Just wanted to pass this on. We have
beer can races here in
Annapolis every year. People basically can use two
beer cans and make them into any shape they want. These
boats are then put into a large shallow pool with some big industrial fans behind them and raced. The whole contest is for charity and it's a lot of fun. The winning designs are typically catamarans or tri's, but one thing was interesting to see. Many people would make their
catamaran hulls nice and narrow and long and fairly stable, but connect them with cross beams that were joined at about half way up their hulls. The result is that the
boat would only have a small amount of clearance underneath the
boat. As the races would start, these
boats would start moving very well. Then as they gained speed their bow wakes would hit their low crossbeams and stop them dead. The boats would then start again and stop again all the way across the pool. Interesting lesson on wakes in boats. A larger boat would have more mass and momentum, but still would be hampered by the wave action. I used to own and older
PDQ 36 that had the step down into the main
cabin that caused it to have 10" of clearance. When fighting up
wind to get into the chesapeake it would struggle to make any forward progress at all, I suspect because of the bridgedeck hitting the waves. Down
wind it wouldn't be much of an issue, in fact waves could push you along. My present boat has far better clearance and is much faster up wind, around 9 knots in 14 knots of wind sailing 55 degrees into the wind. Anyway, when people discuss how bridgedeck clearance is important in catamarans, that's what comes to the front of my mind. Not the slap, but the lack of ability to beat into the wind.
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