Why are cats not as popular for powercruisiers?

[Duke95]

Sailing cats have taken a significant percent of the sailing market, but seem to lag far behind in the power cruising market. Why? You can achieve full displacement efficiency yet achieve speeds of 20 knots or so as well. Plus the usual advantages of cats like stability at anchor, space per linear foot, etc.


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[Dennis.G]

Maybe

Power boaters like marinas. Cats are hard to park in marinas.

[ranger58sb]

Many (at least in larger sizes) are simply too new to the marketplace to afford...

My guess another is that the berths are often up against bulkheads on 3 sides, whereas in monhulls at least one and often more berths can be of the "walkaround" variety.

Yeah, docking issues, too...

-Chris

[thinwater]

Less planing surface.

[med]

Cost to park in a marina. Typically double the cost here in the med of a monohull of the same length.

Cost to buy.

For the same length as a monohull they cost a lot more to buy (you are almost buying two boats after all). Even if you compare a shorter cat to a longer mono with equivalent accomodation the cat is still more expensive to purchase.

And the buyers ego grows more in proportion to length rather than in proportion to square feet!!! (which is why my boat has 16ft of bowsprit to bring the length up to 68ft ;-)

[tomfl]

Let's see, turn a key, untie, put the boat in gear, and go or do all that and still have to mess around with all these ropes to lift up sails and then more ropes to tighten the sails and even if you tighten the ropes right you're still not going as fast as a power boat. Not to mention the grief you get for saying rope instead of line.

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[Panope]

Because monohull powerboats are very roomy inside - unlike monohull sailboats.

Steve

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by tomfl

Let's see, turn a key, untie, put the boat in gear, and go or do all that and still have to mess around with all these ropes to lift up sails and then more ropes to tighten the sails and even if you tighten the ropes right you're still not going as fast as a power boat. Not to mention the grief you get for saying rope instead of line.

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I believe the OP meant a catamaran with no sails. Only large) engines.

[2Hulls]

"Why are cats not as popular for powercruisiers?"

Ahhh, because they capsize and kill you?

[goat]

Power cruisers don't lean. Probably the biggest selling feature of a sailing cat over a mono.


goat

[nimblemotors]

Well, then buy a power catamaran! There are plenty of them available.

Originally Posted by Duke95

Sailing cats have taken a significant percent of the sailing market, but seem to lag far behind in the power cruising market. Why? You can achieve full displacement efficiency yet achieve speeds of 20 knots or so as well. Plus the usual advantages of cats like stability at anchor, space per linear foot, etc.


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[Cheechako]

Hmmm... for one thing, you get many of the "comfort" advantages that a cat has in a normal power cruiser anyway. The look isn't as nice as a nicely designed power cruiser as a general statement I think.
Power cats aren't as wide as sailing cats so not sure about the moorage thing.
Power boats do capsize...

[agmay]

Honestly thought this was a cat vs. dog discussion...

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Duke95

Sailing cats have taken a significant percent of the sailing market, but seem to lag far behind in the power cruising market. Why? You can achieve full displacement efficiency yet achieve speeds of 20 knots or so as well. Plus the usual advantages of cats like stability at anchor, space per linear foot, etc.


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Beats the crap out of me. Compared to a similar length mono power cruiser, a motor cat will have more room, smaller engines, will go faster, and use less fuel. MUCH less fuel when compared to boats with similar performance.

There was a 50' game fishing cat built here in Aus as a "spec" boat. It took ages to sell. The argument was - because it didn't drag half the ocean behind it, it wouldn't raise fish - so they entered competitions and won them. Still didn't sell.

Eventually someone bought it and they're absolutely rapt. It raises fish, and tagging them between the hulls is far easier. It can back up much faster than a normal game boat, and the cockpit doesn't get flooded. And it uses abut 1/3 of the fuel.

You'd think it would be a no-brainer, but perhaps that market doesn't even have enough brains to make those decisions.

[belizesailor]

Puzzles me too. Radically more efficient...just watch a typical mid-sized mono power vessel and the huge wake they create...I always wonder how many GPH of wasted energy it takes just to make that wake. On the Rio Dulce they are called "Rio Tsunamis". I think the ricos in their big Sea Rays actually enjoy watching all the silly gringo sailors in the marinas thrash about as they plow by (there's one reason to stick with a mono).

There is one Lagoon power cat on the Rio....it just hums on by with almost no wake.

A friend of mine switched from power mono to power cat....now burns half the fuel and cruises twice as fast.