Thorj30 said:
"you take as example racing cats, 3 of them who capsized.. without any sails on them ???? who in the right mind would sail without ANY sails "
I say:
Not any racing cats, but 60ft ocean racer cats.
And it were not three that capsized, but four.
You really didn''t understand why they have capsized. They have capsized because the moment force produced by the wind hitting the mast was enough to capsize them, no matter what, even without waves. Of course if you carried any sail, you would just have capsized sooner.
I have read an interview with one of the skippers involved (one of the French top professional racing sailors) where he explained clearly the situation that led to those inevitably capsizes.
Thorj30 said:
... "the story of the English fellow in a cat. with centerboards halfways down ... in a real blow you do not have the CB down...Of course some idiots will be able to do almost anything and even capsize a catamaran..."
I say:
Do you call 22Knots of wind a blow?
That was a crew of four, two of them were professional sail teachers and experienced delivery skippers. I can not find anything stupid in their actions, even with the centerboards. They were pointing at 55º with almost no waves (2ft) with “only”22 knots of wind in an undercanvassed boat with slightly free sheets…it looks alright to me...Why do you call them stupid?
Thorj30 said:
"you wrote that nobody else was going out"
I say:
No I did not write such a thing, I have said:
"the weather was kind of ugly, for summertime, nothing special, 25 to 35 knots of wind and 3 or 4 meters waves. I entered the sheltered waters of a "Ria" to spend the night and finished grounded. My family (two of them badly seasick all day) wanted .... to stay for some time, till the sea calmed dawn.
....I have made some comments: "see, those guys don''t get seasick nor scared...They are going at night and you don''t want to go in the daylight".
This means, that for me the weather was alright and that I wanted to go out in the morning. My family (seasick) didn''t want and I have stayed “grounded” against my will. In fact, I was complaining about that to them when I saw the Cat. sail away.
It was August, there was plenty of sailboats out there, a lot of them cruising the Biscay bay (and the weather was worse up there), making their way to the Med
Thorj30 said:
"how many mono hulls have sunk in the last 3 years ? “And how many of the unfortunate sailors on them did not have the chance to get picked up on the upside down but floating hull?”
I say:
I don''t know. Do you know how many Monohulls are out there for each cruising Cat? A lot, certainly.
That''s crazy! Who, except you (perhaps ) would want to "have the chance to get picked up on the upside down but floating hull ?"
If you go on an adequate monohull ocean going yacht you don''t get upside down for more than some seconds, even if capsized and in fact you do not have that dubious "chance to get picked up on the upside down but floating hull".
The Southerly 115 (the boat I have suggested) is a boat that can go where any cat. can go and has a LPS/AVS of around 160º with an almost inexistent negative stability (less than 0.1 GZ(m)).
Not a chance of staying upside down on that boat for more than a very few seconds, being the more probable that after capsizing the boat would continue to roll and come immediately, on the other side, the right way up.
Finally, don’t get me wrong, I like fast cats (not the fat ones) even if I like more Tri, like the “Dragonflies or the Corsairs” for example, but in this case, speed has its tradeoffs and safety is one of them.
Of course, everything is relative and I am not saying that Catamarans are unsafe, I am only saying that generally to the same size, Monohulls are safer and that is vastly exaggerated to state that - (to capsize a cat) “is almost impossible to do.”
Paulo