There are few discussions around offshore voyaging that are larded with as much pure rubbish as how many hulls are best for cruising.
I think this is because many participants have joined one of the three clans, without looking at the question logically, and so tend to close their ears and spout the applicable party line to justify a decision they have already made for emotional reasons.
But here at AAC, we (authors and readers) are better than that, so let’s have a look at the benefits and drawbacks of all three to help each of us decide how many hulls make the most sense for our kind of cruising, and leave the silliness of “best” in our wake.
I’m a little ashamed that I’m only now getting around to writing these chapters in this Online Book on Buying a Cruising Boat. After all, how many hulls is a decision that should come way ahead of many other things I have already covered.
I have thought of it many times, but always chickened out because it’s such a contentious issue.
Courage, John. Let’s take the bull by the horns and start with motion comfort.
Clan Stories
Talk to pretty much any member of the multihull clan and probably sooner rather than later, they will tell you the story of the time they sailed their boat on a rough passage in company with a bunch of other boats and at the end of the passage the monohull crews all got off their boats swearing that they would never go sailing again, but the cat crews had a lovely time, while dining at the table and drinking fine wines out of glasses that stayed put even in the worst of weather.
Sometimes the story is further embellished with the vase of flowers that always sits on the salon table and never falls over.
Although I suspect that many of these stories are apocryphal, mainly because there is so little variation between the many I have heard over the years, I think at least some of them are actually true.
There is no question in my mind that in some conditions catamarans are way more comfortable than monohulls, but to then claim that cats (or tris) are always more comfortable is a complete logic fail, just like when a monohull sailor says multihulls are too dangerous for cruising because of capsize risk.
So let’s dig into some reality:
Hello John, I just have one question about the centreboards. Why do you specifically mention older Ovnis or Garcías? What changed in the underwater hull design on the newer models?
Best regards
Alex
Hi Alex,
Now you call me on it, and I really think about it, inserting the world older is maybe more about my biases showing than anything in that I far prefer the older boats with their more symmetrical and less extreme lines, than the newer ones with very wide sterns and plumb bows. However, while I’m pretty sure that these wedge shaped hulls, particularly the new Ovnis will not work as well with the wind forward, for the purposes of this article it might not make a difference so I will take the word out.
Hi John , so you are talking more about the Ted Hood center borders and Alden’s ?
Hi John,
I’m not a big fan of keel-centre boarders and that’s based on experience having done a lot of miles on one (F&C 44). To me, if I’m going to give up the benefits of a deep keel I would go the whole hog to a Boreal. That said, I can say that on a reach keel/centreboard boats get more comfortable with the board up.
Hi John. thanks for the clarification. I also prefer the older boats – with a narrower stern and without twin rudders.
Best regards Alex
We have a Passoa 47, which has a centerboard, narrow stern, daggerboard ahead of the single rudder, and no keel at all (just a fin to protect the prop) She is much more comfortable than a deep keel boat. I haver never felt sick in her, in 50,000+ miles including half a dozen ocean crossings, whereas I have been in the few deep keel racers i have sailed on.
Our stern is narrower than the Boreal 47.
The hull is definitely slippery, and makes a relatively calm wake.
The one time we sailed against a Boreal, we were both close hauled. We pointed a bit higher and sailed faster, in fairly flat water. We could not see him in the mist, (AIS info only after first 1/4 mile) so he may have had poorly set sails, or reefed more than we were.
A question that I have never been able to get a particularly good answer to:
Where does a twin keel sit on this spectrum? I’m specifically thinking of modern ones like a RM or a Sirius with high aspect bulbed versions rather than a centaur.
I’ve heard adherents swear they reduce roll significantly, especially in downwind conditions. I’ve personally never really been able to model this in my head in a way that gives an intuition on how they might behave.
Do any of our engineering friends have some useful insights?
Hi Nick,
It might just be that they tend to have less draft than a single fin keel and so are closer to the beach ball. It also might just be an unsubstantiated claim, as often happens around boats, an explanation that gets more likely if the people making the claim don’t explain the bases for it. Anyone else have a good explanation?
