Quote:
Originally Posted by caradow
Although there have been many discussions about the pros and cons of multihulls vs. monohull I have personally not found a thread that specifically addresses previous "owners" of multihulls that have gone back to monos.
So if you are out there would love to hear your reasons.
This would obviously apply to those who continue to cruise.
I do not think comments from those who charter would be of any benefit as those made by paid delivery skippers. Not because either group are not experienced but they have not lived the life of an actual owner. |
We've been both ways a few times. For us it was about what could we do for the
money. Our cruising is
Florida,
Bahamas mainly but we've done few trips between
Florida snd the Chesapeake.
After many years of
racing dinghys, the first
cruising sailboat we owned was a
Catalina 25 and after that a Kelly 24+2 that we raced more than cruised. From there we owned a Tartan 34 that we cruised from Clearwater to the Keys and
Dry Tortugas.
After that we bought a Stiletto 27 that we raced and weekended around Clearwater but it was camping out not really a cruiser. It was great fun though. At the time we lived on a shallow creek off the Gulf
ICW so the
draft was a main factor. During our
racing days we had an opportunity to
cruise an F28R from Clearwater to Boca Grande for a week. There's nothing like cruising at 18k with the tiller pilot
steering. It was a fabulous fun boat but definitely a camping adventure, not cruising.
Then we bought an Edel 35 down in St. Martin and brought it back to our house on the creek. It rested in the mud at low tide behind the house but it was a real cruiser with a touch of speed. We had the Edel up to 12k once and often saw 8s and 9s. Once we crossed from Spanish Wells to Little Harbor and easily outpaced the
Hunter 45 we were sailing with.
But... every decision we made in terms of cruising
equipment or supplies involved weighing it first. You know the tooth brush handles were cut off and drilled to lower their weight, that kind of nonsense. On the Edel Cat we had an 80 lb AB RIB and a 3hp
motor, 20 gal.
water tank, 12 gal of
fuel, and 6 gal of
propane. The boat
lost 6 inches of
draft ehen loaded for a month's cruise. Two trips to the
Bahamas convinced us to sell her and get a monohull.
If we had the cash, sure we would have preferred a 40+
catamaran, maybe a FP Cassamance or one of the early
Lagoon 42s. But our
budget for a boat was $50k not $200k. We bought a very nice 83
Ericson 38.
The
Ericson could be loaded for spending the
winter in the Bahamas and only move the waterline down an inch plus the boat still sailed beautifully. We carried 100gal of
water, 60 of
diesel, we had a 12ft RIB with a 15hp
motor, 20 gal of
propane. True, we couldn't keep it in the creek behind the house with 5ft of draft but then we didn't own that house anymore and the only time I can remember seeing ovrr 10knots on the
GPS was going out Galliot Cut with a spring ebb. But she always finished in the
rum when we raced at Staniel or
Georgetown and her motion in a seaway wasn't nearly as choppy as the Edel.
Still you could say the migration back to a mono was a
money issue but the Ericson was a better cruiser for our purposes.
As a footnote, I've also spent considerable time on Geminis and MaineCat 30s. Neither is my idea of an extended time cruiser. On the other hand we did a trip from Clearwater to
Key West with 5 adults and 4
kids on the Edel. She sailed like a slug but I would not crowd that many onto the Ericson. 4 staterooms and two heads made that trip tolerable. Horses for courses .
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