Hi Terry,
I just came back from Boniare and chatted a while with a couple that sail on a 60Ft Cat. They did mention that there are some issues and none are show stoppers but add cost and weight. She could not handle the winches on her own so they replaced them with
electric. They can not
anchor or tie up easily in heavy
wind so they had to get
remote controls for the engines as they both have to be out on the fore
deck at times.
They use walkie talkies to communicate when one keeps a look out as the distance makes speaking hard.
And they wish they had mounted cameras (my suggestion) in the
mast head. I had always planned on installing 1 IR
camera and a tilt/pan/zoom one facing front and a second one facing rear and if I can afford I will install 2 facing about 20ft our from each bow to capture the
water for narrow passages.
However now that I am done my Advanced Trimix
certification I am humming and hawing, my plan was always to go to a rebreather before I sail around the world but I am thinking of just sticking to air or nitrox at the most as it's too complicated to blend trimix on a cat (not sure keeping a large amount of 100% O2 appeals to me).
And if I am scrapping my rebreather idea then I need less space for dive
gear, but that just means a second
freezer and a second fridge + more
storage space for the folding bikes and so on.
Caribcat thanks for the warning, I have heard horror stories "added weight"
Peter