New design performance catamarans are heavy - why is that?

[Catalacmarc]

Taste as well as the market does nvary. Sailed a 9M Catalac from the 70s for 15 years.If you guys are arguing about whether this or that cat is a performance coupe or a family sedan, the Catalac was a quarter ton truck. If you were in a Catalac 12M(41'), you would likely be the last boat in BUT you would get in no matter what was thrown at you.

[ozolli]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

What boat do you sail?

I am fortunate enough to have been working in the industry for the last 35 years in France and test sail (commission) a lot of production boats, racing boats and superyachts.
For example the new Marsaudon ORC57 on next wednesday.

I have mainly raced and cruised monohulls around Europe, especially on the infamous Bay of Biscay and the funny waters of the English Channel.

[dwightsusan]

My opinion: Go very fast, go very comfortable, go relatively inexpensive - you can only have one. In the 1990's when my best friend and I designed and built my family's catamaran down here on the Texas Riviera, I had money, time and more than 40 years of inshore and offshore sailing experience, including a lot of racing. Fast motorcycles, fast cars, fast airplanes, fast women, and fast boats hooked me at a tender age. There was nothing on the market then and there is still nothing on the market that suited me. Custom was my only option. Light weight (12,500 empty), very fine hulls, minimal wetted surface, minimal draft with daggers for windward work, powerful rig, 28 ft. beam, 47(+/-) ft. LOA (+sprit) in a near race boat with modest, but livable creature comforts. Still doing the job after 20 years of use along the Gulf Coast most everywhere between Isla Mujeres and Key West, down through the Bahamas, and up the East Coast. New design (true) performance catamarans are not available from commercial builders. There's no market for them. Custom is the only way for someone like me who can still find pleasure standing under an icy cold shower tearing up Benjamin's.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Happ

The answer is simple. People want bigger boats with more load carrying capacity. Do you have A/C? How big is your Refer? How many gallons of water do you carry or do you have a water maker? Add more cabins and more storage in them. All these with the additional piping, venting, cabinetry along with additional equipment add to the load carrying requirement of a boat. To keep the speed you have to change the hull designs. The current thought is more volume in the bows. Add larger sails to maintain performance and you’ve accomplished your mission. Of course larger sail require larger winches. If you use winches what do you care if the mechanical advantage is greater?

I really think you are trying to convince yourself that you have a better boat. Maybe. But having to throttle back at 7knts doesn’t sound like much of a performance catamaran. Just my observation.

Hmmm, you didn't take my throttling back comment in context - I did provide a range 7-10 knots and it was for comfort in open ocean conditions. In the right conditions we can happily average 12-15 knots close reaching to downwind, which means surfs and surges into the low 20s. Usually with several metre swells and wind waves to match the wind it really is more comfortable to reef down and keep the average speed below 10 knots - that's still well over 200 miles per day. I don't care if you don't think that's reasonable for a performance cruising cat, but that's your business. Just don't misquote me, thanks.

Regarding comforts, we have no AC but will be fitting it in the space the removed diesel generator once used. We have one 130l fridge and one 130l freezer. 2x 200l water tanks plus 40l water heater and a 60l/h DC water maker. 2x 200l fuel tanks. 3 double cabins and two heads, though we have converted the forward cabin into a work room. The still and beer brewing kits go in the aft guest cabin as the movement in the work room is too much during fermenting and clearing. And we have plenty of toys as we cruise to have fun, not to endure. Thankfully our design allows over 3000kg in loading.

My question about the more powerful and heavier modern boats isn't strictly about larger sails - of course winches take care of the loads. I'm simply wondering about the safety aspects of short handed crews of two handling the bigger loads that are present in a more powerful boat - at some point it becomes scary. A low or mid-displacement boat with lots of power can be dangerous in a way that a heavy powerful boat is not, due to hull lifting and much higher speeds. Especially with an autopilot doing the driving.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by fxykty

As an owner of an older performance cruising cat, designed in the early 90s for owner operators and liveaboards with the conservative build materials and technologies of that era, I’m very curious about the current crop of production performance cruising catamarans. They look to me to be heavy and powerful - very different than our classic performance cruising cat from 30 years earlier. This provides much greater accommodation space, but I believe at the cost of managing a much more powerful boat. Is this a good thing for cruising couples?

