What are the Slowest Cats?

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by ArtM

The point was that there is a lot of commentary and opposition that are based on NON cruising points - like the weekend sailors talking about how much they love the wind in their face and the spray over the bow, and could never understand why anyone would want to give that up to sail a catamaran.

If someone wants to make a point about why a monohull makes a better cruising boat, then I'd love to hear it. But to repeatedly mock the "sailing" experience of a catamaran because it doesn't race well compared to someone's weekend cruiser or lightweight trailor sailor is ridiculous.

I appreciate all the points of view and different aspects of sailing, but I find it mildly annoying when people make comparisons and points that irrelevant to the topic of conversation.

Since when is the sailing experience not relevant to cruising? Maybe not for you, maybe not for many people, but for some it is completely valid that they actually like sailing their cruising boat from anchorage to anchorage or continent to continent.

I've done two significant offshore trips. One was on a low performing boat and one on a high performing boat. I liked the latter way, way more because making the boat work is really fun for me. It doesn't matter one bit to other people, and that's ok too.

I might make the tradeoff to go to something like a Lagoon for the performance at anchor, but I would be losing something in the sailing experience to do that. This is far from a "NON cruising point." For me it is at the very core of cruising. And I'm far from alone in that.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

This is far from a "NON cruising point." For me it is at the very core of cruising. And I'm far from alone in that.

QFT. The whole point of having a sailing boat - well isnt it the sailing? Ifr you aren't going to sail, can't sail with any reasonable performance or can't enjoy the sailing then why bother with the mast and rigging and associated cost, bridge clearance limitations etc.?

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by Factor

QFT. The whole point of having a sailing boat - well isnt it the sailing? Ifr you aren't going to sail, can't sail with any reasonable performance or can't enjoy the sailing then why bother with the mast and rigging and associated cost, bridge clearance limitations etc.?

Not particularly. For some, the main point is traveling and living comfortably and freely.

It happens that sailing is an economical way to do that, compared to motoring.

Have you ever seen an RV going down the road with a 4WD hitched to the back? They don't live in the 4WD, and take the RV off-roading.

Your comment is an example of what I'm talking about. It ignores the concept of "cruising". It implies that the ideal is to own a sailboat, and find a way to live in it - perhaps as a way to justify it's cost.

The ideal of cruising is to have a way to live, and to find a way to do it with sails - the sailing aspect merely being a means to an end.

I do enjoy sport sailing as well, but it is a different discipline. Also, we've heard from many cat owners that their cats give them enough sense of performance and style to satisfy that need.

[neilpride]

ARTm , you are close to TROLL status, you know that?
Amazing post......

[careka]

Originally Posted by ArtM

If anyone created an RV that bucked and rolled over every bump in the road, that leaned over 45 degrees putting the occupants into a crevice, that required that the owner strap themselves in and lean against a wall to cook a meal, to stand on their tiptoes to peer out a tiny window with a view only of the sky, and required the driver to stand on the rear bumper and peer around the chassis and over the roof to see where they are going, that directed road spray into their faces, and had such a high clearance and heavy weight that they could only access about 20% of the roads, then that RV would sell very few units.

:thu mb:
Life is to short to be sailing a mono

[ArtM]

"I can't see why anyone would want to sail in a catamaran. That's not sailing. Whoever would want to sail in that?"

THAT's a troll.

"I can't see why anyone would want to drive an RV. That's not driving. Whoever would want to drive that?"

You see the absurdity?

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by ArtM

...
Your comment is an example of what I'm talking about. It ignores the concept of "cruising". It implies that the ideal is to own a sailboat, and find a way to live in it - perhaps as a way to justify it's cost.

The ideal of cruising is to have a way to live, and to find a way to do it with sails - the sailing aspect merely being a means to an end.

I do enjoy sport sailing as well, but it is a different discipline. Also, we've heard from many cat owners that their cats give them enough sense of performance and style to satisfy that need.

No this is your ideal of cruising. It comes off as the height of arrogance to tell somebody else what should be important to them when cruising.

You might find if you listen more that there are a lot of cruisers around who like sailing and find the sailing to be a very important part of cruising.

Your RV comments are probably perfectly relevant on an RV forum. This isn't an RV forum.

[smj]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

No this is your ideal of cruising. It comes off as the height of arrogance to tell somebody else what should be important to them when cruising.

You might find if you listen more that there are a lot of cruisers around who like sailing and find the sailing to be a very important part of cruising.

