Here's a cat on foils ...

Chuck Wendig with a must read, a moment in history, and in the "It appears that someone thinks wind power is a good investment" department...

As I have some work to do and really can't come up with anything interesting to write, here's an electric foiling catamaran that just might entertain you for a moment.

 

Listening to the Punch Brothers

So it goes...

Since we were talking biplane cats...

When being number 1 is a bad thing, an apt quote,  Sailing Anarchy making a good point, and in the "Well as long as we're banning books" department...

I've long admired this design from Kurt Hughes.

 More info can be found here.

Listening to Fatoumata Diawara

So it goes...

a new catamaran that's just what a lot of folks are looking for...

Some needful reading, a great Curtis Mayfield post, and in the "Symbolism speaks volumes" department...

A while back, I did a post on one of my favorite small production catamaran designs, the Prout Sirocco. Afterwards, I bemoaned the fact that no one designs boats like the Sirocco anymore to my friend Michael up in the PNW. 

So, here's what popped up in my mailbox yesterday...

Named after a hot dust-bearing wind of the North African desert, the Ghibli has a lot in common with the Sirocco. They're both twenty-six feet long, have a very similar accommodation, and both are shoal draft.

However, the Ghibli has a lot more going for it. For starters, it's a new design and there has been a lot of advances in multihulls in the last four decades since the Sirocco came on the scene. While I'm not a "Newer is always better" kinda guy, I will admit that improvements in construction and materials allows the Ghibli to weigh around a thousand pounds less than the Sirocco and, where multihulls are concerned, weight is a huge factor in performance.

I should also add that the styling is lot more what people think a modern cat is supposed to look like if that is something you find important.

Designed as a DIY-buildable cat it would be a relatively easy and fast build.  As costs go, you should be able to build a Ghibli for what a good condition 40-year old Sirocco is selling for. If you wanted to bring the costs down it would make sense to get together with some other Ghibli builders and co-op the buying of materials and suchlike which could really lighten the materials and systems costs.

I'm still waiting with anticipation on another design from Mr Schacht that he described as...

"I have a typically strange boat in the works that I think you’ll like".

My kinda guy!

Listening to UB40 cover Curtis Mayfield

So it goes...

On the subject of cruising and charter design...

A question of note, an interesting charting method, and in the "seriously creepy" department...

So, what do we actually want a cruising boat to be?

Think about that for a minute or two... 

A good cruising boat is a nomadic habitat that can take you pretty much anywhere in the world accessible by water. You want it to be safe, comfortable, and as trouble-free as possible. It should also be easy to maintain and operable within its crew's physical and financial abilities or constraints.

A good charter boat, on the other hand, is designed to generate income and that's the bottom line. Which, I'll be the first to admit, is no bad thing but making money creates a completely different design brief than you'd want for a cruising boat.

One of the things that still surprises me is that 90% of our crewed charter clients don't sail, they're not into boats, and, if anything, the whole idea of a sailing vacation does not quite track with them. What does track however is they like the idea of a movable luxury hotel room that moves from location to location with their own personal Chef and crew to take care of them. The newer the boat, ensuite heads, lots of toys, all creature comforts, and a killer menu is more often than not why people choose the boats they do.  Sure, they want the boat to look great but to most clients anything that's expensive and floats right side up is considered a great looking boat.

Charter cats are all built to a cost point as most charter boats are only built with a five year lifespan factored into the mix. Term charter (crewed boats) tend to last longer as they don't get the abuse that bareboats do but a seven-year old crewed charter boat is considered too long in the tooth to get top dollar. The point being that longevity is not a high priority on the design brief.

Most catamarans are sold to the various charter companies and, as such, most cats for sale are designed for charter. That equals a lot of catamarans. So many in fact, that you'll find very few manufacturers willing to start building a non-charter oriented multihull. Sure there are a few exceptions coming from small or boutique builders (Gemini comes to mind). 

How to tell the difference between a cat designed for cruising or a cat designed for charter? If the boat sleeps ten and has four heads it's a charter design.

Like I said before, I like term charter boats and have a business that is part of that industry so I understand why they're designed the way they are. The downside where cruising is concerned is that there are just not enough people buying new cruising multihulls for the boat building companies to design and tool up for, in their view, what they consider a minuscule market.

Since we're on a roll we'll talk about what I'd like a cruising cat to be in 2021 in the next post.

Listening to Margo Timmins

So it goes...

Some more on the multihull subject...

An interesting ongoing story, a TED talk about coffee, and the word of the day is A-N-O-C-R-A-C-Y...

Back in the early 80s when I was building a Wharram Tiki 31 in Port Marly France, magazines like Cruising World were running editorials proclaiming that catamarans were both unfit and unsafe as cruising boats. Just about everyone I knew counseled me on the dangers that catamarans represented and pointed out that cruising a cat would end in tears or death which made for some very short conversations on boatbuilding and design.

Not to toot my own horn but I knew better. A decade before, as a starving art student living on a boat in Sausalito and working part time putting interiors in ferrocement boats, I'd seen a couple of Piver trimarans sailing in all kinds of weather and showing their transoms to many of the "HOT" Bay racing boats. They were light, easy to build, cheap, and could get by with less sail area and still sustain higher speeds. To put it mildly they caught my attention.

Of course, at the same time over in the UK, catamarans were already an established part of the sailing scene with the Prouts, Lacks, Pat Patterson, Wharram, and MacAlpine-Downie building a multihull niche for normal folks. As a result there was ample information that multihulls were actually safe and sane as opposed to the entrenched opinion in the US of A that multihulls were a death trap and a possible killer of profits for US boat builders.

How the US sailing industry came to make a 180 degree shift to embrace multihulls is based more on the fact that the various companies selling bareboat and term charters realized that cats were a pretty optimum craft for chartering and, as they could sell a lot more charters with them, it was time to jump on the multihull bandwagon. Confronted with huge wads of advertising cash from the charter companies it seemed like an excellent time for the yachting whores press to do an about face.

The downside of all this is that what makes a good boat for chartering doesn't necessarily make a good cruising boat. As someone who has a charter company (by the way, even in these times of Covid, people can still charter in the Caribbean), and a couple of decades of experience within the charter business there is some basis to my opinion. Which is not to say that multihulls can't be great cruising boats but the design brief for a good cruising multihull is a whole lot different than for a charter multihull.

Next up we'll talk about those differences.

Listening to Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

So it goes...

WWBD...

Badtux is on a roll, Ian Welsh with a solid point, and what I'll be following today...

Here's that proa cartoon by Michael Schacht to peruse.

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in this Bolger inspired thought exercise. Obviously, it's very different to the Bolger sharpie cartoon that got the ball rolling but, for me at least, Michael was able to channel the Bolger vibe, sensibility, and the original wish-list while keeping it his own design.

Good stuff.

Listening to Gogol Bordello

So it goes...