I'm planning to buy a cruising
catamaran this year, with the goal of starting a
circumnavigation in 2023, after spending 2022
training my crew (family). I'm moving from a
monohull, mostly weekend
racing, background.
So I've been doing
research on every
catamaran I can find, and trying to resolve the apparent conflict between "condo cats that can't sail" and "performance cats with no accommodations."
I considered the possibility that a larger, older cat might be a good solution. After all, the DLR of a given brand stays the same across the line.
So if you determine you need a base speed of 10.5 knots to have the
weather routing
safety margin necessary, then you can get that with a slow
boat -- eg, high DLR and low SAD-- that is just longer.
So, for instance, a Christ White Atlantic 42 has a base speed of 10.73 but is limited in accommodations, while a
Leopard 50 with possibly too much accommodations has a Base Speed of 10.65. These are close enough to be worth the tradeoff.
What I realized is that there doesn't really need to be this tradeoff. It is possible to have hulls that are neither obese nor anorexic.
But it appears that the market has mostly bifrucated--
Outremer is making the 55 and
Catana is making the 51, which are performance cats with a cruising approach, but they are too new (I'm looking to buy used.)
But I did find one brand that does surprisingly well in this by-the-numbers comparison.
And that brand is Bali. Their hulls are slim (though I'm just looking at Base Speed, SAD and DLR) and their accommodations are clearly
charter oriented. But by the number these do well.
One other consideration that doesn't play into these theoretical discussions is availability. A
Outremer 55 might be the perfect
boat, but for many people it is out of their
budget and not available for 12-18 months assuming they can afford it.
I believe a large part of the reason people are
buying charter cats is not just because they can afford them, but because they are available. They are clearly produced in much larger numbers.
Anyway, I have my reservations about Bali and am leaning towards another brand, but they really did hit the compromise on accommodations and performance that most others have missed.