Our boat has skinny hulls with lots of volume up front (rounded bows), moderate rocker (max hull depth 80cm), relatively low prismatic coefficient (volume is concentrated in the middle third), is relatively narrow (44% overall beam to length), has small accommodation spaces, and a relatively small rig. She sails very easily but in open water needs to be throttled back to stay comfortable (7-10 knots is generally good). Mid-teens are OK reaching and downwind, but in big waves that can result in surfs to the high 20s. Maximum speed we’ve seen in flat water is 24 knots, two sail reaching with an offshore breeze, and our windward hull’s waterline was 20cm up. All time maximum was 29.5 knots. The polars I’ve seen for the boat don’t even go into the 20s.

All that is to contrast with new design cats in the same size range, that is 50-60 feet, 15.5-17m. And also to older designs from guys like Schionning, whose boats even back in the day were wide and powerful. These new boats have polars well into the 20s, much higher prismatic coefficients, and are generally much larger boats all over. I expect that they’re more comfortable at higher speeds in seas due to the added displacement. Certainly, except for the Seawind, they have quite a lot of carrying capacity. Again I ask, for a couple cruising, is the added power a good thing?

2003 Outremer 55L - 16.4m LOA, 7.3m BOA, 0.8/2.4m draft, 19.2m mast, 122m^2 sail area, 7550kg lightship, 11,300kg loaded. And remember, this is an E-glass and vinyl ester build, no exotics anywhere except for foam core furniture, bulkheads and floors.

2020 Outremer 55 - 16.7m LOA, 8.3m BOA, 1.3/2.3m draft, 22m mast, 152/172m^2 sail area, 13,500kg lightship, 18,500kg loaded

2021 Seawind 1600 - 16.1m LOA, 8.1m BOA, 0.6/2.6m draft, 22m mast, 144.5m^2 sail area, 13,600kg loaded (positively lightweight compared to the two others)

2022 HH55 - 16.7m LOA, 8.1m BOA, 1.3/3.3m draft, 24m mast, 195m^2 sail area, 14,700kg lightship, 19,633kg loaded

For what it’s worth I sailed an Outremer 55X (60’) with only myself and the owner. I was in my late sixties and the owner was a few years older. We sailed approximately 1,0000 miles non stop. Our route took us up the Gulf Stream with some shifty winds. We had absolutely no problems.

[markiobe]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Catsketcher’s last post is worth reading twice.

This is exactly what we are after with high-performance catamarans.

Exactly

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by markiobe

Exactly

By definition this means that to achieve light wind performance the boat itself has to be light and more importantly be able to point high to windward.


To be able to achieve 8 knots boat speed in 8 knots of wind the closest TWA would be about 60deg and this equates to an AWA of 30deg. Many cats cannot achieve this by virtue of their windage, underwater profile and sheeting angles. So we get back to lightweight, streamlined cats with dagger boards. The same configuration that gives high top end speeds.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

By definition this means that to achieve light wind performance the boat itself has to be light and more importantly be able to point high to windward.


To be able to achieve 8 knots boat speed in 8 knots of wind the closest TWA would be about 60deg and this equates to an AWA of 30deg. Many cats cannot achieve this by virtue of their windage, underwater profile and sheeting angles. So we get back to lightweight, streamlined cats with dagger boards. The same configuration that gives high top end speeds.

Again... exactly!

That’s why most production boats are no good. They don’t shoot for this as the end goal.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

By definition this means that to achieve light wind performance the boat itself has to be light and more importantly be able to point high to windward.


To be able to achieve 8 knots boat speed in 8 knots of wind the closest TWA would be about 60deg and this equates to an AWA of 30deg. Many cats cannot achieve this by virtue of their windage, underwater profile and sheeting angles. So we get back to lightweight, streamlined cats with dagger boards. The same configuration that gives high top end speeds.

Are there any cruising cats that can do 60TWA/30AWA ?

[OffTheCharts]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Again... exactly!

That’s why most production boats are no good. They don’t shoot for this as the end goal.

I mean... wouldn't it be more accurate to say "No good for you"?

We're years off a purchase (hi, I'm delurking to post this) in the learning and researching phase. But there's definitely a balance point between comfort and speed. Enough speed to be safe is definitely a thing but comfort isn't worth nothing. From the sales and strong second hand market for modern production cats, I would suspect that many people have slightly different priorities from you - and that's okay?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by OffTheCharts

I mean... wouldn't it be more accurate to say "No good for you"?