Personally I have never been able to see the point of twin keels, other than the dry out capability, which boats like the Boreal also have. It’s interesting to note that twin keels have only ever caught on in places with big tides, which would seem to substantiate my thinking. There are also drawbacks including a lot more wetted surface and an unprotected rudder—unless twin rudders, and that has its own drawbacks.
Fun read John. Thanks.
Personally, I’m waiting for a boat that’s a monohull at sea and a cat at anchor.
For me, it comes down less to ride comfort and more to my preference for the visceral experience of sailing a monohull, but for the “living convenience” of a cat. I know folks ridicule the “floating condo,” but I was envious from the moment I first stepped aboard one.
~Ed
Hi Edward,
Totally hear you on the livability of a cat, particularly living on, rather than living in, but we will get to that in a later chapter.
Pretty darn close, in the opinion of this long-time multihull sailor. A few things.
Like monohulls, cat and tri sailors adjust course for a better ride. On a cat a beam reach in steep waves is uncomfortable; steer up or down 15 degrees. Tris are smoother than cats going to weather because the ama is fine, but they can be weird broad reaching (more on that later).
There is always the capsize/broach topic, even when the conditions are not that strong, because it also relates to ride and handling. Catamarans are more subject to capsize and being overpowered by a strong beam wind, but trimarans are more vulnerable to steep beam seas. The lee hull of a tri is just barely capable (generally) of supporting the full weight of the boat, and if heavily heeled a the same time a wave pushes up under the windward tramp (combined with wind) they can roll very steeply. Additionally, if the lee bow starts to bury on a fast broad reach, the center of latter resistance moves far forward (the the bow acts like a foil forward) and bearing off may become impossible. The boat will want to round up at the worst possible time. The cure is to bear off early int he puffs when sailing fast, and to sail a deeper course when cruising.
The result is that a cat is no fun in heavy weather on a beam reach, and a trimaran is no fun on a broad reach (wind about 135 off the bow) in steep waves. All of this varies, of course, according to the design. The difference is due to the relative difference in hull volume.
And if you bought a cat the slams the bridge deck, well bad on you. My PDQ was fine that way, but yes, there was a head space compromise in a few places. Worth it IMO. Too many people look at the cabin and cockpit lounging space and not at the sailboat.
Great discussion and I whole heartily agree. We lived on a 42 ft Cat for a year and sailed about 8000 miles. Now we have a 43 ft monohull and sail in Buzzards bay.
When the wind moves to the beam or forward on the cat, the motion over the waves is herky-jerky as the hulls go over the waves independently. Of course this depends on the wave height and the period. It takes some getting used to, and it never was really comfortable, although it did not make us sick very often.
Conclusion: In heavy weather or big seas, I’d prefer to be on the monohull. The cat definitely out performed downwind with following seas and at anchor. So for me the cat wins going downwind in the trades. Up here where we currently sail we like the monohull.
Hi Graig,
Great to have an opinion from someone who has tried both…particularly since you agree with me :-).
Hi Drew,
I will get into capsize risk in later article and your comment will be useful then, thanks. On bridge deck slap. I agree that some cats are way worse but I don’t think any are exempt, particularly when they go offshore. That said, I agree that we should always put sailing first, but few do, which contributes to the cat’s bad reputation for slamming.
At last, I can contribute to this with more experience under my belt! We’ve just completed just shy of 10,000Nm sailing our Arcona 435. We did the Atlantic with the ARC, and we’ve just completed a full run through the Caribbean islands. Our transat was a joy. Despite low winds at the beginning we made a 16 day passage (and finished second in class, beaten by a carbon A435). When the winds were steady we were clocking 200-220 miles a day. She was super comfortable at 9-10 knots in the trades. In Biscay and crossing Lisbon to Madeira I can’t say the washing machine motion was comfortable, but it never felt unsafe, it never slammed, and the faster she went, the easier it got. We noticed that in rolly anchorages she didn’t roll as much as others (especially Amels, Ovnis etc). Her keel was very stabilising. We’d never swap for a cat!
