Am pleased to report that after an epic 7 day voyage, I'm now back in my home port safe and sound with my new
Catalac 900.
Have encountered averything from
fog, rain, cold, hot, flat calm and force 7 seas and am pretty impressed what these little
boats can do.
Majority of the way we motorsailed, the
boat doesn't have a very heavy duty
battery setup so we needed to keep one
engine running most of the time to keep the
batteries topped up as the
autopilot needed all the juice it could get! It was also helpfull for a bit of extra
power and stability in high seas, however, the
fuel ecconomy is remarkable. From the very top of
Spain right round to the Algarve at the bottom of
Portugal she used 55 liters, not bad for 500 miles!
Overall, i'm delighted with her. The layout is a HUGE improvement over the old 9m on which she's based and is perfect for me. The enclosed
helm is wonderfull for long passages and also means the main
saloon has full standing
headroom, something a 9m only has if you don't mind being the
saloon being open to the elements.
There are only two main downsides. As i've been told before, these are terrible into the
wind. The short
hull doesn't like going into the waves and you get an uncomfortable at best porpoising motion. Anything aft of the beam though is fine and these
boats just LOVE downwind sailing. My
GPS tells me that we managed to hit 18.1 kts surfing down a wave in a force 7 sea!!!
The other quible, although minor, is the tinted windows. during the day they're great but a night you loose tons of visability. Imagine trying to berth in the dark with your singlasses still on and you get the idea.
A special mention should goto Phil (boatman61 on here) who I got to help with the
delivery. If any of you guys need a
delivery skipper in the future, he's your man for sure. Had a great week with him and he makes a mean cheese on toast as well!
Here's a few pics from the trip.....