All I can say is "wow". Thanks chuteman, been out in the Bay lately?

 

Prior to the boat capsizing, 'the captain had been steering through the storm for three or four hours,' Klinges said. 'He went down below to take a rest and took off all his gear. Once we were in the water, the wind just took it out of him.'

Hmmm.... Sounds like mainly human error. Sailing downwind in a catamaran with 50 knots of wind and 45' breaking seas? Why not heave-to and wait the storm out?

 

Better yet...ask why anyone would consider crossing the north atlantic in February.

 

Many cats won't heave to all that well. Why didn't he have a drogue or sea anchor? Also, you do have to question his timing of his trip...as Cam points out... Crossing the North Atlantic in February is less than wise.

 

Human error?!!

Hmmm.... Sounds like mainly human error. Sailing downwind in a catamaran with 50 knots of wind and 45' breaking seas? Why not heave-to and wait the storm out?

Kacper,
That's a pretty gratuitous comment, doubtless spoken from the comfort of your computer desk. There may be some members who are expert in the heavy weather handling of multihulls, but I'm know I'm not one of them and given your "I Just Bought My First Boat" post, I bet you aren't either.
Your comment makes me feel sick.

For other posters benefit, the article makes clear the original plan was not a North Atlantic crossing......

 

We weren't there. We can't say.

But the reroute to Annapolis sounds arbitrary and ill-informed, seeing as the crew understood that it was a bad idea. A glance at a North Atlantic Pilot would confirm that mid-February is not great sailing weather north of the Tropic of Cancer.

 

Sfool...right...the article makes plain that the original destination was the Caribe but a phone call instructed them to take it to Annapolis. My question is why the captain didn't turn around and walk off the boat. The crew guy was along for the experience but the captain should have said no.

 

Kacper,
That's a pretty gratuitous comment, doubtless spoken from the comfort of your computer desk. There may be some members who are expert in the heavy weather handling of multihulls, but I'm know I'm not one of them and given your "I Just Bought My First Boat" post, I bet you aren't either.
Your comment makes me feel sick.

For other posters benefit, the article makes clear the original plan was not a North Atlantic crossing......

You know if you were to read anything at all on cats I doubt you would find anyone who would recommend running in those conditions. Not that I know this from experience, the only cat I've ever sailed was a Hobie, but it would seem logical that it wasn't a sensible thing to do. Now I could, in my ignorance, ask the same question about heaving to. Not to be accusative but merely wishing to understand. Who know's ? Someone with a wealth of multi hull experience could well inform us that cats hate to heave to and running is the way to go.

This is, after all, a discussion group not judge and jury. Supposition is all part of discussion.

 

"Flirting with Mermaids"

Sfool...right...the article makes plain that the original destination was the Caribe but a phone call instructed them to take it to Annapolis. My question is why the captain didn't turn around and walk off the boat. The crew guy was along for the experience but the captain should have said no.

Cam,
Kretschmer has an interesting story in Flirting with Mermaids about accepting an assignment to deliver a boat from Newport to Sweden in February.The bottomline was he felt he was a professional being paid enough to take the job - I well remember the perils he described of the voyage, but don't recall whether he second-guessed himself on the flight home....

 

SF...and there's 3 experienced captains that lost their lives off Oregon in a cat making the same "professional" decision back in December. I think decisions like this show a lack of professionalism.

 

Multihulls are inherently unsafe

I have owned a sailboat pretty much all the time since 1978. Before I purchased my first boat I did extensive research on sailing and came to the conclusion that sailing a multihull craft offshore was inherently unsafe. I feel the same way today. The death rate for offshore sailing in cats and tris is dramatically higher than in ballasted monohulls.

 

I have owned a sailboat pretty much all the time since 1978. Before I purchased my first boat I did extensive research on sailing and came to the conclusion that sailing a multihull craft offshore was inherently unsafe. I feel the same way today. The death rate for offshore sailing in cats and tris is dramatically higher than in ballasted monohulls.

Pardon me, but you're full of S***!

Can you state any facts to back your statements... or are you just blowing smoke... Multihulls are just as safe, if not safer than monohulls. Most of the major accidents that you hear of involving multihulls are racing multihulls... and that is like comparing the safety of commericial airline safety to that of small racing planes... apples and oranges.

 

Maye I'm wrong but isn't ther more than one way to get to Annapollis?
I wander what the owner was thinking, maybe he left out the after you get to Lauderdale part.
Mono or multi no one in their right mind should be sailing that route this time of year.

Matt

 

Pardon me, but you're full of SH!t.

Can you state any facts to back your statements... or are you just blowing smoke... Multihulls are just as safe, if not safer than monohulls. Most of the major accidents that you hear of involving multihulls are racing multihulls... and that is like comparing the safety of commericial airline safety to that of small racing planes... apples and oranges.