Hi Phil,
Glad you like your boat and she is working well for you, but how can you know that you are more comfortable than you would be on a cat or tri? I would argue that you can’t and this highlights a fundamental issue when we are thinking about this: we all love our boats so tend to see their comfort as best but that’s not really based on anything that’s useful to someone else trying to make the same decision. It’s also really difficult to compare the roll on one boat to another in the anchorage and further how much a given boat rolls and how fast depends on how how close the wave period is to the boat’s natural roll frequency, which makes anchorage rolling even more difficult to actually gauge.
Fair points John. I’ve sailed cats and not had an enjoyable, engaging sail. For me, the thing I’ve really loved about my boat is the sheer sailing experience. But as you rightly say, I’m biassed!
Hi John,
You knew as a multihull sailor I would be leaving some comments and to cut to the chase, I pretty much agree with all of your discussion and what I will add will be my real world experience to supplement the information you have presented.
Our current sailing/cruising grounds are the upper central Gulf of Mexico between the entrance/exit of Lake Pontchartrain and Apalachicola, Fl. The Gulf of Mexico especially along the north central coast line is a nasty body of water due to the progression from around 3,000-5,000 feet depth in the lower central body to the less than 100 feet depth for up to 10-20 miles offshore (much of that in the 30-60 feet depth range). Any long southerly swell from SE to SW in direction can set up a sea state of 5’-8’ wave heights (in as little as 15-20 knots of breeze) but with pretty short periods and lots of cross chop. Jimmy Cornell in one of his earlier World Cruising guides had nothing good to say about it other than how to get in and out as quickly as possible. But for some of us, this is our “home”. The ICW in the panhandle of Florida does offer an inside option to stay out of the Gulf but ONLY if your mast height is less than 50 feet (ours is around 62’).
In our experience with our Dragonfly 32 tri upwind, reaching, and downwind in the nastiest the Gulf has thrown at us to date (no more than 28 knots of wind, seas no bigger than 8 feet), the worst points have been as follows. Upwind with dead on waves (our relatively short overall length works against us pitch wise). Beam reaching at 80 to 120 degrees TWA to the boat can be noisy due to wave slap on the side and aft back end of the weather float (the motion of the boat has so far been good and control has been excellent). All of this assumes we have followed our reefing rules (1st reef at 15-18 knots, 2nd reef at 19-22 knots). We have a third reef in the mainsail but have not used it to date.
As I write this, we are currently a little over halfway through a 2 week trip that got us as far east as Apalachicola, FL last Thursday. During this time, a low pressure system developed in the western Gulf pumping a lot of wind and rain (23-28 knots on Saturday). This created a wave state in the Gulf of 6’-8’ waves on Friday and Saturday. Yesterday morning, the breeze had dropped to 0-8 knots nearly all day and the Predict Wind models were all saying sea state down to around 4’-6’. With a TWA forecast of a beam to broad reach with 12-18 knots of wind speed to take us from Port St. Joe, FL to Pensacola (about 100 miles), we ventured into the Gulf late afternoon yesterday but 2 hours into it, we found we still had 6’-8’ seas and the breeze built up to 23-26 knots. The boat handled the conditions like a champ but we realized this was going to be too tiresome to continue so we jibed and diverted into Panama City, FL where we are today. With the wind forecast to remain westerly for the next two days we are waiting for it to shift back to southerly and the sea state to come down later this week before continuing our journey back to Lake Pontchartrain.
Hope this contributes.
Hi John,
As you know, I’m a multihull fanatic and had decades in that camp. Still, I like actual facts, which means I find nothing to disagree with you about. This is useful information for those who look for guidance. As you mention, there’s a lot more to say about these topics, mostly going into details, but I assume we’ll get to that.
THE CAT SUPERIORITY STORY
I’m one of the people with a story of different experiences on mono vs cat on the same day. I can assure you it’s true. And yes, we did even have tall glasses on the cockpit table, even though you wouldn’t leave them there much, due to the wind. It was upwind on a fast 12metre (40 foot) cat with no deck salon and just over 20 knots wind. Still a cruiser, but leaning significantly towards racing. Waaay faster upwind than condomarans.
This was coastal on the Swedish west coast, and most of the people onboard had zero sailing experience. They absolutely loved the whole thing. “Best day of my life” was claimed by a girl who had never before been in a boat. Our neighbours of the night before on roughly same length monos, 3 boats, some of whom we partied with the previous evening, had left hours before us and arrived hours after us, claiming they has sailed in a “storm”, mood onboard approaching divorce. Good boats and several quite experienced sailors.
