[damies]

mackconsult,

I understand where you are coming from, until a year ago I had never sailed a multi, I grew up around mono's. So while no means being an expert I will post my experience in the conversion.

Most importantly you will need to re-learn to sail it is a little different, not relearn completely, just change some instincts.

As I sai I grew up around mono's on Sydney harbour and the Hawksbury River, then with work life and after getting married, I didn't get a chance to sail for over 15 years. When I decided I wanted to sail again (you do miss sailing) I was now living In Brisbane, This was important, because the places I sailed as a kid/teenager were all deep water areas, brisbane and it's surrounding waterways are notoriously shallow and littered with sand bars. This was a big contributing factor in my decision to sail a multi.

The other factor for me was my wife, she has never sailed, and scares easily, I knew a soon as a mono healed past 15º she would be scared, having been married 10 years I knew she would never really get used to healing like that, so this was the other big contributor.

My first step to Multi sailing was to hire a Hobie cat, so with the whole family on board a 14' Hobie cat I went sailing for the first time in 15 years. In some ways this was a mistake.

From my reading I know that multi's capsize when the leeward bow digs in the water, we got a gust of breeze and the leeward bow started to go quite deep into the water, my instinct as a mono sailor was when overpowered to bear away, so I did and capsized, so that was lesson one, in a multi, if you are overpowered, point upwind and stall the boat, never bear away.

So with all 4 of us in the water, and my son (the youngest) under the main sail, I had to instruct 3 novices what to do, I swam under the main and go my son out, and instructed everyone to just hang onto the boat. I righted the cat (I had read about how to do this, it's not that different to righting a dingy) and pulled everyone aboard then came lesson 2.

Trying to get going again, the way I would in a dingy, I got a rude surprise, I couldn't seem to move forward, I was actually sailing backward with out realising, and all my attempts to steer were all behaving strangely. I finally got moving again, and we sailed around for another 10 min until our hire time (1 hours) was up and we came back ashore.

Luckily for me it was a quite day at the beach and the guy who was hiring the cats wanted a sail, so he took me out and gave me a few pointers about sailing cats and how they are different to mono's, this was very helpful.

A year later my son is still scared about capsizing, though getting better, this is why I regret taking the family out on the cat.

So now my advice:

1) First couple of times you sail on a multi, whether yours / a hired one / or whatever other way you get on a multi. Make sure you go with someone experienced in sailing multi's, and learn as though you were a novice, it's not that it hard, just different and you have to retrain some instincts. And don't take the family if they are not experienced sailors

2) Tri's sail more like mono's than cats, it's pretty obvious why.

3) cabin space: if you can afford a bridge deck cat, go for a cat, they will have more cabin space than even a mono. If not and like me you are looking at smaller boats (under 35') then you will probably find you are looking as open deck cats and compared to these the tri's have better cabin space.

4) Whether you buy a cat or a tri, first couple of times you go out on it, again take someone who is experienced with that type of boat, and have fun.

I hope that my experience helps.

Good luck,

Dave.