Performance Cat makers?

[Factor]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

reality is that performance cats are coastal cruisers at best.

Overload it and I am going to be faster and will ruin your weekend.

So, if you buy one, do not do ocean passage

People are known to starve on such cats trying to cross oceans.

have nice day

44C has lived aboard his Oram for decades, centuries even, everything he owns is on the boat, and yet he still sails at great passage speeds.

[44'cruisingcat]

When the owner of a production charter boat spends his time sneering at coastal cruisers, and especially when as far as I can make out his passage making is limited to Sydney harbour (hey it can get rough in there!) It's probably a waste of time replying.

[jdazey]

"you cannot be serious"...


Near as I could tell he was just pulling out all the old cliches with good humor, not to be taken seriously.


Cheers,

[Nils Gruttner]

Originally Posted by yeloya

I might have missed if already mentioned; Eric Lerouge 64 (altready in our boat yard) and Alibi 54 which is expected to come next week. I'll sail both of them and tell you if thye are really as fast as thye are supposed to be.


Meanwhile, "fast cruising" doesn't exist if we agree on what is "fast" and what is "cruising". For me cruising is having my wine sitting on table at 30 kts of wind, not to have trim every second on a more forgiving boat. If you are on one of the boats mentioned here, you'd better have one hand on the mainsail sheet and watch out every second. You may not necessarily go turtle as some people are telling if you don't do that but if you don't trim properly you don't really enjoy the boat. These boats are extremely sensible to proper trim. And for me this is racing mode, not cruising.
Outremer and Catana are one of the few cats that are "relatively" fast, they offer "relatively" good volumes/payloads whilst you don't have to worry too much when the wind picks up to high 20's or low 30's or when you are hit by a sudden gusts.


Cheers


Yeloya

Yet another balances reply by yourself putting things into real perspective. [emoji106]

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Bill Gibbs

"performance" isn't a subjective term. It can be calculated. Guesses from displacement, sail area, and waterline will be close. I race my Schionning GF1400 regularly and rate -38 sec/mile. A local Lagoon 42 rates +96. I have to be over 2 minutes a mile faster to beat him. I have a performance cat, he does not. We have a Lagoon 450 rating +129. Outremer 55 @ +62. Gunboat 62 @ -54. Turbo'd Gunboat 66 @ -94. Cross 42 @ +155. Moorings 4300 @ +120. Weight in racing condition is a big factor, these Gunboats have been emptied of non-essentials.
Performance boats are more likely to capsize and need a vigilant crew.
You need wind to sail fast. I can exceed wind speed, but slower boats do not.
Doing Tortola to Los Angeles we did cruise at 14+ knots a lot, when there was wind. Baja Bash was mostly motoring at 6-7 knots.
My cruising buddy and coach swears anything over 10 knots boat speed is not "cruising". These comments are proportional to boat size, but I get his point.

I know your boat, as we used to be in Ventura. It’s awesome! Never met you, but I believe you know our boat, now cruising México. As I’m sure with your boat, it doesn’t seem like we’re even moving until we’re 10+ knots.

[onthehook17]

Just my opinion; however, I feel the difference between racing and cruising depends on the particular boat. If the crew is pushing whatever boat they happen to be aboard to it’s max in the current conditions then that’s racing; that is, you are on the edge. Cruising is sailing that particular boat at a comfortable speed for that particular boat.
On our Helia, if we were sailing 10 - 11 knots for an extended time in the best of conditions, we were pushing as hard as we could and probably too hard. Cruising on our Helia was 6-7 knots. On our new HH55 we hope that in breezes above 12 knots we can sail very comfortably at 10 knots or more day and night; that was our goal in a new boat. Many of the boats mentioned in this thread we eliminated because they could not meet this criteria.
Anyone interested should look at the HH55 polars and polars for boats on their list, add some weight for cruising gear, and decide for themselves what defines a cruising “performance cat”.
OOOPS, excuse my typing. Our HH55, Ticket To Ride, will be delivered in Dec. 2018 not 2019. We will be going to China for the 4th time this Sunday and then back to China in October for sea trials.

[jdazey]

Originally Posted by yeloya

I might have missed if already mentioned; Eric Lerouge 64 (altready in our boat yard) and Alibi 54 which is expected to come next week. I'll sail both of them and tell you if thye are really as fast as thye are supposed to be.


Meanwhile, "fast cruising" doesn't exist if we agree on what is "fast" and what is "cruising". For me cruising is having my wine sitting on table at 30 kts of wind, not to have trim every second on a more forgiving boat. If you are on one of the boats mentioned here, you'd better have one hand on the mainsail sheet and watch out every second. You may not necessarily go turtle as some people are telling if you don't do that but if you don't trim properly you don't really enjoy the boat. These boats are extremely sensible to proper trim. And for me this is racing mode, not cruising.
Outremer and Catana are one of the few cats that are "relatively" fast, they offer "relatively" good volumes/payloads whilst you don't have to worry too much when the wind picks up to high 20's or low 30's or when you are hit by a sudden gusts.


Cheers


Yeloya

Well, Yeloya, we're not going to agree. Everyne has their own comfort levels and risk tolerance. In addition a lot of sailors tend to push a bit harder if there is another boat in the neighborhood. This thread has had a lot of either/or views of sailing when it really comes down to personal preference. We race our boat on occasion with a fair bit of success and happily cruise at 12-15 kts. At 21+kts we do have a hand on the sheet and pay very close attention, but we won't pretend that that's for everyone.