VIOLENT MOTION
This is indeed one possible scenario with multihulls, the big benefit, but of course it’s not the only way things go. Less than a year ago we were anchored by Hoorn in NL, which is at a lake, on our significantly more cruising adapted 12m (40ft) cat, but not full on a condomaran. Sunny and nice, dining in the cockpit. A maybe 8m (26ft) open expensive looking motorboat with a big inboard and perhaps 10 people came towards us and passed close to our port bow, wakes approaching exactly parallel to our hulls.
They were going perhaps 11 knots, half plane, making stupidly tall, short and steep waves. That’s the sole purpose of that type of boat: Make diesel transform into waves. (I wish I could “thank” them with a water cannon…) This made our cat rock more violently than I have ever experienced on any boat. Plates and kettles were thrown hard off the table. I briefly thought about how the mast would handle it. I told all just before the hit to hold on hard. If not, someone might have been properly hurt. The interior was a mess, as on cats you don’t need everything strapped down, normally…
This level of destruction can only happen when the boat is a sitting duck, and assaulted by idiot boaters, but it does happen and it’s an illustration of what is also somewhat possible at sea. Still, as Drew mentioned above, at sea we only need to make a quite small course change to completely remove the issue. Most angles to the waves are not a problem.
Slamming can happen to any cat, even if the bridge deck is unusually high. The clue is to make it infrequent and soft enough to not be bothering. The more cruising adapted cat mentioned above does slam somewhat more than I’d prefer, but not really a problem. I’t almost only when going at speed reaching, diagonal on the waves, when the waves can combine with the bow waves. Our bridge deck is flat. Some claim that various shapes under there can soften the blows much. I don’t know if that’s true. No experience with it.
POWERING UP
The lighter and more potent a multihull is, especially full on racing trimarans, the more it benefits from being powered up properly. It can dramatically reduce motion in all directions and make it feel like flying just above the wave tops, and actually almost do just that. That’s not anywhere near as effective on cruisers, but it still makes a very noticeable difference. Same on monohulls too, of course.
Non experienced sailors encountering stronger winds often want to take down the sails and start the engine. The smart choice is usually the opposite. Get some sails up and stop the engine. Suddenly everything seems a lot calmer. One guy insisted that the wind and waves had dropped a lot, when I against his wish stopped the engine, in spite of the opposite being real. This was on his monohull and seeing the numbers on his own instruments apparently didn’t change his mind.
Hi Stein,
Good overview. I agree on the importance of having enough sail up. Being under canvased on most any boat is about as uncomfortable as it gets.
In our keel-centerboard monohull, we particularly notice this as the breeze weakens. Powered up downwind the roll is not at all uncomfortable, but wallowing in leftover seas is no fun. Shaking out the reefs or even switching to an asymmetric spinnaker gives a more comfortable (and faster) ride.
Hi Raj,
Absolutely!
Hi John
I was born a trimaran fanatic in California. Owned Browns, Pivers, and Cross’s. Sailed Kantola’s etc. Sailed to Hawaii in the late 80’s on my Searunner 31. Then I became a cat fanatic. I built quite a few tour cats here that work the coast and the channels open to the wide Pacific all year round. My own working cats both have around 1.5M miles on them here on Kauai. My 50′ cruising/racing cat I sailed Kauai/Alaska/Mexico three times.I put maybe 60-70k miles on her. Now I’m actually purchasing a very light carbon cat out of Australia. So, yes I’m still a cat dude.
That said, I have been ultra miserable on trimarans caught beam on in short chop on a mooring (worse than monos or cats by miles!), or crazy yawing down confused seas. I have been miserable in monos doing the death spiral downwind in big seas, or dancing the “spreader dip” in a crappy anchorage.
The yanking motion in the leeward hull of a fast cat can plain rip your skin off going to weather in a cross sea. Oh, and that fast cat? I’ve sailed for weeks at a time with earplugs on.
I’ve also been ecstatic on all three hull forms when they’re in their zone.
