You shouldn't have any problem with most 38ft catamarans.
Jetti and I lived on board our 32ft performance cruiser Eclipse for 5 years and, from the UK, sailed to the
Caribbean,
Bahamas, up to
Maine, down to
Cuba,
Belize and C America. So first, is that the sort of cruising you mean by "extended cruising'. Or do you mean non stop
round the world??
Eclipse was a performance cruiser and won many important races before becoming our
live aboard home. So the loading capacity was marginal at about 1500lbs.
However in that weight we carried enough
food and
water for 3 people for an
Atlantic crossing, also a sailing
dinghy, a
sewing machine, most of the tools I used to build the
boat, 3
computers, a solid
fuel stove, 8
sails, a
generator, lots of
books and DVDs, enough
fuel for 200 miles motoring etc etc. And we could still average 9 knots all day and peak speeds of 14-16 knots were common.
We now have a 34ft
catamaran, Romany, a proper cruising
boat this time. With the same sort of
gear on board we are still floating above our marks even when living on board (last
winter we sailed from
Annapolis to the
Bahamas; Romany is now in the St Johns river, Fl)
I said "non stop round the world" earlier. The first
catamaran to sail round Cape Horn was a 30ft Oceanic sailed by Rosie and Colin Swale and their two young
children (one was born on board). They sailed non stop from
Australia round Cape Horn and back to the UK in the early 1970's. Look for Rosie Darling and
Children of Cape Horn at Amazon for more.
In proportion if a 30 ft cat can carry 2000lbs load, a 34ft cat 4000lbs then a 38ft cat can easily carry 5500lbs, as loading capacity depends on the cube of the length (by and large)
And 5500lbs is a lot of
beer, especially if you brew it yourself.
You can see more about my Eclipse and Romany as well as lots of basic background information on catamarans on my website, below.
I hope this helps
Richard Woods of Woods Designs
Woods Designs Sailing Catamarans
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