Characteristics of a Circumnavigating Cat

[Stella Polaris]

I don’t have a lot of experience with cats, having been a monohull sailor my entire life. Now that I’m planning a circumnavigation, I’m seriously looking at catamarans. The thing is that I don’t have the knowledge compounded by owning and sailing several cats, so I turn to you.

When trying to pick a cat that will be good for water sailing">blue water sailing and comfortable to live on for a few years what characteristics do you think I should look for?

Here is a list of what I’ve put down, that I hope you will comment on:
1. Size. In order to live comfortably, I think it should be between 35 – 44 feet in length. This is from both a safety and a comfort point of view (and budgetary restraints).
2. Visibility from inside when seated. Many catamarans I look at have a large saloon, with lots of light coming in from the windows, but as soon as you sit down on the couch, you don’t see the horizon outside. I consider it important not only for safety, but also for the pleasure of looking outside that you should be able to have as close to 360 degrees visibility as possible when seated in the saloon.
3. Good sailing performance. Some cats sail great when they have no extra gear on board, but are sluggish and have poor performance when they get loaded with the gear and supplies necessary for a circumnavigation.
4. A forward facing nav station inside.
5. A good galley up.
6. A comfortable cockpit with good protection from the elements.
7. A high bridgedeck clearance, but how high is enough? … How is the trade-off between clearance and windage?
7. A good targa for solar panels, radar, GPS and dingy davits.

Things I don’t really want:
1. Daggerboards – When you live and sail on a boat constantly in new waters, there is a large chance, no matter how careful you are, that at some point in time you will have “a-touch-and-go” or a grounding. With daggerboards that could mean serious structural damage to the cat.
That's actually all I could think of now, but I'm sure you can think of more.

These are the design things I've thought of so far. In terms of on board things, like heating, watermaker, etc., I have a long list as well, but since these are the same for mono’s and multi’s, I only want to look at specific design elements on a cat in this thread. If you know of cats that have many desirable design elements or examples of great design, I would love to see them or read more about them.