My favorite boat to race? Sure, my cat hit 25knts many times, but my Olson 30 is so easy, cheap, safe and endlessly fun to race with friends in a one-design fleet. And even it manages an occasional 16knts surfing.
The best line ever to cover this whole debate is
“Horses for courses.”
Kevin
Kevin,
I agree with you about the beam to broad reach condition in big breeze with a tri or cat but I also believe if you reef properly, the boat should handle it relatively comfortably and I qualify that statement as long as you are sailing in probably under 30 knots of wind. We’ve also been caught out in big breeze and sea state sailing pretty deep downwind and the performance of the boat with just the jib pulled out with the barber hauler towards the leeward float is very comfortable. We’ve sailed at 7-9 knots at 140-160 TWA’s in 20-25 knots of wind with just the jib. There is a YouTube video made several years ago of a Dragonfly 35 delivery from Denmark to the Canary Islands and in one segment they are going downwind at 7-9 knots with just the jib up in big breeze and seas in the Bay of Biscay.
Cheers,
Bob
Hi Kevin,
Totally agree, particularly with the last line. And I like the Olson too.
You seem to be comparing the motion experienced in the four types of hull you mention when sailing identically i.e. same course, wind, wave height/period etc. But experienced sailors of each type would optimise for the characteristics of their individual boats. A course in set conditions that would cause a catamaran to move uncomfortably may well not similarly move a monohull but the converse is equally true and more importantly neither sailor would hold to such a course if there is a choice. Catamaran bridge-deck slamming can often be eliminated by simply bearing off a bit, which coincidentally often increases your SOG and maintains VMG. For any particular wavelength that contributes to a multihull changing attitude quickly due to its relative beam there is a shorter wavelength that will cause a monohull to move equally quickly etc, etc.
For each type of hull you can set up situations where the motion will be uncomfortable, what matters though is where those situations are unavoidable and that’s where the true comparison is. For me that’s anchoring, heeling during passage and hobby-horsing. The motion in a multihull for the first two is far superior to a monohull, the hobby-horsing seems to be more of a personal choice as to whether it’s an issue or not.
I had a 11.9m performance cat– Pescott design, daggerboards, 900mm bridgedeck clearance and weighing ini at 5 tonnes fully loaded. We sailed up and down the NSW coast in some pretty big stuff. Your points are right, downwind (difficult keeping the main up with the swept back stay base) but comfortable as she steered like she was on rails– amazing. Upwind in 40 knots was totally unpleasant–thank god it was only 3 hours up the coast but it was hell! we were going fast– between 9-15 knots (when we bared away) but I could not have taken much more and the interior was a mess. There is a sharp juddering motion that is downright unpleasant. So while she would go to windward at 10 knots and as close as most monos, in big seas, you had to slow down for it to be comfortable. Yes in flat water our two sail top speed was 19 knots with a bottle of wine on the table, however in any waves that bottle is gone. Waves hit on any bridgedeck, it is just fact of life. Most of the time, when you get over the shock of the noise it is fine, but it’s there. My preference is still a cat– especially one that sails well. They can go well to windward, however uncomfortable, she will sail off a lee shore. Baring off, the speed and comfort just goes up– I was sitting on 12 knots in a shy reach for 6 hours up the coast and cooked up a full breakfast of bacon, eggs and coffee with great ease. The lack of rolling at anchor is also a blessing
Hi Philip,
That seems a fair analysis, and, like you, if selecting a cat I would definitely lean to the performance end.
If you could calculate the motion comfort/dollar ratio for different types of hulls, the reality of a catamaran would become clear. I agree that if your boat has to lean 20 degrees to get somewhere, it is “broken.” Still, getting an expedition-level catamaran set up properly adds several zeros above a monohull. When asked why I don’t get a cat, it comes down to dollars.
Hi Rolland, po 0
This is an interesting point, with no absolute answer, but one can look at it from several angles. Pun intended. I have a 12,2m (40 ft) catamaran and recently bought a monohull of the same length. The mono is a beamy deck salon motor sailor, so it has more interior accommodation space than most similar monos. The cat is a cruiser leaning somewhat towards performance. About half the weight of a same length Lagoon, but more sail area. The cat still has about twice the interior space compared to the mono. The cat is also much faster, at anything.
