It's seems there is not a whole lot of
women on this forum, but mostly
men, speculating on what it is they think
women want. First off a bit of a credibility statement. I'm a woman, 38, a full time cruiser, hold a USCG 100T master
license with sailing and towing endorsements. In the last two years I've sailed 15,000
blue water miles double handed (just me and my finance) mostly in the
South Pacific (NZ,
FIJI,
Vanuatu, Australia) and from Mass. to
Guatemala. I currently own a Chris White Atlantic 42 sailing cat
AND a
PDQ 39 sailing cat (it's for sale) although I used to sail a sinker (Beneteau First 40 mono-hull).
Hands down I love the cats. I just hated living in a cave on our
monohull there was less air flow especially to the aft
cabin. It was darker and down right depressing at times to be down in the “cave” day after day. I have a tendency to get seasick for the first day at sea, not serious, but just not feeling that great and the rolling and heeling on a mono make life that much more miserable. It's no fun trying to sleep, read, cook, or clean up when the
boat is cork screwing as it does when sailing down
wind. Oh for those of you worried about windward sailing... why would you want to do that? Wait for the
weather... everything should be downwind. Despite covering many many thousands of miles each year the majority of the time we are at
anchor and this is where the
catamaran really kicks butt. On a mono you got the companion way stairs and cramped
cockpit and rarely a properly protected
cockpit that keeps you BOTH cool and protected from
wind and sun. The sun is your enemy out in the tropics. On my cats I can sit in the settee and look out the windows and since we have soo many hatches air flow on the cat is awesome. Want to have a party... no need to just invite two couples over cause theres not enough space, invite the whole anchorage twenty people on a cat is nothing.
Oh and the dingy, with the mono we had to haul that thing up with the
halyard every night, which wasn't so bad, but when we went on
passage we had to take off the
engine, bring her on the
deck, deflate and tie down. Whereas on the Cat, just hoist the dingy,
engine and all with the
davits and your done. I can do that by myself in less than 2 minutes. Granted you can put
davits on a mono... if it's big enough, but on
passage that wouldn't be so wise.
The main disadvantages of a cat is if you are a full time cruiser is that they cost more, and well most of us full time cruisers don't have jobs!
There are some arguments about the
safety of a cat, because if she flips she will not right, but nor will she sink. BUT, 80% of
boating deaths occur from falling
overboard, not from flipping over. Falling
overboard is much harder to do from the wide and stable platform of a cat. Flipping isn't a concern of mine as we mind our
weather and just don't go out if it's bad and we don't push her beyond the edge of performance and yeah we've seen some shitty weather. Besides, worst case we flip or hit something hard, like a container or whale I'd rather live in a cat that is positivity buoyant or even floating upside down than a
monohull that's sunk to the bottom!
I'll admit I don't much like passage making, to me it's a means to an end, but at least with the cat, we sail 30% faster (based on our
PDQ 39) than a comparable mono so we get there that much quicker. On the Atlantic 42 there is no comparison to a mono PERIOD.
Since we now own two
boats on has to go and the PDQ 39' is
FOR SALE and set up to do some awesome cruising in the
Caribbean or
Bahamas or beyond. See more at:
http://[URL="http://pdq36.blogspot.com/"]pdq36.blogspot.com/[/URL]