Are all multi hulls so noisy and unpredictable?

[Joli]

Originally Posted by Factor

rubbish. There are plenty of cruising multis that go to windward at least as well as comparable cruising monos.

You've responded to this comment twice but you're wrong. Upwind in a seaway for most multis isn't quick unless they're running an engine.

Move on and sell what cruising multis do well.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Joli

You've responded to this comment twice but you're wrong. Upwind in a seaway for most multis isn't quick unless they're running an engine.



Move on and sell what cruising multis do well.

Upwind in a seaway for most monos isn’t quick unless they’re running an engine.
Please move on and peddle your line of bs elsewhere.

[catsketcher]

Originally Posted by Joli

Upwind in a seaway for most multis isn't quick unless they're running an engine.

Move on and sell what cruising multis do well.

It depends on what you mean by most multis. If you talk about Australian designed and built multis (over here in Oz) I would disagree. Even if it not the case where you are, good multis will outdo a similar style cruising boat even to windward.

Attached is a photo showing my 21 year old cat sailing like a witch to windward. This is at the start of a 50 mile day sail hard on the wind till about 10 miles out when we could crack off a bit. An absolutely great sail and one of many hundreds (thousands?) of miles we have spent coasting to windward. I don't have photos of us often being the only boat sailing to windward and passing all the monos and friend's cat, them motoring straight into the wind whist we tacked back and forth.

My wife prefers the motion of our boat on the wind, our boat she sails well, really well. As for motion, when we launched her, I didn't build a table. I went to a furniture shop and bought a regular small dining table. I put it in the bridgedeck part thinking I should screw it down to the floor. I never did and in 15 years that table never moved - unless I pushed it. It is now my wife's desk at home. You can't do that on a mono.

Cats produce a different motion, and different cats will have different motions. To say "all cats do ....." is a silly as saying "all monos do ..." and putting all monos from John Sayer light displacement cruisers to Roberts Sprays in the same category.

Heavy and roomy charter based catamarans will have poorer windward performance than performance cats. But all cats will require some changes to make them behave well - I don't beam reach in a sea - I go either slightly higher or slightly lower than a beam reach to get the best motion, even changing heading above or below each 30 minutes or so to do so. Ensure that you do a great job of removing weight from the ends - light boats are weight sensitive, especially in the ends where weight is very harmful to pitch resistance and ensure your cat is low drag - reduce high structures and ensure that your underwater appendages are well shaped and clean.

For me this means a low and lighweight solar panel arch, lightweight dinghy, anchor chain back from the bow, water tanks amidships, tinned food in cupboards amidships, tools low down, only lightweight storage in the fore and aft sections of the boat, nice sails and always clean underwater sections, even with old antifoul. Then she rockets along and sails beautifully. I once had a 31 tri that pitched awfully when I poked our small inflatable into the bow - 20 something kilos way up front made her a terrible pitcher. Get the weight amidships every time you can.

You can choose what motion or performance you want. The performance and motion range within cats is vast. It does not help to generalise from a specific segment of the market when the diversity of cats is also vast as well.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Factor

rubbish. There are plenty of cruising multis that go to windward at least as well as comparable cruising monos.

I think there are three issues here.

Sheeting angles to the side decks can make it hard to get a catamaran to point. This is easily fixed with twings or barber-haulers.

Bridge deck slamming will definitely slow you down. This varies from design to design. Unfortunately you get what you get once you've bought a boat. Also unfortunately, higher bridgedecks come with increased windage which isn't good for pointing either.

Hull design is a big factor that applies across the board. Here catamarans generally do better than monohulls due to higher L/B ratios on each hull. Regardless, it is about the hull form(s) not the number of hulls. You won't get the same windward performance from a Passport 40 as you do from a Valiant 40.

I've moved a lot of catamarans I found unpleasant, not because they were cats but because of specific design choices and outfit. I can say the same about monohulls. @Snore and I can share some Jeanneau 64 stories. Jeepers.

In my opinion pointing to ocean crossings of one boat or another doesn't really contribute to the discussion. I've seen crews get off one boat bright and chipper while another boat that took the same route led to crews that came off miserable and slept for days. The experience matters.

[Tupaia]

are-all-multi-hulls-so-noisy-and-unpredictable? No.

is like asking,

are "all" monohulls quiet and predictable; and slow? Probably.

There are slow cats, there are fast cats and there are cats that are dogs. There are sporty twitchy monohulls and there are monohulls whose performance is best described as barge like, very very quiet and very predictable. There are trimarans, proas and cruising cats that foil.

You are asking a stupid question that will generate completely useless nebulous answers.

Have you sailed on a multihull and want to know if they are all like you experienced? If so ask a specific and describe the circumstances.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

You are asking a stupid question that will generate completely useless nebulous answers.

There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by mark_morwood

I've posted this "home" video before, so apologies to those who've already seen it, but this gives an idea of what it is like inside then outside a Catana 48 while sailing upwind in 20 to 25 knots of wind at around 8 knots of boat speed. We were sailing from Bermuda to the Azores which is often a nice passage, but on this occasion was an upwind slog. We had cracked off to a close reach to keep it fast and relatively comfortable. We were cruising not racing.

Mark.

I know that videos tend to understate the sea state, but from reading the waves in the video, it looks like a TWA of 80 degrees in 15-17 knots. That's OK if you have nowhere to go, but your routing program was probably calling for 50 TWA. Not only are the waves on the beam, but the wave height in 20-25 would be twice that in a couple of hours.

[smj]

Thanks for the beautiful picture Catsketcher!

