So I am thinking about a cat?

[stevensuf]

The wife is entertaining the idea of a family voyage, for stability and redundancy she wants a cat, also it has deck space for kids. I have never really went in depth into cats, like do you really need sea berths in them? galley down a bad idea? See kids better galley up, flybridge? suicidal in bad weather?


My last outing had a tale or two, and yes 2 engines and 2 rudders would have been handy last time around,



Though last time we got knocked down by a microburst, which lead to the death of a french crew in a cat behind us, so i really want a barge of a boat that goes great downhill and whos mast will snap before it flips the boat.


Does a lagoon fit the bill?

[travellerw]

LOL.. This is going to be a funny thread to watch.. I predict 4 pages in 2 days..

After living full time for close to 3 years on a cat with a family of five, I will only comment on galley up vs down..

Galley up has some advantages over galley down.
1. Entertaining is much better. People in the galley are engaged in everything.
2. Propane applicanes up on the bridgedeck. Less opportunity for propane to pool in the bilge (of course this is dependent on the cat design).
3. Ease of loading groceries. You don't have to lower down into a hull.
4. HEAT.. No bullcrap, this is something I never considered. The heat from the oven and stove never heats up the sleeping spaces. Cook, bake, it doesn't matter, that heat stays out of the bedroom areas.

[stevensuf]

Believe it or not all the above is true! Thanks for the galley thoughts, never considered the extra flight of stairs loading and unloading or potential leaks. For me, the greatest attraction of a cat is less roll in an anchorage. I just dont like the idea of if i screw up or nature deals me a dodge ball up it can flip!

[Thalas]

Based on your comments on weather, it sounds like you're planning to be living on the boat. Any boat, no matter how well engineered, can founder in bad weather. And great seamanship and judgement in a mediocre boat will be safer than a fancy boat with bad decision making at the helm.

Along with that, there is no one RIGHT boat. That said, here are the things that work for me:
Raised helm - less exposed to weather than flybridge or aft helms and still great communication with the cockpit and salon. Much safer for kids as they can visit a raised helm in bad weather without leaving the weather enclosure.

Galley up - I didn't even think about the heat, but the socialization benefit is invaluable. So much more communal.

Privacy - a crew that can have privacy is a crew that can diffuse tension much easier. Having the kids in a separate hull can be life changing as can safe getaway spots (e.g. I wouldn't leave kids unsupervised on the tramp even with netting across the bow, but the cushioned fly/roofdeck is pretty safe).

Stowage - Kids = toys from overpowering your dinghy outboard for towing floaties to paddle boards to bikes for mainland exploration, I'll take stowage over speed in a cruising boat.

Reliability - I'll probably get down voted to hell for this, but all boats break... all the time. The advantage I feel FP, Leopard, and Lagoon have here is the sheer volume of boats they produce means a) they discover trend problems much faster, b) can afford to implement solutions faster, c) online troubleshooting information from other captains is more abundant because of the number of boats on the water.

I prefer FP to Lagoon, but Lagoons make fantastic family cruisers.

[Cheechako]

No doubt this will be a long thread. Just keep an open mind.
-I like the galley down, bigger, more counters, less mess, less smelly garbage.. if entertaining.
-doesnt take salon space either... although frankly, we spent forever in the cockpit not salon.
-Ease of loading groceries? Where? if it''s an "up" galley with half the storage? It's 2 steps down to a down galley.
Here we go! But realistically... it's all good, you decide what's best for you.
Just part of the counterspace of our down galley:

[UpOnStands]

Originally Posted by stevensuf

never considered the extra flight of stairs loading and unloading

That is understandable given that you always have a step over then 4 steps down into the interior of the Gib sea 43 with nothing in front to stop a fall. You certainly will get used to walking straight, and flat, into the living areas.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by travellerw

4. HEAT.. No bullcrap, this is something I never considered. The heat from the oven and stove never heats up the sleeping spaces. Cook, bake, it doesn't matter, that heat stays out of the bedroom areas.