When comparing cats and monos, length is usually a poor starting point. We need to figure out where out limits are on accomodation, performance and whatever else we care about. We will then find that to get those needs fulfilled on a mono and on a cat, the mono would typically be at least 50% longer than the cat. In our own case, to get to roughly the same level as our cat, we need almost an 18m (60ft) mono. That’s certainly no cheaper to buy new than a new version of out cat. It’s also more expensive in harbours than the much shorter cat alternative with the same comforts etc.
Looking at it this way, cats are significantly cheaper than monos. However, this isn’t the only valid comparison. Most people don’t buy brand new boats. Second hand is often the only real option. Since a lot more people now want cats, increasing every year, there’s way too few good seconds hand cats available. That means they’re priced much higher than similar monos. Monos are in a mature market, so they typically have a price closer to their realistic value.
This means we can perhaps find monos that are indeed 50% longer than the cat we lust for, and the mono might even be cheaper. Then we can actually choose what we really want. “What we really want” is usually governed by aesthetics and emotions rather than the numbers game I looked at above. We cherry pick pieces of logic, to justify the emotional choice we made.
A 12m (40ft) cat is about the minimum length that is possible for a condomaran without looking just too stupid. (One might notice that I have a beef with 3 level floating houses pretending to be sailboats.) The accommodation in such a cat is way more than any cruising couple has a need for. It’s actually a too big boat for the need. Thus, in reality is we still compare and buy boats on their length, and it often does make some sense, as long as we remember that it’s not the whole story.
Hi Stein,
I agree with most all of that, but let’s leave cost and accommodation to a future chapter. If we go down that road now the whole comment thread on this article is going to wander off into who knows what.
Hm, the “po 0” at the top of my entry above here is not some cryptic message, or at least not intended that way….
I must have touched some keys unintentionally and didn’t notice until now. Normally I’d just leave it, but in this case it’s next to the name of the person I address, so I want to avoid misunderstandings. Sorry.
Hi Rolland,
We will look at price later. I also strongly disagree that if we must heal the boat is broken. I have sailed well over 100,000 miles in boats that heal and while I would agree that it’s uncomfortable, at least at first, it’s better than any sort of slamming. Trust me with 600 miles hard on the wind from Greenland to Iceland into a nasty Denmark Strait seas no boat will be comfortable, but heal is the least of one’s worries in that situation. Slamming is a much bigger problem whether it be a mono or cat.
Suggesting that one type is broken does not advance the cause of helping people make a rational decision for their needs, so please don’t do that.
Hi John,
I have a question, maybe of topic, that goes back more than 50 years, when I worked on a freighter. The older officers often remarked that you can spot an iron ore carrier from miles away, because, even in very calm conditions, they keep on rolling from side to side. I have never figured out why, but assume it has to do with a very low center of gravity, but why ? Maybe Erik de Jong has the answer.
Many thanks.
Hi Rene,
Yes, that’s right. Some years ago a ship wrecked on Bermuda’s north reef. They were trying to make port without proper charts or pilot because the rolling was so violent they thought the ship was unstable and about to turn over. Turned out in the inquiry that the first mate has screwed up his stability calculations during loading and put some very heavy equipment down low and actually the ship was overly stable.
Thanks John for that interesting story, but not all first mates make that mistake, if it was a mistake to begin with, I mean where else could he have placed it?. My own 60′ motorboat is all aluminum and as such has about 5 tons of lead in the bilge, but it doesn’t have the rolling problem.
Thanks again
Hi Rene,
He should have placed some of the weight higher in the hold. Calculating this is a standard part of the first mates job. Your boat has a different set up and so is not relevant to whether or not the mate screwed up, which was determined by an in depth inquiry.
A good way to think about this is a sailboat being motored with no mast in. The motion is horrible. Too much stability is not a good thing.
Hi John, new subscriber here (best decision ever made) and first time commenting. Also, novice sailor so I hope to get some leniency.
