Light weight cruising catamaran

[tiopirata]

I have sailed with,and competed against, John Hughes and can attest he is a boat builder and designer of extraordinary talent. I am also a little familiar with the vessel in question, a good boat indeed. 5.5 tonnes is not exceptionally light for a vessel of her dimensions, I have sailed many lighter and have come to prefer these. For a multihull, the enemy is weight and polar moments of inertia, a light multi with slim hulls and little rocker will generally be the most comfortable craft in pretty much most conditions.

[blubaju]

Have a look for Schionning Design, Australia. Well known for speed and light weight. Mine is the cruising type, Wilderness 1320, to short for what you like, hardchine, we have 2000kg payload. Sisterdesign Cosmos round bottom. I choose the hard chine bcs of the precut elements, assemble like a jigsaw puzzle, not much chance to be over weight. Waterline is the very sporty line, but for cruising you lack payload. To safe weight even our rudder stocks are carbon, 18.6m rotating carbon mast @ approx 80kg ;-)

These are the used older designs, new ones are Arrow, G-Force etc, have a look

schionningdesigns.com.au

That's the father, son is in the same business:

Spiriteddesigns.com.au

____
Even overloaded a cat probably floats to some point, but the waves hammering on the bridge deck from below, the cruel some performance....

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by fxykty

5.5 tonnes (light ship?) likely means only an additional 2 tonne or so of load capacity. For long term cruising, unless you like cutting toothbrushes in half, using ereaders to keep paper books off, and minimising the toys to keep the weight off, that’s really not much.

Monohulls joke about raising their waterline a cm or two for every additional year of cruising. That would be deadly for a super lightweight catamaran.

Smaller tanks, less ground tackle, smaller provisioning, smaller tender with smaller motor (or no motor at all, healthier); all of these may be just fine for the kind of cruising you want to do, or not.

Of course, the other issue of a lesser-known non-production boat is resale value and difficulty.

The specifications of the boat should state what the payload is. Stay within it and you are within design specs, and you've got no worries.

For some reason the forum is full of people talking about overloading without every mentioning what the designated payload is of their boats. Older boats I can understand, as the information might not be available, but all modern boats will have it clearly marked.

[tiopirata]

Schionnings, Gerard Danson Outremers, I like those. Slim hulls and moderate to light weight, these are the easiest boats to live with.

[alsail]

Thank you for your answers, keep them coming.
Tiopirata, same, I really like Outremer Danson.
I am trying to find out more about payload on Catenza, the owner said 2000, not sure if includes fuel and water.

[GRIT]

Typically, fuel and water are part of the payload.


Cheers, and good luck.
Paul.

[clakiep]

Originally Posted by alsail

Hi guys. Still hunting for catamarans, very hard to get anything atm, with the current situation. I am set on an Outremer 50 or 55, Danson design, no other production cats appeal to me, as my preference is for sleek, dagger board designs. I came across a very interesting 46 ft John Hughes design very well finished and built in NZ.
She is a very interesting boat, however, I have a few doubts/questions which maybe some of you can help me to clear.
She is 14 m by 8 m built in epoxy with kevlar bellow waterline. Looks exactly what I want, but, I am a bit put off, or I should say intimidated by her lightweight, 5.5t light displacement.
So provided that her construction is very solid, how do you see this boat behaving in heavy weather, if for some reason you can't outrun? Forgot to mention she's got dagger boards.
Thank you.

The ideal weight of a catamaran depends also a lot on the hull shape and overall desplacement, leading to bridge clearance between empty and max. loaded. Another disadvantage of very light, besides more 'rocky' in seas, is that it gets harder to come about for the lack of inertia.

Capt. Claus - ocean tramp of the eighties

[gerson]

Try a Maxim Voyager by Simonis Voght, a nice and light stable cat, with possible quarters
Its the best in the used cats market,

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by alsail

Thank you for your answers, keep them coming.
Tiopirata, same, I really like Outremer Danson.
I am trying to find out more about payload on Catenza, the owner said 2000, not sure if includes fuel and water.

Catenza payload 2000kg a light displacement of 5.5 tonnes with an all up of 7.5 tonnes.

To put this into perspective a Lagoon 440 has a stated payload of 2954kg a light displacement of 12.2 tonnes so an all up weight of over 15tonnes. Non technical build.

A 44ft Shuttleworth Cerys has a payload of 3000kg a light displacement of 4.5 tonnes and an all up weight of 7.5 tonnes. Very technical build.


The Catenza on paper has a sailing weight equal to the Shuttleworth with a lesser payload but is only half the sailing weight of the Lagoon.

[Mook1e]

I'm a total newbie, but I really like the Seawind 1600.

[alsail]

Tupaia, so then you think that Catenza is a good boat, suitable for liveaboard....

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by alsail

Tupaia, so then you think that Catenza is a good boat, suitable for liveaboard....

There is a very good book by Thomas Firth Jones titled Multihull Voyaging. It is old and probably out of print.


In it he describes in detail how to access payload for the number of people expected to be on board and the length of the voyage.


Catenza looks like a good performance catamaran far superior to the off the shelf offerings. Go for a sail on it and get a survey.

[Burnside Style]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

There is a very good book by Thomas Firth Jones titled Multihull Voyaging. It is old and probably out of print.


In it he describes in detail how to access payload for the number of people expected to be on board and the length of the voyage.


Catenza looks like a good performance catamaran far superior to the off the shelf offerings. Go for a sail on it and get a survey.

+1 on This advice! Jones goes in to pretty good detail about calculating payload, as well as lots of other multihull topics. Well worth the read even if it is "outdated" They put in lots of time on small multihulls and lots of their advice is still prudent to the ever weight conscious multihuller..

[Tupaia]

Alsail, no idea where you are based but in US

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Multihull-V...1&isGTR=1#shId
Quite a few on Amazon uk

[NevilleCat]

I have just done a quick scan of a Multihull World review of a sistership from 2006.
Unfortunately I don't have Adobe so can't stitch the pages together but will try and upload it...