Manta Questions

[Meck]

Hello,

I am somewhat interested in the Manta Catamarans, the 38 or 40 foot, but I can't seem to find much opinion on their sea worthiness and live aboard comfort.

Does anyone have some input or a link or two for more information on the Mantas?

Cheers,

Jon

[rallard]

Meck, for what it's worth, I don't know much about them except that a friend of mine had been inquiring about a 38 a while ago and came up with the info that they grew from 38 to 40 because the 38 was prone to hobby horsing.

[schoonerdog]

If you look in Kanter's book on sailing catamarans, you'll see a picture of the Manta (though it's not identified as such) when he talks about water flow from the transom and how extending the transom improves water flow.

[ksalt]

Hi Jon,
We've lived full time on a 1996 Manta 40 for over 3 years and cruised over 10,000 miles between New England and Grenada. All the mantas are great boats, there have been very few substantive changes between the first 38's and the last 42's. Mantas are offshore capable boats, many have crossed oceans, and several have done complete circumnavigations.

As for live aboard comfort, there is nothing better in this size category. Every aspect of the boat was designed with the live aboard cruiser in mind. Most other production cats were designed to maximize charterability (is that a real word?) Sail handling is a breeze with the self-tacking jib and electric winch. The dinghy hoisting system allows you to raise and lower the dinghy with very little effort, we never leave our dinghy in the water overnight. All have two large heads with separate showers, there is no 4 head charter version. If you have an opportunity to get onboard a Manta, check out the medicine cabinets in the heads. Your jaw will hit the floor. The galley has real kitchen-style cabinets and tons of counter space. The star of the boat is the refrigeration in my opinion. When we provision, we pack the freezer with 6 months of steaks, chicken, pork, etc. The whole system is very well insulated and draws 5 amps dc (that's for fridge and freezer combined). Most Mantas have 4-6 solar panels on the rigid bimini top. We can anchor for weeks without ever needing to run the engine or genset. The solar panels more than satisfy the requirements of refrigeration, watermaker, microwave, lights, and all our other electronics. I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit to other cruisers that we have a washer/dryer aboard, they just roll their eyes. (BTW we even run the washing machine off battery using the inverter, then line dry on the lifelines). The only time we need to run the genset is if we want to run the clothes dryer, hot water heater, or air conditioning at anchor. The water heater is also plumbed to the starboard engine so you get hot water anytime you motor. I could go on, as you can probably tell, we love our boat. And no, it's not for sale. Email me if you want to know anything else.

Kevin

[Therapy]

In my last 3 years of research of cats I have Manta as #1.
Multiple reasons only one of which is: Most all of the kit needed to cruise/live aboard is built into it. There is very little to add. Can't do that with most production boats.

But you should look to other boats..................because when the money is available I will probably bid on one and I don't need the competition.