Cheers,

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

When the owner of a production charter boat spends his time sneering at coastal cruisers, and especially when as far as I can make out his passage making is limited to Sydney harbour (hey it can get rough in there!) It's probably a waste of time replying.

this was true till recently. Right now happily sailing NC. Learned a lot from fellow sailors and managed to copy couple of sailing tricks that propelled my Lagoon to somewhat higher performance levels

[rea]

I sailed a Mumby 48 for 3 years now. 7 tonnes, aluminium and sailing solo sometimes. Average speed 8 knots as I don’t like it too rough.
Always 2 reefs in the main and Genoa or screecher. Sailed Tasmania twice, New Caledonia, Vanuatu. Had over 60 knots twice. I sail often in 40 knots, why? Because I can do it safely. What more can you ask? The only other catamaran keeping up with my speed was another Mumby 48 which I then met in the next harbour. Lagoon, FP, I sailed a few and I would never ever buy one.

[Russ333]

My 44 Antares is definitely a comfortable cruising cat, which in the right conditions I have pushed to 10-12 knot hourly averages. However, more realistic are 5 - 10 knot hourly averages. But with fixed low profile keels, she won't point in a seaway, so any tacking up wind is slow in terms of VMG. My last comment is sea state. My wife is usually the one telling me to slow the boat when things get rough. The boat will continue to power up and go faster, but the ride gets rougher, and of course adds stress to the boat. I raced competitively for 25+yrs, so know very well the balance between speed and keeping the boat in one piece so you actually finish.
As I think you've already worked out, you'll need something in the 50+ range to do the speeds you want and still have decent weight carrying capacity. But as someone has already commented, the faster you go, the louder and rougher it gets. But each to there own, good luck to you.

[Pat Ross]

I think any design that has a dagger board is a step in that direction



Pat Ross

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Russ333

My 44 Antares is definitely a comfortable cruising cat, which in the right conditions I have pushed to 10-12 knot hourly averages. However, more realistic are 5 - 10 knot hourly averages. But with fixed low profile keels, she won't point in a seaway, so any tacking up wind is slow in terms of VMG. My last comment is sea state. My wife is usually the one telling me to slow the boat when things get rough. The boat will continue to power up and go faster, but the ride gets rougher, and of course adds stress to the boat. I raced competitively for 25+yrs, so know very well the balance between speed and keeping the boat in one piece so you actually finish.

As I think you've already worked out, you'll need something in the 50+ range to do the speeds you want and still have decent weight carrying capacity. But as someone has already commented, the faster you go, the louder and rougher it gets. But each to there own, good luck to you.

This!

Given the right platform, going fast is not the problem. When cruising a performance boat in open water the problem is slowing down the peak speeds to keep the noise (wind and wave) and wave strikes and ‘dancing’ to a minimum while maintaining a decent average. Sometimes you do wish for a heavy boat that plows through the water rather than your lightweight performance boat that sails on top of the water.

However, just as pointed out by others we can reef early and reef deeply and all the speed changes is that the peaks drop from high teens to early teens and the average drops a knot or so to high single digits. The noise level drops, dishes and glasses stay on the table or counters, and you don’t need to be near a handhold all the time. And our cats (felines) stop throwing up. All good things when cruising.

One thing to note about carbon boats is that they are intrinsically more noisy thanks to the material - both the creaking and cracking sounds of the material cycling between tension and compression, and the louder wave strike sounds due to thinner laminates (though as a cruising boat you do have hull liners and/or insulation to reduce the noise, which race boats won’t have, right?).

[poiu]

Originally Posted by onthehook17

I own and am currently in the build process of HH55 #3 named Ticket to Ride which will be delivered in Dec 2019. We sold our FP Helia and went through a similar lengthy evaluation process of performance cats and feel very confident in our decision to buy an HH55. My wife and I plan to circumnavigate.
There is nothing copied between the Gunboat 60s and the HH catamarans. The HH catamarans are beautifully finished, M&M designed, carbon fiber daggerboard cruising or racing catamarans. We wanted a boat to cruise the oceans that would roll off 250 mile days routinely. Just my opinion, but I feel that a performance boat over 50 feet intended for ocean voyaging should be made in carbon and have daggerboards.
You are welcome to visit our Wordpress Blog, search Ticket to Ride.

Congrats. Can you say why you picked the HH55 over the X5? The specs are very similar in length and displacement, but the X5 seems to be a lot cheaper. I realise the HH55 is all carbon, so should be a bit more expensive. The X5 can be upgraded with a carbon in key areas to help save more weight, or even made all carbon.

[CbroTheDude]

Originally Posted by poiu

Congrats. Can you say why you picked the HH55 over the X5? The specs are very similar in length and displacement, but the X5 seems to be a lot cheaper. I realise the HH55 is all carbon, so should be a bit more expensive. The X5 can be upgraded with a carbon in key areas to help save more weight, or even made all carbon.

I would guess if you have the money why not get a good looking cat?

[onthehook17]

Piou, we looked at the X5 several times; and saw the boat in the Caribbean several times; however, we never had it on our short list. The X5 is probably an excellent boat; however, it did not meet our search criteria.
In my opinion, the HH55 and the X5 are quite different boats. HH55 14K kg - X5 21K kg, SA/D much different, carbon vs glass, daggerboards vs mini keels, 55ft vs 50ft, carbon spars vs aluminum, and so on. I would group the X5 along with the Nautitech 48 and FP50. We loved our FP for what it was; however, this group of boats with mini-keels make terrible leeway when sailing with the wind forward of the beam.
The X5 seems to be well equipped and may offer suitable performance and price for some buyers; however, I would not put it in the performance cat category discussed in this thread.