It's tough to get an apple to apples comparison because there are many more mono-hulls crossing oceans then multi-hulls and the multi-hulls tend to stay with the better routes. Some estimates have been made however real solid numbers are hard to come by. Also the people intending to push their luck more often then not select a mono-hull. But the number I use for offshore accidents comparing mono to multi is 0.2% for multi-hulls and 0.05% for mono-hulls. Also keep in mind that since the fifties the percentage of multi-hulls having problems has decreased as the design and construction has improved but I still think as a percentage of the boats out there more trans-ocean multi-hulls have problems then mono-hulls.

Does this mean the multi-hull is domed offshore? I don't think so but for my money if I wanted to push it I would do it in a mono-hull. People who want to take advantage of all the comforts the multi-hull offers seldom do the type of trips that come to grief because they exercise more care about route and season and they really take their time and enjoy the advantages the multi-hull has to offer.

Very often you hear that a multi may have a problem but they won't sink so it's OK. What does that mean? It's OK to depart in a boat that is itself the substitute for a liferaft? It's true a mono-hull will sink if you fill it up but you are more likely to survive a crossing in a mono-hull then multi-hull if things get rough. As a matter of fact I think you are four times more likely to survive with a mono-hull then a multi-hull if the crossing becomes a survival situation because of wind and sea condition.
All the best,
Robert Gainer

 

"Pardon me, but you're full of SH!t.

Can you state any facts to back your statements... or are you just blowing smoke... Multihulls are just as safe, if not safer than monohulls. Most of the major accidents that you hear of involving multihulls are racing multihulls... and that is like comparing the safety of commericial airline safety to that of small racing planes... apples and oranges."

You made exactly my point that sailing a multihull is like flying a small racing plane.

Let me add one more consideration taking a multihull into cold water without a liferaft is suicidal. The thought that hanging on to an inverted hull is in any way related to the safety of a liferaft is ludicrous.

Sailing multihulls of any stripe is an order of magnitude more dangerous per mile sailed than a monohull.

If there were anywhere near as many multihulls as keel sailboats there would be worldwide cry to ban the things.

 

I don't think either side here has stated anything but opinion. Where are the facts guys...if there are none then you can take your opinions and share nthem as such....but don't go making outrageous claims on either side unless you can cite something.
My opinion is that I would never take a cat off shore as I perceive they are more likely to get into trouble based on what I saw during Ivan. That is a personal opinion and my guess is the guys that deliver cats from S. Africa might have a different one.

 

It seems he had a regular delivery of cats from France to Florida and this was his third trip within a year. In his words
"* I have experienced truly bad conditions out there and discovered how to deal with them – (nice to know should push come to shove again)



* Always, I will go to extreme lengths through planning to avoid bad weather, but on occasions it is karma – being prepared is the key. "
He planned to go via the Azores and was 200 miles NE of Bermuda. It looks to me that he may well have been taking the southern route or largely so, and possibly going via the Bahamas rather than straight to Annapolis. However others will know more of the theoretical and actual route than I do.
In the storm conditions experienced as well as being difficult for any type boat, the cat a 39' would I understand be at risk of being rolled or pitchpoled, so a drogue or sea anchor would be required. That seems the accepted view amongst cat sailors. Whether a new boat on a delivery carried either I don't know.
The two with survival suits survived, the third without sadly did not.

 

...I don't think either side here has stated anything but opinion...

I agree - there have been no facts presented for either case.

I've found that insurance companies hire the best statisticians and actuaries - and that they do their job relatively well. I think it would be fair to say that if insurances companies charge similar amounts per $1K of insured hull value for a monohull vs. a multihull then I would be willing to accept that as solid evidence of seaworthiness even if I didn't like the results.

Having stated that, I must admit that I have no idea of what actual rates are between the two, all I have are rough estimates for "boat insurance" running at about 2% of total value and no mention is made of differentiating hull types.

 

That is a personal opinion and my guess is the guys that deliver cats from S. Africa might have a different one.

Very broadly speaking, I think the only catamarans designed from day one for oceanic conditions (which means in catamaran terms no patio-style sliding doors and a very different approach to the bridgedeck undersides) are designed in South Africa. Of course there are exceptions, but that particular country seems to build them to an entirely different reality than the sort common to North American coastal waters, most of which give me the creeps.

Maybe it's because they have to consider 8,000 mile deliveries right after launch that makes them a little safer?

 

The death rate for offshore sailing in cats and tris is dramatically higher than in ballasted monohulls.

Golly & Gosh - surely you should know by quoting a statement like this you would need to back it up with some sort of reference that is not simply anecdotal??

Very broadly speaking, I think the only catamarans designed from day one for oceanic conditions (which means in catamaran terms no patio-style sliding doors and a very different approach to the bridgedeck undersides) are designed in South Africa.

Maybe it's because they have to consider 8,000 mile deliveries right after launch that makes them a little safer?

No Valiente, it is because we are surrounded, by some of the roughest and meanest sea-conditions on any given day, in any area around our coastline. These cats are built with that in mind...

 

No Valiente, it is because we are surrounded, by some of the roughest and meanest sea-conditions on any given day, in any area around our coastline. These cats are built with that in mind...