My goal boat, by which I mean a boat that I can realistically hope to own one day, is the Boreal 44.2, thanks in large part to your reviews of the French aluminum dériveurs (was initially a Garcia enthusiast – curious to see the new Ovni 490). Having said that, if I could afford not just to buy but to also to maintain a Windelo catamaran, I would probably go for that because of the comfort, space and lack of heeling, characteristics unique to Windelo such as the forward cockpit and serial electric drives powered by massive solar, and other aspects that per your instructions I don’t want to preempt. My understanding, based on what I have read and seen on vids, is that due to the fine entry point, light weight, high clearance and other aspects of its hull design, its motion upwind is not bad at all and downwind it will plane. I would just avoid having the weather on my beam.
Hi Constantine,
Sure the Windelo is an interesting boat although some of the marketing is, shall we say a bit extravagant. And yes the higher bridge decks are good, but they are no more than a meter at best so the idea that there will be no slamming is a dream. Ditto the idea that it will be energy independent under solar. Note that the boat has a generator as standard and there is a reason for that: https://www.morganscloud.com/2021/03/22/when-electric-drive-works-for-a-cruising-sailboat/
Also, at least as far as I know, cats don’t really plane, at least in the same way say an open 60 does, and pretty much certainly won’t when loading with cruising kit.
And finally it’s great to say you will never beam reach, but in the real world of offshore sailing that’s not a practical restriction, although it can be a useful technique. Keep in mind that while the roll will be faster and most violent on a beam reach, with the wrong wave size that problem will continue from beating to broad reaching.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Boreal is a better boat, but make sure that when you compare the two you don’t confuse marketing claims with facts.
Hi again, Constantine,
And thanks so much for the kind words! One other thought. I think the Boreal 44 MkI is a better boat than the MkII and you could get one for a lot less. The MkI was designed and built to be the best possible boat for one of the founders, the MkII was designed and built to satisfy the market and compete with the new Garcias.
The real peach is the Boreal 52-55 Mk1: https://www.morganscloud.com/category/boat-design-selection/boreal/boreal-52-55/
But that’s a big boat and definitely not a starter boat.
Thanks for the thoughtful response John! Yes, I agree on the MKI and especially about the 52 but it’s very rare to find a Boreal in the used market. Last one I saw was Sir Ernst and despite having been used very intensively it was sold in no time. Who knows, maybe by when I’m ready things will be different.
For me, the most attractive feature of the Windelo is the cockpit being at the foot of the mast, which makes the motion a bit better, and also being able to access the mast and foredeck straight from the cockpit without having to go around. Having read your excellent piece on how to properly set up lifelines and having done some research and finding out that the most common cause of fatalities on sailboats is falling or being ejected overboard, my sense is that such a set up plus the stable platform greatly reduces risk. Curious what you think. Cheers!
Hi Constantine,
I don’t want to turn this into a boat review, but as it happens I was just looking at the Windelo and that forward cockpit scares the hell out of me. It has two forward facing openings just covered with fabric and it’s wide open to the entire bridge deck area. One boarding wave will sweep through the whole area washing all before it, including people, and those sliding glass doors, assuming they are closed, which they almost certainly won’t be. And after that there will be a huge weight of water that will take a long time to drain, so the boat will be driven down in the water making another boarding wave likely.
There is also nothing to stop water going down into the hulls that I can see so catastrophic downflood is a real danger. To me this is a seriously dangerous design. For some strange reason cat designers seem to think that having two hulls repeals the basic laws of safe offshore design (keep the water out) but having two huge openings like that is a basic design fail and in my view disqualifies the boat for offshore, or even along coast, use. I would not take that boat out of a sheltered bay!
Thanks John! I also don’t want to turn it into a boat review so let me know if I cross any boundaries. I only mention the specific make because I was on it at the Annapolis boat show in October and it made me feel that it could make me switch from a mono to a cat. Aside from the reasons I mentioned, also the appeal of being able to sale protected by the elements whenever you choose. The front cockpit is designated as an outdoor area. It can be secured from the rest of the boat with watertight doors, but even if they are not closed, the cockpit has big drains in case water does come in. Based on people who have sailed it across oceans several times, the only time water came in was going upwind in gale force winds and it was minimal due to the high freeboard, the fact that the mast has been placed further aft and there is a big netted area in front through which the water dissipates. Of course, any buyer should try it out in rough seas before making a decision. I do agree though that replacing the soft plastic covers with proper watertight windows seems the wiser choice. I wonder if they would be willing to do so on demand. But thanks for making me feel less bad about not being able to afford one.
