Cruising Cat vs. Cruising Mono Performance

[Morgan Paul]

Nice job, keep going man, get her in the water.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by ireaney

Great work I'm very impressed, you must be delighted with the way it is going. Being curious how have you finished the white surfaces, are they painted, gel coated or what, the reason I ask is that I am considering (as we have discussed before) building a Fusion 40 and I am curious at how the best way to get a good interior finish without using heavy wood so as to keep the weight down.
Thanks
Ian

G'day Ian,

The sad answer is - bloody hard work is the only way to keep it light. I faired all the interior surfaces the usual way - bog, sand, bog, sand, bog, sand, spray bog, sand, spray highbuild, sand, sand some more, sand again, sand a bit more, then paint.

Getting the insides of compound curves to look good is really hard. (A scary thought re the fusion, it has lots of them) On the roof I used a semi-gloss polyurethane paint. If I wanted to go full gloss I would need to put in a LOT more work.

On the vertical surfaces I used a high solids, epoxy paint from Jotun, called Jotacote 605. Rolled on with a 5mm mohair roller.(3 coats) it has a slight texture, a bit like a car dashboard. Semi-gloss again. It hides a few imperfections quite well. It's actually a pale cream colour - I just mixed white and what they call "warm white" (cream) together until it matched the colour of the roof.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Nordic cat

I'll second that! She looks nice and light as well.

What did you use for the countertops down in the hull? Is it strong enough to use as a workbench (within reason)?
I'd also like to know about the stanchions, are they built in carbon?

Keep up the fantastic work-a job you can truly be proud of.

Regards

Alan

G'day Alan,

the benchtops are 13mm Duflex. Don't know if you've heard of it, it's an endgrain balsa /fibreglass sandwich. 13mm balsa with 800gsm biaxial glass each side. You can walk on it no worries. Very tough and light.

The staunchions look like carbon, but they are glass. 6mm wall thickness, they fit over solid flass posts that are built into the boat. Very strong, and no chance of leaks.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

So what would happen if the response was "I don't own a Cat"??

I get the impression he doesn't own it anymore, but he did say he built one, and i was curious about it. He doesn't seem keen to answer anyway, so I'm not going to ask again.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

Wow 44CC, she's beautiful. What a stunning job your doing.
I woudl love to know what kinda price you think this is going to cost you. PM me if would rather that not being public.

So far the boat owes me about $80,000 - $85,000. I was keeping a spreadsheet but the PC crapped itself so it got lost. I'm just about at the expensive part, where I start buying expensive stuff and bolting it on. I think it will come in under $180,000 (Aus), ready to sail.

[Alan Wheeler]

Wow that is a really good price. You are going to have quite some asset when you are finished. Not always the case when building boats.

[Mike Banks]

Well-- I have an ancient but well mannered trimaran. It does about half wind speed, tacks through about ninety degrees and is loaded to the max but we do not care.

Monohulls regularly pass us and wave--but not too many cruising monohulls manage it. It all depends on how clean their hulls are and what sort of shirts they have on the line and how many of them there are.

At anchor there are few vessels as well mannered as this little tri. One of my pals has a cat of similar length. His is also very comfy in a choppy anchorage. Sailing we are about even I think--but I never put up all of the sails. I am happy at six or seven knots--and the most I ever got from her with just the genoa and main was a little over eight knots in under twenty knots of breeze--but she was very heavy with all tankage full and tools and spares aboard.

Windage is what gives a monohull any advantage it may have--there is more of the vessel living space under the surface and less of it being pushed sideways by the wind. On the other hand--a monohull of similar size to mine would be carrying five to seven tons of ballast to make it stand up to the wind.

Horses for courses. I would only have a multi for light coastal cruising, and my preference for an ocean crosser would be an alloy or steel hulled mono.

[catty]

Congratulations 44c, looks like your getting a good finish. I can appreciate the huge commitment in time and energy in building a boat. The enormity of the task can be best appreciated by one who has been there themselves.

The early construction photos appear to show a lovely flat run forward, ala a cuningham quickcat or a neil fowler arafura cadet. It should present a lovely "v" form to the water when flying a hull to windward ,a bit like a heeled sharpie hull.

[ssullivan]

Thread drift warning!!!

I'm off to take delivery of the cat today! Stocking here up with tools, food, etc... BYE BYE performance! ha ha

Will report in later with "why is this messed up?" and whatnot.

[imagine2frolic]

Cat Man Do,

Possibly instead of the dark side. He has come over to the enlightened side......LOLOLOL... I have put on my flak jacket for those who think differntly....LOLOL

Cruising cat,

I am sometimes tempted to sell Imagine, and build the boat I want. Then I think of all that sweat, cursing, labor, dust, and my minds change once again. The work is looking great....................

[lucseawalker]

Well said!
And then you have also to look at trimarans ... perhaps a great middle ground??

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

No controversy - to compare two different boats on speed you have to race between two or more points.

There are fast and slow cats and fast and slow mono's.

There are boats you wanna spend 30 days on and there are boats you can't wait to get off after 30 hours.