The Evolution of Boat Preference, Part 3

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At this point, enter my friend Oded, who is years ahead of me in learning about cruising on sailboats and boating in general. Oded is planning to retire and move onto a catamaran with his wife about a year from now. They have their rough itinerary for their first several years of cruising already planned out.

Oded points out to me that while these common production catamarans sail away from, or "off" the wind just fine, they just don't sail into the wind "close hauled" very well. Most people don't even try. If they want to go in a direction that is upwind, they wait for the wind to change or just use the engines.

There is nothing inherently wrong or bad with the catamaran design and sailing upwind, in fact, catamarans can be very fast and competitive. However, when catamarans are designed to be floating condos, with lots of room in a 40' or 42' package, their sailing ability is compromised.  There are some catamarans out there that maintain cruising comfort and performance. They do this partly by being very careful with materials to keep the boats light, and partly by providing the same usable space from a 40' boat, but putting it into a 48' or 50' package. These are some great boats, but they are hopelessly out of my price range. New, the Lagoon 42 is about $500,000, and the 450 is about $700,000. The performance cruising cats are about double these numbers. As it is, I could only afford a 45' cat that is about 10 or more years old. So, what are all the pros and cons of catamaran versus mono hull.

Catamaran Pros

• Inside and outside living space is nicely connected, with great views and situational awareness inside and out.
• Very little leaning or "heel" when sailing. A conventional monohull will heel 15 degrees to 25 degrees when sailing into the wind. A cruising catamaran will heel 6 degrees at most. They are also more stable at anchor or on a mooring.
• Catamarans generally have two engines, one in each hull. If one engine breaks down, you can get by with the other one. However, you also have twice the maintenance with two engines.
• Most catamarans have a very shallow draft or have retractable dagger boards. This means they can safely navigate in water 4' deep. A monohull designed for offshore use will have a keel depth of 6' to 9'. There are some monohulls with swing keels.
• Cats generally have a lot more storage and space for additional systems. If you actually use it all, though, you are making your cat hopelessly heavy and slow.

Monohull Pros

• Easier and cheaper to get a comfortable boat that sails well.
• While the salon in a typical monohull doesn't have great views or situational awareness about what is happening outside, they can be very cozy.
• The motion of the boat and sounds generated by water contact in heavier weather is much better on a monohull. With a catamaran there are two hulls that want to do different things, and the compromise is often disconcerting with movements being more jerky than smooth. If the waves are high enough, the floor of the salon between the hulls can make loud banging sounds when it contact with waves.
• Much easier to get slips to accommodate a monohull. Catamarans either need a double-wide slip or an end-tie. This means they usually cost about twice as much to keep in a berth. In many places there just isn't a berth that wide, so they spend more nights at anchor (when they might have preferred a berth).
• Monohulls, while they heel easily, can also right themselves even if the sails are in the water. If catamaran gets to 20 degrees of heel, it will probably capsize. There is no recovery from a capsized cat. Some cats are designed to dismast, or have the mast tear off, before they capsize. While preferable to capsizing, it also sounds dangerous.

If you can't ever learn to like or at least tolerate heeling, and some people can't, the cat is the boat for you. Also, if your intent is to just tool around some island area like the Caribbean, that environment capitalizes on the catamaran benefits and skirts its drawbacks. For a general purpose sailing vessel, especially where the budget is a factor, I think the monohull wins. That's not to say I wouldn't like to charter a cat in the British Virgin Islands someday.

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