That was my implication, actually. For the record, I have never sailed or even stepped aboard a cat, but PDQ (a generally acknowledged "good" cat builder) is down the road from Toronto, and there's quite a few of them in particular seen on Lake Ontario, so I've looked them over from the middle distance. So all I'm saying is that to my unpractised eye is that there is a qualitative design difference between S.A. cats and most others I've seen.

They are lower and have less portlight area in the coach house, for one.

They also seem a tad longer and narrower for another. I can only attribute this to the sort of trial and error available to peoole who round the Cape of Faint Hope into adverse currents and heavy winds on a regular basis: the design of cats in S.A. must be a particularly Darwin-driven affair.

 

You made exactly my point that sailing a multihull is like flying a small racing plane.

Let me add one more consideration taking a multihull into cold water without a liferaft is suicidal. The thought that hanging on to an inverted hull is in any way related to the safety of a liferaft is ludicrous.

Sailing multihulls of any stripe is an order of magnitude more dangerous per mile sailed than a monohull.

If there were anywhere near as many multihulls as keel sailboats there would be worldwide cry to ban the things.

Obviously reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. I said that a racing multihull, which is often sailed close to the limits of their performance envelope is like flying a small racing plane. A racing multihull is nowhere near as safe as a cruising multihull. Generally, the large cruising multihulls have far more surplus buoyancy in their hulls than does a racing design, and generally have a much more conservative sailplan as well. I still have yet to see you quote any articles or reference materials to back up your claims.

Your ignorance of modern multihull design and sailing is appalling. If multihulls were so deficient in design, why would many of the records we have seen set recently have been accomplished in such unseaworthy vessels. To name two recent records set by multihulls-Ellen McArthur's world record single-handed circumnavigation, and the recent transAtlantic speed record set by Bruno Peyron.

Chris White, the author of "The Cruising Multihull", cites several USCG statistics, and the larger cruising multihulls were considerably safer than either smaller (<35') multihulls or monohull sailboats. Given that one of the most common causes of sailboat fatalities are MOB situations... it would stand to reason that it is going to be far safer to be on a much wider boat that heels less, 15˚ generally for a trimaran, and 10˚ for a catamaran, and that you're far more likely to fall overboard on a relatively narrower boat 10' beam for a 30' keelboat vs 14-18' beam for a 30' multihull, which is heeled over at 30˚ much of the time. However, these statistics are at least 10 years old...and, if anything, the designs of multihulls has improved during those 10 years.

Granted, larger boats are generally a bit safer than smaller boats...being less prone to capsize. However, the safety record of even smaller multihulls, is comparable to that of larger monohulls. This is especially true if you eliminate the "racing" multihulls from the statistics, and only include the more stable, cruising designs.

One reason that the statistics are a bit skewed is that keelboats have a position of ultimate stability- upright, sitting on the bottom of the ocean. There are many cases where monohull sailboats are reported missing but no one really knows what happened to the people aboard... and because there is no way to find out more information, the story quickly fades into the background... look at the Jim Gray story... which has just faded out... Another good story to point out is the loss of the crew of the Moquini. The keel-less hull of Moquini was found after the EPIRB for the boat was set off, but there is no sign of the crew and they are missing and presumed dead. I'd imagine that for every sailboat that is reported missing in the news, there are others that are not-boats that set sail and simply disappeared without any trace. It is often a far more dramatic story when a multihull is capsized, because there are survivors and they can tell the story.

 

SD...on the other hand....I have never seen a monohull flying like a kite at anchor...saw two 40+ foot cats do that in Ivan. Both ended up in their position of ultimate stability too!! <g> Can you cite the coast guard statistics Chris White reports so we can all have a look at them?

 

Cam-

I'd be happy to next time I'm down at the marina... since my copy of the book is sitting on my boat.

While I haven't seen a big cat act as a kite, I can believe it...as the windage some of the bigger cats have is incredible. However, their behavior at anchor in a hurricane is not what is currently under discussion. It is their ability to make bluewater passages safely, and whether they are inherently more or less dangerous than monohulls on such a passage. Let's face it... poor planning, and sailing in the wrong waters at the wrong time is going to get you killled pretty much regardless of what kind of boat your on. The two catamaran incidents of recent mention, the one in this thread and the poor bastards off the coast of Oregon, both were sailing in conditions that very few boats, be they monohulls or multihulls, would have survived.

 

SD...yep...I know...just pointing out a little known attribute that was fascinating if painful to watch! Like I said...theyre not for me...but good aguments may be made on both sides of the issue...and we're at least all sailors! I would like to see those statistics though since I've never read anything I could believe "for sure" and would like to understand what the CG did and their conclusions. No rush...just PM me when you run across them in the future.
Let me ask you something...not to say one type of boat is better than another overall....but in REALLY bad ocean conditions...would you rather be on a cat or a monohull. Assume both boats are as good as can be for ocean conditions.