Characteristics of a Circumnavigating Cat

[imagine2frolic]

settingsail,

CONGRADULATIONS on making a tough decision. I guess the next tough decision will be your first port of destination..............ENJOY

[schoonerdog]

settingsail,

Were I to pick a dream boat I'd choose the exact same thing. Great choice. BTW, if you get it before fall 2010 and are in the chesapeake, let me know. I'd love to come over and see it.

[jzk]

Originally Posted by Nordic cat

I have decided to have some short LAR keels that will be 30cms/1 ft under the deepest part of the hulls, and then let the daggerboards exit these in a way that leaves the daggerboard hole protected from debris and stones etc.

This gives me the best of both worlds. Protection of the props and rudders, as well as windward perforfmance. The bottom of the rudders will be 15cm/6" higher up, and be the balanced type

The mini keels are also meant to be used when hauling the boat, or beaching, to get the bottom free for cleaning.
This is made possible by the fact that the balance point of the boat and the daggerboard position are pretty much the same when using a bi-rig.

Alan

Have you checked the design of the Outremer? They have Daggerboards, then a skeg to protect the prop and rudder. Gunboat told me this skeg ruins performance, but if you have the drag of the prop and rudder anyway, I am not so sure. I certainly think it worth the compromise to protect the prop and rudder of a cruising boat.

And, the outremer can be beached just fine. It sits on the bottom of the hull and the skeg, as the rear of the hulls slope up a bit.

[pilot]

SettingSail 2009,

congratulations on your decision to go with the FASTCAT 435! From what Gideon is publishing it sounds like a good idea!
When will Gideon be able to deliver your cat?

Fair winds

[Therapy]

SS09

Congratulations.

A boat is a dream.

To be able to afford one of those is a dream for another night.

[Stella Polaris]

Originally Posted by imagine2frolic

CONGRADULATIONS on making a tough decision. I guess the next tough decision will be your first port of destination..............ENJOY

Thank you. I'm actually going to sail to Stavanger in Norway first and spend a year there getting the boat ready and prepare for the circumnavigation. I think that if I can sail in the rough conditions you frequently find off the coast of Norway, you can sail anywhere.

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

Were I to pick a dream boat I'd choose the exact same thing. Great choice. BTW, if you get it before fall 2010 and are in the chesapeake, let me know. I'd love to come over and see it.

I'm happy that you agree with my choice. Your help and assistance has been God-sent. I'm shooting over "the pond" late 2009, so chances are we might be able to meet up. You'd certainly be very welcome onboard.

Originally Posted by pilot

congratulations on your decision to go with the FASTCAT 435! From what Gideon is publishing it sounds like a good idea!
When will Gideon be able to deliver your cat?

I'm actually not buying a new FastCat, I'm buying Hull #1. That was the only way I could afford one. I'll be picking it up a month from now in Amsterdam.

Originally Posted by Therapy

A boat is a dream. To be able to afford one of those is a dream for another night.

You have to dare to dream the dream to achieve it.

[Southern Star]

Congratulations Andreas - I am extremely envious, she seems like she'll be a terrific boat. Of course, we'll be looking forward to updates as you become familiar with her.
Who knows - perhaps some day we'll meet up should you end up on Margarita Island for hurricane season.

Brad

[vanrudder]

I know the Brazapi cats very well and they reduce movement by placing as much as possible weight near the center of gravity of the boat (and build as light as possible)
Togetehr with the hulls designed by E Lerouge, this gives a very comfotable cat.
As for the galley, they build as well with a galley down as up

[GordMay]

So, what's your connection with Brazapi Catamaran Builders?

[Stella Polaris]

Originally Posted by GordMay

So, what's your connection with Brazapi Catamaran Builders?

Hi Gord,

I was just about to ask Vanrudder the same thing, as this is the second time I see advertising "like" posts from him.