Hi Constaantine,
Sorry I don’t agree with any of that. Those sliding doors are not even close to the spec for a truly sea safe hatch, even if they were closed, which I doubt they are much. And cockpit drains do not solve the weight issue because they won’t drain fast enough to lighten the boat before the next wave comes aboard. Also trying the boat in rough seas will tell you nothing about my concerns, which are about when it gets really serious offshore.
The problem is that until we have seen the sea really angry it’s impossible to imagine what that looks like and the destruction a breaking wave can do. For example, the idea that the net or the height of the boat would solve the problem just shows that the person expressing it has never seen a really nasty offshore sea state. Sorry, I know that sounds harsh, but boats like this that ignore the basic laws of safe design and then are sold as offshore boats, upset me.
Hi again Constantine,
I just reread my last reply on this thread and I was definitely too harsh, and worse still it reads as if I was attacking you personally. My apologies.
Hi John,
Oh no, I am deeply offended, haha. Seriously, I didn’t take anything personal. In my profession, one should almost never do so, especially when the criticism comes from people who are vastly more knowledgeable/experienced than you. I am here to learn and I hear what you are saying. I mean, I would never try to cross the Drake or round Cape Horn on it, but then again I probably wouldn’t on most Catamarans. All I have to go by is the reports of people who have sailed it across the Atlantic, sailing sometimes upwind in sustained winds of 40 to 50 knots. But I do share your concerns. As I mentioned, my biggest fear is losing someone overboard, and it seemed that this setup greatly minimizes this risk but maybe, as you say, by taking different risks. Gunboat has a similar concept and the forward cockpit is more secure but that thing is a beast and out of most people’s league. My second biggest fear is hitting something while sailing at a high speed…which is why an aluminum, centerboard, single-rudder, not so fast monohull is attractive.
Cheers!
Hi Constantine,
Thanks for taking it in that spirit.
Sorry, but I really have to correct another thing that you were told: Anyone who tells you that they sailed up wind into 40 to 50 knots is making up the whole story and should not be trusted about anything. There are pretty much no boats, no matter the number of hulls that can sail into 40 to 50 knots of wind offshore. The upper limited up wind for our big powerful metal McCurdy and Rhodes 56 is about 30 knots true sustained (high Force 7), apparent will be over gale force, and even at that green water will be continuously breaking over the boat and the loads prodigious.
At 40 knots (start of Force 9) significant wave height will be 23-32 feet which means there will be waves out there as high as 50-60 feet and many will break. In my view, just one wave of even 30 feet that broke over that cat would smash in windows, destroy those sliding doors, and flood the boat likely leading to a total loss because once she was open to the sea the next few waves will likely finish her. Remember wind pressure and wave size go up exponentially: 40 knots is twice as violent as 30 knots and 50 knots is the start of force 10—survival storm.
In that much wind there are only two consistently safe options: heave-to, or run off with a Jordan Series Drogue: https://www.morganscloud.com/category/storm-tactics/online-book-heavy-weather/
Anyway, It’s not that she is not fit for Cape Horn. In my view, she is not fit to sail to Bermuda with that large forward cockpit combined with the flimsy barriers to water entry. Note that I’m not against forward cockpits on cats, but they have to be done right and in my view that boat is a disaster looking for the wrong wave.
Thanks John, it was an account of Jean-Marie Poujat, who is the skipper of HM, a Windelo 54 Sport. This is the quote:
“The outgoing trip was tough. When we left Gibraltar, we initially wanted to go to Madeira but the weather got complicated. We had to reroute to the Canaries, and were forced to pass through a weather front to the south-west of Portugal where we hit a steady 40 knots wind for four hours followed by an hour with 50 plus knots plus five meter swells that we were punching upwind into. So the boat is strong – I’ve tested it and it’s good – but it was quite hard going. After that, we had some strong trade winds. We had between 25 and 30 knots all the time. With a full gennaker and two reefs in the mainsail, the boat went well.”
I wouldn’t think that he would lie about it but who knows. Of course, that was not mid-Atlantic, so the swells were not as big, but still says something about the boat’s capability, assuming it is true.