Heat rises, so galley heat does not enter sleeping areas anyway. However the galley itself can get very hot in a galley up design, with the heat being up around theceiling where your head is. Stays much cooler with galley down

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Heat rises, so galley heat does not enter sleeping areas anyway. However the galley itself can get very hot in a galley up design, with the heat being up around theceiling where your head is. Stays much cooler with galley down

Sigh.. LOL.. This thread is going to be a cluster of people owning each arguing back and forth..

For us, we have been on multiple galley down cats and they were MUCH hotter. On our boat, we have 2 hatches above the salon that lets any rising heat out. Add the cross ventilation of front hatches and a BIG door and its never hot in our galley or on our bridge deck..

But like all things here on CF, thats just anecdotal based on our experience. Personally after owning a galley up and being on some galley down boats, I would put galley down far down our list if I was purchasing.

[Factor]

Here is an article I wrote on the galley up issue (and for the record I have sailed on nearly every design there is including custom designs):

For many years in general sailing, racing, cruising my own boats and working in the industry I never heard any discussion about the placement of the Galley in a multihull, particularly in Cats. Recently however the comment of “galley up is better because the cook is part of the conversation” has been used with increasing frequency.

Like most truisms this one falls apart fairly quickly. However at the outset, let me say that I am not here to talk you out of Galley up, just to ensure you understand the reasons underpinning these decisions and to make sure you don’t get blinded by the truism. Also it should be noted that there is a size point at which the question becomes less of an issue, Roughly speaking that is around 15 Metres, above that you have beam and volume to play with, below that less so, and below 14 metres increasingly less so.

A bit of history. Early multihulls tended to be slimmer sleeker and less voluminous in the Saloon/ Bridgedeck area. Also early multihulls tended to be owner built and simplicity, performance and cost were the key drivers. Most early multihulls were also smaller than todays crop of production boats. Initially the decision on placement was a combination of physics (the lower the galley the better) and cost and ease.

A few years back however as production cats started to infiltrate and later dominate the charter market, particularly the Caribbean charter market, a relatively simple driver saw a wholesale move to the galley up configuration. That driver was the amount of cabins with ensures that you could squeeze into a boat, the more you could, the better the rate of return on your capital investment. The actual reason for the galley up movement had nothing to do with the galley, it was all about maximising the amount of double with ensuite cabins. Like many things in life the marketing people then had to invent a way of selling the idea as a good thing, hence the cook/conversation concept started to appear.

Lets look at some of the disadvantages of galley up in boats under 14 metres. Invariably the saloon has to be compromised, less space and more cramped layout. The galley itself also has to be compromised, less space, less counter space, less storage and cupboard space and less space for fridges freezers and the like. In fact on many 12-13 metre cats I have sailed with galley up the most annoying part of the process is going up and down to pantries, for storage, pots and pans, not to mention the off putting and unsightly mess that is in the galley while you are having your meal.

As for bench space, well there is likely to be little, so whilst the galley might claim to be “up” in the sub 14 metre area, by and large only part of it is.

But lets move on to the single biggest alleged benefit of Galley Up, that where the cook is part of the conversation. The reality is that on almost all cats sub 14 metre with Galley Up, the helm is pushed up. So the cook might be part of the conversation but the the helms person isn’t, I think that might be the wrong approach to me, surely the helm needs to be more involved than anyone else. Many if not most cursing cats are sailed by couples. The most popular galley up approach then results in a disconnect between the two people on board. Sure the boat may be on auto pilot a lot, but when it matters you need to be on the helm and be able to communicate with the other person be they in the galley of saloon.

A simple test of the effectiveness of the galley/helm relationship is this, can the person on the helm see the person in the galley and vice versa, can the person hand food/drink to the helm and vice versa without either of them having to climb stairs or move far. If not - its an inefficient and some might say, unsafe design approach. I have included a couple of photos of popular galley up cats, on neither can the helm and galley communicate and pass items to each other, and yet on some galley down designs you can. The attached galley down photo 1 shows the galley taken from the helm, clearly all parties can see and communicate with each other. The second galley down photo shows the helm position from which the photo was taken.

