Two hulls that make sense...

Some folk seem to have got the impression that I hate multihulls as the reaction to my last post has apparently made some pee-in-their-pants pissed off (Sorry about that dude I'm told that a mixture of vinegar and water will fix those pants finest kind!) but that is truly not the case, I simply wonder why so many people who own ( and not just charter) cats use them more like motorboats...I love good multihulls.

But enough of that for the moment and let me point out a really exceptional design for a cat that is somewhat out of the norm yet all the more special as a result.

Bernd Kohler is a designer that has quite a bit of experience designing cats and other vehicles and unlike a lot of designers has actually lived on a boat so understands that simply drawing a boat that sails entails more than just drawing in some beds and saying "Hey Presto" Especially when drawing smaller multihulls...



A friend and I were both talking to Bernd about one of his other designs ( which we will delve into at a later date) which was about the time he came out with his KD860 sort of a every mans small multihull with offshore capability that would not break the bank to build.

Now Bernd has some ideas regarding hull design that are most certainly not mainstream and if you would listen to many his work is somewhat heretical ( MY KIND OF GUY!!!) but as someone who has put a lot of miles on flat bottomed sharpies at least I can vouch for the fact that his hull should work a whole lot better than the detractors say even without the addition of his very interesting anti-vortex panels. speaking of the anti-vortex panels it would seem that there would be great potential using these for Sharpies and other shoal draft monohulls...

While people may argue about his flat bottomed hulls, I can't see how anybody could argue that his designs are as a result very easy and fast to build. If you take anytime to look over the plan you will note that this is a very well thought out and engineered plan...Throw in the fact that they are very affordable to build and you have a seriously winning combination.

Good plans tend to actually have people build them and get built ( Draw it and they will build?) In the case of Bernd's various cat designs there is a very active, informative and helpful yahoo group that makes it all a lot easier.

Multihull designs... Well sort of.

What's up with multihulls these days? Why is this guy not sailing on a perfect 15 knot beam reach?

Back in the early 80’s in those good old days when the yachting press was writing editorials about how unsafe and dangerous multihulls were, we were building a Wharram catamaran and we understood the appeal of cats and trimarans. Though I never signed on to the whole “multis-are-better-than-monohulls” fascism that some seem to adopt, cats and tris are certainly as seaworthy as monohulls (given that the designer is not an idiot) but they are not better... they are just different. Good multihulls that is...

Over the years I have come to a whole different view of what my sailing needs are than they were when I was younger/dumber. Comfort is more on my want list these days than it used to be and it surprises friends that in my short list for the next boat that there are very few multihulls in the list. ESPECIALLY as cats are so much more comfortable, sexy and faster than monohulls seems to be the question.

I like multis but something has happened to multihulls which gives me some cause to wonder...

Of course now days the yachting press loves multihulls. It is not because they are safer or make any more sense than they did in the early eighties but there is a lot of advertising revenue from multihull related concerns these days... especially from the bareboat charter companies. Hell, I might even wax eloquent about how wonderful a South African cat built like a tank with six inches of bridgedeck clearance was a wonderful thing if my employer was getting big bucks for advertising and I was getting a free charter as well. I might even use words like “multihull performance” as we motor sailed from one anchorage to the next in some tropical paradise as
long as the rum runners kept flowing AND as long as I did not have to pay for it!

Sadly this sort of press also influences designers who turn around and design more boats which will get great reviews whether they deserve them or not as long as someone is buying lots of advertising in whatever yachtie publication is up at the trough...I'm sure they will even find a way to suggest that the semi-immersed bridgedeck on this one is in fact a positive feature!

We spent a couple of weeks in the BVI and USVI this past November to attend a couple of charter shows and the whole time we were there we did not see a single cat sailing without its motor on. Now what is wrong with that picture? Actually it was such a rare sight to even see a cat with its foresail out that it attained the same sort of wonderment and excitement that a pod of whales might engender.

So what is wrong with multihulls that no one sails them? Well, it could be there are some real dogs out there or maybe the mindset of the sort of people who actually want to be on the multihull condos that claim to be performance sailing machines! Don't get me wrong there are some wicked quick performance cats around... (Can you spell GUNBOAT for instance?) but a whole lot of what is plying the waters simply don't perform as advertised (there is that advertise word again) and if truth be told, the performance margin between the bulk of cats these days I 'd bet on monhulls as having the edge.

Anyway... so the fact of the matter is I'm not really attracted to overpriced boats that don't deliver and for multihulls it still seems like if you want a cutting edge boat (and are not really rich) you still have to build your boat and there are a lot of great choices out there in excellent multihull designs.

Fact is it is not all about performance... and of late with all of the crap floating around in the oceans (the yearly average for containers lost overboard is 3500) I'm not so sure that I really want to be sailing a boat capable of twenty knots through a moonless night!

As for my shortlist cats...I 'm still going to wait for a while on sharing that part of the list as I have a few ideas that might make it more of the sort of boat that does make sense that I'd like to run by the designer...

Mainsail furling...Not ready for prime time.

