I'd point out that sailing on a beach cat, like a Hobie, has very little to do with sailing on a cruising sized multihull. Beach cats are extremely overpowered, and far more likely to capsize or pitchpole. They're a hell of a lot of fun, but comparing them to a cruising multihull is like comparing a Moth sailing dinghy to a cruising monohull....
Your point about the differences, like bearing away versus heading up, is very key... monohull sailors need to unlearn some near instinctive reactions that will get them into trouble on a multihull.
There are quite a few decent small cruising catamaran designs out now. The Maine Cat 30, the TomCat 9.7, the Gemini 105mc, the Seawind 1000, etc. Most of these are bluewater capable, though some monohull purists might disagree.
I'd point out that the scantlings for monohulls are very different than the scantlings for multihulls. Multihulls are often far lighter constructed—but if you think about it, this makes a vast amount of sense.
The monohull has to support the keel and resist the forces that supporting the keel inflicts on it. When a wave hits a monohull, sheer inertia pins it in place.
The multihull on the other hand does not have the mass or inertia of a keel, depending on its wide beam for stability instead. When a wave hits a multihull, it will generally accelerate and move with the wave instead of being pinned like a monohull.
There are also some very good cruising trimaran designs out there. The bulk of the modern trimarans are taken up by the "sport" trimaran designs, like the Farrier inspired Corsairs, the Quorning Dragonflies and my Telstar 28. These designs really top out at about 37-40' or so. There are larger trimarans, but no production ones that I can think of off the top of my head.
As pointed out, the catamarans, at least those with a bridgedeck cabin, are going to be far more spacious than the trimarans of equal length. The trimarans are probably going to be far better performers.
There are a lot of older trimaran designs that use a full wingdeck or nearly so. The Jim Brown-designed Searunners are among these. This style of trimaran design has mostly fallen by the wayside. However, some of Norman Cross's designs still use a wingdeck and are fairly spacious boats.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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 15ş 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.
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