Your RV comments are probably perfectly relevant on an RV forum. This isn't an RV forum.

I agree. One of the main reasons we cruise is our love of sailing. Doesn't mean that the guy with the slow motor sailer isn't cruising, just that he has different priorities.

[Jimbo485]

If you love sailing, you still buy a cat, just not a slow one. And then you choose where to sit for maximum spray IF that is what you want!

With our daggerboards down, everything sheeted in tight, we still hammer along nicely to windward in our fully loaded cruising cat. We have had visitors onboard who have loved to sit up on the tramps with their kids during a beat directly into the trades around the Marquesas. They spent their time screaming and yelling with excitement and joy as they got swept by waves and spray. 15 knots of true wind, 2 - 4 m waves, 8 - 11 knots boat speed. In the meantime, I stayed further back out of the spray. People are different, even on the same boat.

But doing thousands of miles per year means you usually find a protected spot to read a book or do some maintenence. A weekend out on the bay means you usually chase a little spray to have a good memory when you are back in your cubicle on Monday morning. I can understand both points of view.

But if you love sailing and spray while cruising, you still buy a cat, just buy a fast one and sacrifice a few living comforts because you don't have a big ice maker. More hulls doesn't mean you have to forget about sailing. Now you can really sail fast. Just hunt down the best spot to get your face wet because it may not be obvious. Apart from the tramps, hanging off the sugar scoop sterns, steering with the emergency tiller and dipping your head in the sea seems to work ok, also.

From someone who has cruised for years in both monos and cats, steel and plastic, there are pros and cons to all. For a standard RTW via the trades, I reckon the cats are better overall - whether you are an adrenalin-hunting purist sailor with spray in your grey beard on a go-fast, knife-hulled cat or a comfortable family watching a DVD and sipping a rumbo with ice on a fat, slow, ex-charter cat.

You want to go to the high latitudes, get a steel mono.

If you mix your pros and cons the wrong way, get a steel cat or a plastic mono.

In the 80s, there seemed to be more steel boats out there and almost no cruising cats. No hard figures to justify the steel observation, just my rather vague memory. Nowadays, there are definitely more cruising cats, without a doubt. And steel seems to have dropped away in terms of the cruising monos. Not sure why...

Of course, you think differently because you got brainwashed somewhat differently to me and read the wrong magazines from the wrong armchair and your parents didn't show you the light. Haha!

[cwyckham]

Great summary, jimbo.

Love of sailing doesn't necessarily mean love of spray, by the way.

Why the mono for higher latitudes? Pointing?

[boatman61]

Who gives a hoot...
I'm on the water...
Where's the Finger....

[Jimbo485]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

Why the mono for higher latitudes? Pointing?

A water tight, steel mono is better than a cat for recovering from a capsize. It should come upright, while the cat will float around nicely but still be upside down. Think of the southern ocean big waves.

The steel mono is also better than a GRP mono in the same situation if you lose the rig as you do the 360. Think of the broken mast trying to spear a steel hull and a plastic hull.

A steel mono is also better than any GRP boat (cat or mono) when it comes to hitting hard things, especially things like ice. Nice to also think of that steel, lead-filled keel as an integral part of the hull, not a bolted-on extra.

[geoleo]

I say the worlds slooowest Catamaran is that Lagoon 450 in the BVI!

[ArtM]

The slowest cat is the one whose captain is enjoying where is he is at, rather than wishing he were somewhere else.

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

No this is your ideal of cruising. It comes off as the height of arrogance to tell somebody else what should be important to them when cruising.

You might find if you listen more that there are a lot of cruisers around who like sailing and find the sailing to be a very important part of cruising.

Your RV comments are probably perfectly relevant on an RV forum. This isn't an RV forum.

Ok fine, so I guess many cruisers are in it for the sailing first. But for those of us who aren't we are in it for the travel and lifestyle first.

My priority list is as follows, and I think that many other cat owners will have a similar list:

1) Comfort at anchor and at sail
2) Quality and style
3) Sailing performance

Sailing performance is on the list, but it is not at the top. If it were possible to make a quiet solar powered motorcat, I suspect that the sailing aspect would become far less important to many cat owners out there.

Now it happens that I do enjoy the sailing experience - but not for the "action" of it, but rather I enjoy the smooth, silent motion of the boat as it slowly and economically carries me to a new destination while I read, work, and live in comfort on her broad, flat decks - and that is what a cat does very well.