Toughest Hulls

[alohasailor]

Read the thread here. Still trying to get a grasp of what "beaching a cat on less than ideal surfaces" is all about. I'm not trying to be difficult or demeaning, just interested in the mindset. I've held the belief that my bottom should stay off the bottom.

[delmarrey]

Here along the NW corner of the America's the beaches are a bit rough in most places. They consist of very course sand or smooth round rock ranging from pea size to football size and even bigger at the foot of embackments.

Even a dighy can get damaged in a beaching if there is any surf. I usually end up stepping out into the water before it runs aground. The rock oysters can really tear up the bottom of a boat. High tides are the best time to go in, there's usually more sand available.

Here's a sample.................................._/)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by alohasailor

Read the thread here. Still trying to get a grasp of what "beaching a cat on less than ideal surfaces" is all about. I'm not trying to be difficult or demeaning, just interested in the mindset. I've held the belief that my bottom should stay off the bottom.

I intend to beach my cat fairly often. For easy bottom cleaning and so-on. I've built it with this in mind, with kick up rudders, daggerboard and sacrificial plywood keel protection. But only on sandy beaches, and with no surf.

To me if you want to beach on rocks, probably aluminium is the best choice. IMHO steel is just too heavy to build a cat from.

[Adaero]

It seems the latest idea is to use Carbon and Kevlar to strengthen the keels see Catamaran Alibi - catamaran manufacturer, constructeur de catamaran they offer it as an option. I know it's a very expensive cat (around 750,000 Euros) but it might be possible to use the technology on other cats as it's very light and stronger than steel in most cases.

[maxingout]

Privilege catamarans used to have a kevlar shoe on their keels. I know that our Privilege 39 has the kevlar shoes, and when we have grounded the hull unintentionally, we have never suffered any damage.

I also know of a South African cat that sailed in the shallow waters of mobile bay, and they put a stainless steel shoe on their keels. It was a 48 foot cat that performed well, and they liked having the stainless steel shoe as an insurance policy for their fast shallow water sailing.

I would think that a person could put a couple of layers of kevlar on their keels the next time they haul out. It would increase the abrasion resistance of their keels and could make a difference in less serious groundings or during routine beaching of the yacht.

At our boatyard, I saw a large Prout Catamaran that had part of the keels ripped off from a hard grounding, but because of the watertight compartments in the keels, no water entered the interior of the yacht. I was impressed by the design because the yard manager told me that this is the second time the owners ripped the bottom of the keels open, and he said that the yacht had travelled more than 500 miles in that condition since the last and most serious grounding.

Collision bulkheads and keel design are high on my list of important things to have on a cruising yacht.

Cheers,

Dave
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