat should do about 6kn on 500 watts and about 8kn on 1000 watts."
You're talking about going roughly 7 knots on one horsepower. (1hp= about 750w). Damned good trick unless you're on a surfboard. Might want to look at some field observations and then see what the calculations have grossly missed.

[mako]

Not sure if the OP dustman is still following this thread, but if anyone wants a quick estimation of powering requirements then go to the Vicprop calculator. It is based on Gerr and is a good approximation.

https://www.vicprop.com/calculator.htm

[Miki]

I have crossed both ways in my FP Maldives 32". This is a pretty lightweight and reasonable performance catamaran.
We had enough fuel for 120 miles only. Why weigh a sailing boat down?
Going West was a boring doodle.
Coming back East was force 7 to 8 most of the way and very challenging.
Never felt the boat couldn't take what weather we had. I had my son at home guiding/routeing us especially regarding strong or calm winds.
At one point in light winds a "heavy" yacht took most of the day to motor past us in light winds as we sailed serenely on.
Go for it!