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by catsketcher

It depends on what you mean by most multis. If you talk about Australian designed and built multis (over here in Oz) I would disagree. Even if it not the case where you are, good multis will outdo a similar style cruising boat even to windward.



Attached is a photo showing my 21 year old cat sailing like a witch to windward. This is at the start of a 50 mile day sail hard on the wind till about 10 miles out when we could crack off a bit. An absolutely great sail and one of many hundreds (thousands?) of miles we have spent coasting to windward. I don't have photos of us often being the only boat sailing to windward and passing all the monos and friend's cat, them motoring straight into the wind whist we tacked back and forth.



My wife prefers the motion of our boat on the wind, our boat she sails well, really well. As for motion, when we launched her, I didn't build a table. I went to a furniture shop and bought a regular small dining table. I put it in the bridgedeck part thinking I should screw it down to the floor. I never did and in 15 years that table never moved - unless I pushed it. It is now my wife's desk at home. You can't do that on a mono.



Cats produce a different motion, and different cats will have different motions. To say "all cats do ....." is a silly as saying "all monos do ..." and putting all monos from John Sayer light displacement cruisers to Roberts Sprays in the same category.



Heavy and roomy charter based catamarans will have poorer windward performance than performance cats. But all cats will require some changes to make them behave well - I don't beam reach in a sea - I go either slightly higher or slightly lower than a beam reach to get the best motion, even changing heading above or below each 30 minutes or so to do so. Ensure that you do a great job of removing weight from the ends - light boats are weight sensitive, especially in the ends where weight is very harmful to pitch resistance and ensure your cat is low drag - reduce high structures and ensure that your underwater appendages are well shaped and clean.



For me this means a low and lighweight solar panel arch, lightweight dinghy, anchor chain back from the bow, water tanks amidships, tinned food in cupboards amidships, tools low down, only lightweight storage in the fore and aft sections of the boat, nice sails and always clean underwater sections, even with old antifoul. Then she rockets along and sails beautifully. I once had a 31 tri that pitched awfully when I poked our small inflatable into the bow - 20 something kilos way up front made her a terrible pitcher. Get the weight amidships every time you can.



You can choose what motion or performance you want. The performance and motion range within cats is vast. It does not help to generalise from a specific segment of the market when the diversity of cats is also vast as well.

Nice boat!

[Master56]

Originally Posted by Factor

rubbish. There are plenty of cruising multis that go to windward at least as well as comparable cruising monos.

Rubbish. Comparison of length only, perhaps, but once you consider the cost they are incomparable.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Master56

Rubbish. Comparison of length only, perhaps, but once you consider the cost they are incomparable.

Superior products will cost more?

[mark_morwood]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I know that videos tend to understate the sea state, but from reading the waves in the video, it looks like a TWA of 80 degrees in 15-17 knots. That's OK if you have nowhere to go, but your routing program was probably calling for 50 TWA. Not only are the waves on the beam, but the wave height in 20-25 would be twice that in a couple of hours.

It was a while ago, so my memory is possibly faulty on some details, but that was 1/2 way between Bermuda and the Azores and we had had similar conditions for days. And if I remember correctly there were multiple different directions for the swell because of weather a long way to the south. And to be clear, I was not racing upwind, I was balancing comfort, speed and an expected 90 degree wind-shift in 48 hours when I would tack and make our northing. As it was I almost got it right, we tacked over with the wind-shift and were within about 30 miles of Flores when the wind shifted again and we turned on the engine and motor-sailed so we could get in that day.

It's not obvious, but the instrument repeater below the clock on the wall shows:
- TWA 70
- ​TWS 28kts
​- Speed 8 knots

And though I can't swear to the calibration of the instruments, those values matched my reading of the conditions and what I have in the log. The calibration of the particular wind instruments was generally pretty good upwind, but all over the place when sailing downwind with the spinnaker up.

The only thing I wanted to show was that it is possible to have a relatively comfortable ride in reasonably windy and wavy conditions in a cruising 48' catamaran heading in an upwind direction. Sorry if I inadvertently mislead anyone. Actually beating to windward in that would have been uncomfortable in any boat I have ever personally sailed on, monohull or catamaran. And I am also pretty sure that with less weight on board, or a smaller jib rather than the half furled all-round one we were using, or with a higher performance boat, you could have easily come up at least 10 degrees if not a lot more and still been comfortable. But that is conjecture.

[catsketcher]

The cost comparison is interesting. My cat is not worth a huge amount but I would have to pay much more to find a mono that could sit on her own bottom in Percy Lagoon or Hill Inlet, have 50cm draft when required, be able to surf NSW river bars in safety, average over 10 knots under autopilot for 150 mile daysails, hit high teens regularly, go from 2m draft to 50cm draft in 1 minute, carry two full sea kayaks and 3m hard dinghy, and go to windward anywhere near as well.

Finding a mono that could do do that would be really hard and awfully expensive, and she have compromises I would rather not agree to.

Cats, especially simple owner built custom cats, are great value for money if you consider all the requirements for cruising.

[Master56]

Originally Posted by smj

Superior products will cost more?

Ha ha ha good one.
A good 1968 Volkswagen Combi sells in Australia these days for stupid money i.e. >$50K. But they are still ugly slow shitboxes.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Master56

Ha ha ha good one.

A good 1968 Volkswagen Combi sells in Australia these days for stupid money i.e. >$50K. But they are still ugly slow shitboxes.

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]probably the same in the US!
I think Catsketcher has summed it up well as usual.