So the question is, no matter where the galley is, can you see the helmsperson and communicate with, if not, why would you want that arrangement.

Like many myths on first glance it makes sense, dig a little deeper, not much substance to the idea, particularly on genuine cruising boats with a couple on board.

[danielamartindm]

Personally, I like galley up. It's airier and brighter, and the cook can socialize while cooking. I also like the feeling that the bridge deck is for socializing, dining, and cooking, while the areas below in the hulls are for privacy and sleeping.

[Palarran]

Palarran is for sale and would work pretty well based on your post.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...an-204234.html

There are several other forum members here who can vouch for the condition of the boat. PM me if you would like any additional info.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Sigh.. LOL.. This thread is going to be a cluster of people owning each arguing back and forth..

For us, we have been on multiple galley down cats and they were MUCH hotter. On our boat, we have 2 hatches above the salon that lets any rising heat out. Add the cross ventilation of front hatches and a BIG door and its never hot in our galley or on our bridge deck..

But like all things here on CF, thats just anecdotal based on our experience. Personally after owning a galley up and being on some galley down boats, I would put galley down far down our list if I was purchasing.

I've been on many galley up boats, and they were much hotter. And funnily enough, physics supports that. Heat rises.

But both layouts have advantages and disadvantages. Nothing is ever only positives, and anyone claiming otherwise is either ill informed or dishonest.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by stevensuf

........ i really want a barge of a boat that goes great downhill and whos mast will snap before it flips the boat.


Does a lagoon fit the bill?

No boat should be designed like this, and I doubt if any are.

Even with the "barges" take a look at the size of rigging wire used and compare the breaking strain to the displacement.

[mark_morwood]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

No boat should be designed like this, and I doubt if any are.

Even with the "barges" take a look at the size of rigging wire used and compare the breaking strain to the displacement.

I think you must have forgotten the Flyin’ Hawaiian, though I think it sank before the mast could come down. And it would be a misuse of the word to say it was ever "designed".

[Bean Counter]

This is just our experience. We owned for 14 years a fast 38ft epoxy composite dagger board cat, with outboard power, noisy antisocial portable genny, twin Airex wind gennies (also antisocial in a breeze), 4 solar panels, galley down, forward twin beds up high (so the inside person needs to clamber over the other person to get off and on the bed), cramped cockpit, single seat helm below a hardtop cockpit roof, headroom 6ft. It was a great weekender, good for a months holiday, good social racer, but for long term live aboard - not for us. So we sold it and bought an "opposite style", a Lagoon 450 Fly - to live on full time , cruised the Caribbean from Grenada / BVI / Bahamas to New York for 4 years now. Things we love about it , great sleeping arrangement, galley up (my wife was not sure until she operated it for a few months now would never go to down galley), huge cockpit where we spend most waking hours if not helming, fly is terrific for navigating Caribbean waters, particularly Bahamas TCI etc (we have full clear covers for the helm so are happy to helm from there 100% of the time in any weather - we know some FB cruisers who have a lower station in the salon - they have never used it - waste of money), 11 Kva Generator - no worries about electricity supply ever, even though we do have solar panels which are fine on long sunny days, water maker, washing machine 3 fridges, aircon etc etc. The price you pay though is "relative" sailing performance (under power the twin 54's can push us along at 9 + knots if desired) and higher fuel bills. The 38fter could two sail close reach at 18+ knots on flat water , in same conditions we might crack 11 - 12. The dagger boarder would sail higher and faster. However considering we spend 80% of the time at anchor, 10% day sailing between islands in no hurry, it is only the last 10% that one really regrets not being able to afford a boat that could carry all our stuff and still be quick (e.g. 60ft Outremer 5X at more than 2 x the price)