We're years off a purchase (hi, I'm delurking to post this) in the learning and researching phase. But there's definitely a balance point between comfort and speed. Enough speed to be safe is definitely a thing but comfort isn't worth nothing. From the sales and strong second hand market for modern production cats, I would suspect that many people have slightly different priorities from you - and that's okay?

No, you missed the point. You didn’t read the post again. Lol

There is no balance point between comfort and speed. The definition of speed is not the top speed of the boat. It’s how fast it can go in light air. That’s what the post said. Please go back and reread it. That’s what’s important. Unless you don’t care how well a boat sails. Then you might as well just get a powerboat. They have a lot more room and they are a lot more convenient.

And if you really want to look at just market factors? Take a look at the selling prices of identical length catamarans and look at the production ones versus the ones that can actually sail. A gunboat can sail. A Chris White Atlantic can sail. These are like semi production just to keep it relevant. Check out the used cost on those versus the same year and same length Catamaran of any other type that you are currently considering in posting what you did.

Then you can see what it’s worth I have a boat that actually sails.

That’s the true dollar and cent value of a boat that sails well versus one that does not do so well.

And back to the speed versus comfort thing again. A good sailing boat is actually even more comfortable. It doesn’t wallow around. It doesn’t need to be motoring for hours on end. It smoothly and nicely gets to the destination. It will have fine hulls. Those slice the chop. It rides up quickly and easily over swells because it’s so buoyant, instead of oscillating up and down.

Everything about a good sailing boat makes it a good boat in general. And a comfortable boat in general.

Much of this holds just as true for monohulls as it does for catamarans.

[ozolli]

Originally Posted by Giova

2) As part of the required comfort features, there is noise insulation. I do not want to have a cat where all my energy is wasted in not being able to sleep or rest due to slamming noise or even excessive noise from the elements. Let me try to explain. In a couple of videos about a private built Schionning, and lately a review of the ORC57, comments raised on the extremely loud noise in the berths coming simply from the rain (???) or the impossibility to stay down in the hulls during passage. Now, is it true that flared painted hulls (so no internal panels) are basically not providing any kind of noise insulation?

I spent this afternoon sailing the ORC57 between 8 and 16kn TWS with moderate waves.

I can tell you that the noise inside the hulls is comparable to the noise in the saloon or in the cockpit. You may find this too loud, it didn't bother me at all. There is definitely some effective noise insulation.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Chotu

No, you missed the point. You didn’t read the post again. Lol

There is no balance point between comfort and speed. The definition of speed is not the top speed of the boat. It’s how fast it can go in light air. That’s what the post said. Please go back and reread it. That’s what’s important. Unless you don’t care how well a boat sails. Then you might as well just get a powerboat. They have a lot more room and they are a lot more convenient.

And if you really want to look at just market factors? Take a look at the selling prices of identical length catamarans and look at the production ones versus the ones that can actually sail. A gunboat can sail. A Chris White Atlantic can sail. These are like semi production just to keep it relevant. Check out the used cost on those versus the same year and same length Catamaran of any other type that you are currently considering in posting what you did.

Then you can see what it’s worth I have a boat that actually sails.

That’s the true dollar and cent value of a boat that sails well versus one that does not do so well.

And back to the speed versus comfort thing again. A good sailing boat is actually even more comfortable. It doesn’t wallow around. It doesn’t need to be motoring for hours on end. It smoothly and nicely gets to the destination. It will have fine hulls. Those slice the chop. It rides up quickly and easily over swells because it’s so buoyant, instead of oscillating up and down.

Everything about a good sailing boat makes it a good boat in general. And a comfortable boat in general.

Much of this holds just as true for monohulls as it does for catamarans.

Wow. There are some typos here. I apologize.

It says *I* have a boat that can actually sail. Wow. That’s pretty pompous. Ha ha

It should have said what it’s worth to have a boat that can actually sail.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Wow. There are some typos here. I apologize.



It says *I* have a boat that can actually sail. Wow. That’s pretty pompous. Ha ha



It should have said what it’s worth to have a boat that can actually sail.

You will have a boat that can actually sail, once you get the dang rig up! [emoji16]

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by smj

You will have a boat that can actually sail, once you get the dang rig up! [emoji16]

That’ll be the day. Tell it to the metal workers. Ha ha ha. Months and months and months of talking about how next week will be great.