I have mixed feelings about mainsail furling systems but the short form is that the cost/utility/performance just does not seem to be there yet. Then again it took a lot of years for the Jib/Genoa furlers to get to the point where one could take the fact that they would work with more or less acceptable performance for granted.

Sadly In mast and boom reefing systems still have a long way to go and when problematic they can ruin your whole day...



...Not to mention your bank account!

I lean towards boom furling systems as being more accessible when things get ugly but the price that the various systems are going for are somewhat silly. Being a cheap bastard I still find a lot of merit in slab reefing. Though I do have some pretty neat drawings from the Gougeon brothers from their wingmast plans on how to build your own roller reefing boom for a couple of hundred bucks which makes a lot more sense than the silly pricing I keep seeing on ready made roller furling booms.

Blast from the past...

Bill Lapworth was a pivotal designer at the least and many would call his CAL 40 the design that changed everything...Never meant as a dedicated racing boat yet with performance that in the late sixties left most of the "Racers" wondering just what had come to pass. Those days are past though the CAL 40 still has teeth and is one of the most active classes in the TransPac...A cruiser/racer that actually deserved the name.

On the other hand the racer/cruiser pedigree of the CAL 40 makes it a good choice for a couple who wants to get someplace in a timely manner and don't feel the need to have a lot of people stay over on any sort of regular basis...Way back when I heard someone refer to the "perfect" boat as sleeping two, feeding four and drinks six. If that is the criteria the CAL 40 still makes a whole lot of sense for a couple who wants a competitive boat for not a lot of money!

A lot of new boats are supposed to be more comfortable and it is true that a lot of forty foot boats these days have larger berths and as many en suite heads but does that really make them more comfortable for a couple...I mean what do you do with the extra berths when you don't have people sleeping in them? The CAL 40 is admittedly old school in terms of interior layout but one should not discount the fact that the old school interior worked really well (still does!) and was for want of a better word..seaworthy...Which when you come to think of it is no bad thing on a boat that you'd very likely cross oceans in!

My last word on the CAL 40 is of all the designs I've come across there is simply nothing that needs changing, it simply works.

Cutting edge geekspeak...

I really like the Panbo blog which is focused somewhere between cutting edge available technology and never to be available vaporware. Ben Ellison is a guy who knows his way around boats and the water. Add the fact that he is better than most at looking at the overawing output of various Marine Electronics manufacturers and most of the time keeping a good balance of consumer skepticism and onboard utility without going into the dark side of geekdom. If you want sea going electronics geek speak Go see PANBO (HE BE THE MAN).

But since people keep asking...On the geek front here on So It Goes...Well if it's gear for Cinematography, Sound recording or making music...Yes we be geek city! On the other hand all those guitars and cameras don't leave a lot of room for sea going geek stuff and something really has to earn its keep to find space on this ever shrinking CAL 34...

What we do have at the moment is a NASA AIS receiver which talks to our MAC GPSNAVX based chart program which is pretty cool (not to mention cheap) and as soon as someone comes out with an affordable and street legal Class B AIS we will be adding that to the mix. I know that the NASA is not as nice as some of the newer ones available but I have always been resistant to replacing stuff that actually works!

In the cockpit we have an elderly petite black and white Garmin 182 chart plotter which works but we keep looking for a color unit to replace it... We just threw out the Raymarine Flux gate compass as it started getting creative about direction which after all the whole point of the exercise is not being creative! Speed and depth is provided by a Raymarine ST40 BIDATA ( and the speed/log has never ever worked..) Soon to be replaced as well (guess which class B AIS and chart plotter we are not going to buy?)

We have a couple of handheld GPS units as back ups. A tiny $99 on special Garmin and a Trimble Engign handheld that cost a small fortune and was cutting edge tech way back when we bought it in 1992 but still works like a champ!

On the communication front a ICOM SSB which I really will get around to installing one of these days, A couple of Uniden VHF's ( they work way better than the ICOMS they replaced at half the cost)... A Globalstar sat phone which while being problematic to the max does kinda work as long as you don't need to receive calls, get your voice mails on the day sent and are able to keep your calls under a thirty two second length!

Back when our Trimble Ensign GPS was brand spanking new, navigation was a whole different beast... We treated it much like a electronic sextant and we'd take it out and use it once a day when we crossed from The Canaries to Martinique and plot the position on our paper chart... Only when we were a couple of hundred miles away from Martinique did we start taking GPS readings more than once a day. While all the new gear and the "YOU ARE HERE" features are nice but the fact is often more neat than needful and it is important to keep that in mind when outfitting.

Not quite ready...

One of the wonderful things about modern life ( though I am still waiting for my Jet Pack!) is that so much information is available at the click of a mouse...Case in point the pretty great Blog NAVAGEAR ( a daily read for me) has been in and out of the Seattle boat show and has a great eye for neat "stuff" one such being the wooden runabout by Edison Marine which is a very interesting and lovely boat driven by Electric propulsion.

What a sweet ride and you got to love the Zilla water cooled controller!

One of the constant murmurs that one does hear when electric propulsion is a talking point is that the technology is just not ready and years in the future ( Yeah just like my jet pack) but the fact of the matter is that it is already quite up to the task and just keeps getting better and more available all the time...