[Stella Polaris]

Originally Posted by vanrudder

I know the Brazapi cats very well and they reduce movement by placing as much as possible weight near the center of gravity of the boat (and build as light as possible)
Togetehr with the hulls designed by E Lerouge, this gives a very comfotable cat.
As for the galley, they build as well with a galley down as up

I was just onboard a Brazapi catamaran 10 minutes ago. One just pulled in to the marina as I was reading your "advertisement" for them. My first impression was that it is not a cat for me. The salon has a heigh of quite a lot less than 183 cm (6 feet) so I really had to walk around hunched down inside the salon. There was standing height in the hulls, but only barely so. I also didn't like the finish inside, as it looked very old fashioned and rough. I'm also a fan of having two enignes, one in each hull and not a central mounted one as this one had.
I really don't want to get into a discussion about the Brazapi, as it's a cat I'm not interested in, particularly now that I've bought a boat. If you want to talk about the merits of the design, please start a separate thread, where people can discuss it.

[vanrudder]

Sorry my mail was off, so i was not able to answer. I work with Brazapi mainly on the production side and I'm intrested in forums as to see if Brazapi is on the right track.
The opinions of the those who sail are important aren't they??
As for the Brazapi you saw, that is kind of a special child. It's standing hight is only 1,6 and not the usual 2,05, there is only one engine and not the usual two. You guessed it, it is in fact a one off, hence the longer building time.
It is know that that sailor (it is is fourth boat, his boat before that one was a Brazapi too) is in the real thing. He rounded cape horn with it and dreams about doing the west east passage.
ANyway, untill now it was difficult to master building times (and costst!) , therefore we organised a new yard in sri lanka. It all looks very promissing and securing.
I'm always interested in technical discussions. I hope you do not mind me being in this forum

[fastcat435]

Hallo Andreas

I was wondering how you like living on board the FastCat 435 ?
You have made your initial trip to Norway so please comment on it.

Greetings

Gideon

[freetime]

Looking forward to a report from the first trip. Don´t forget pics.

Congrat to the lovely boat.

[Stella Polaris]

I posted this in another thread, but here it is again:

I'm back in Stavanger, Norway with African Innovation.

The trip from Ijmuiden to Norway took pretty much exactly 2 days (51 hours plus some change). We sailed around 415nm, so the average for the trip was 8,1 knots. An average I was very happy with considering that the wind was between 11 - 15 knots pretty much the whole trip. The wind peaked at 21 knots for an hour and we had a low of 4 knots for a few hours as well. It must be empasized that we were sailing with the wind on the nose the whole trip and had it between 30 - 50 apparent the whole trip. The best speed we logged was 14 knots, when the wind gusted to 21, but what I was most happy with was doing 11 knots in 13 knots of wind (something we did sustained for almost 4 hours off the coast of the Netherlands).

Prior to this trip I had only sailed an FP Athena 38 for a week, so I am by all accounts a novice catamaran sailor (though I've lived on and sailed monohulls for a number of years). Taking that into consideration I think we performed very well.

The pictures Gideon posted are from the trip (I sent them to him right after I made landfall in Norway). The top left one shows us doing 10.2 knots in 12.4 knorts of wind. This was right after we had done 11 in 13, when we realized we should have taken a picture. The top right is where I'm currently in Norway. The bottom left while we're in the middle fo the North Sea (I'm to the right). Bottom left is when we were moving into Stavanger (Byfjorden).

Another thing that impressed me. We stopped the engine when we hoisted the sail outside IJmuiden and lowered it 51 hours later, when the wind completely died when we passed to Håstein (right outside Stavanger).

In terms of bridgedeck slamming. I measured my boat before we set sail: 66cm at the lowest point. Not incredibly high, but not very low either. Throughout the whole trip we had no problems with slamming or wave slapping. The North Sea is famous for short steep waves and though we did encounter them, we didn't feel them. We enjoyed a nice smooth ride the whole trip. I will have to get used to the movement of a multi-hull, because it is different from a mono-hull. I don't think it's better or worse, but it's definitely different. Not as predicatble as a monohull, but not as dramatic either.

The big question is always: What broke or what went wrong? Not much. I tore a gennaker (When we experienced the 4 knots of wind, we changed course to get the wind off our beam so that we could use the gennaker ... naturally the wind picked up after a little while and though we enjoyed sustained winds at 16 for about 15 minutes, it suddenly peaked at 21 and we must have gottan a flap and wham bam ... I had a nice big tear.) Needless to say we switched back to main + genoa and had no more problems with the sails for the rest of the trip. Other than that we had no incidents worth mentioning. It was a brilliant sail and all three of us onboard had a great time.