[Jeff_H]

You are obviously pricing the boat by length. Cats cost roughly the same as a monohull with the same amount of space.

But to get more specific, Cats have a lot more fiberglass than a similar length monohull, and that fiberglass work needs to be of a higher quality because the stresses in a cat are much higher and you can''t afford to through a lot of material at the problem as you can on a monohull keel joint for example. Rigging loads are huge on a cat and so rigging size is very large compared to a monohull. As you note there are twice as many rudders and engines (albeit smaller in size) and while there is a single helm station the equipment needs to be more complex to control both rudders.

In a conversation with someone who had recently sold a Catamarran building company, he was crying the blues that it was very hard to make a profit on cats as the market has so many similar models that they are all being forced to sell at a very low margin.

The other issue is what happens to older cats. The surveyors are telling me that the cats from the 1990''s are not holding up all that well. The stresses are huge and they are lightly built and so over time take a real beating. That could either chase people away from cats, or make newer cats more desireable and even more expensive.

Unfortunately my crystal ball is in the shop for repairs.

Jeff