Do Cat Owners Actually Beach Their Cats ?

[Mr B]

Wrong Piccy on the sand.

This is my Gem on the beach, Unintensional, 10 pm at night and a tide running out, in a river, slowly lowered me onto the sand,

Some cats cant be beached,

[Kiwikat]

Originally Posted by Palarran

If that is true that's great. I had heard the opposite. The keels are designed to snap off and are foam covered with fiberglass inserted into sockets. I just didn't imagine that would be strong enough to carry the total weight.

Really I don't know as I didn't get to talk to FP as a new boat owner. When the boat yards have blocked up my cat they do it under the hull fore and aft of the keels. My keels typically don't have anything under them.

I emailed the question to FP in France shortly after we purchased our Bahia. This was their reply:

Good morning
Congratulations for purchasing a Bahia.
Yes you can sit her on it's keels only (see pic attached) .
Have a nice sailing
Best regards
Thierry Billard

Thierry BILLARD

Responsable Service Clients - Customer Service Manager

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOUNTAINE PAJOT
Zone Industrielle - 17290 AIGREFEUILLE - France
Tel +33(0) 546 35 70 40 - Fax +33 (0) 546 35 50 10
Internet :www.fountaine-pajot.com - E-mail : sav@fountaine-pajot.com

[Kiwikat]

Sorry here is the pic supplied by FP.

Cheers
Lisa

[whatsupdoc]

Originally Posted by Kiwikat

I emailed the question to FP in France shortly after we purchased our Bahia. This was their reply:

Good morning
Congratulations for purchasing a Bahia.
Yes you can sit her on it's keels only (see pic attached) .
Have a nice sailing
Best regards
Thierry Billard

Thierry BILLARD

Responsable Service Clients - Customer Service Manager

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOUNTAINE PAJOT
Zone Industrielle - 17290 AIGREFEUILLE - France
Tel +33(0) 546 35 70 40 - Fax +33 (0) 546 35 50 10
Internet :www.fountaine-pajot.com - E-mail : sav@fountaine-pajot.com

Excellent, Any multhiull purchaser should ask this question, and many, many more, of the designer and builder. No one else would have the knowledge to answer this accurately.
A foam core, dagger board multihull, may not be able to take the point loading on the outer skin, then again this depends on the exact design layup, and build.

[Mr B]

This one is Gemini's own builders piccy, advertisement,

Its not quite on the beach, But close enough,

Saves lifting the rudders,

[Jane.Joy]

We have not intentionally beached our Venezia but damn we have gone hard aground in the ICW, as in breaking crockery and potential liability lawsuits for whip lash. We have also bounced up and down on our keels for a half an hour before and after low tide in the Sea of Abaco on a windy wavy day.

This is not to impress anyone with our supreme seamanship or to say that giving a boat this kind of beating is a good idea - but based on our humbling experiences, we can give a big thumbs up to the strength of FP keels.

[clockwork orange]

Christ,all the old Pivers,Wharrams etc were more than capable of taking the ground on every tide. Every time i visit New Zealand i like to go and walk around all the boats on moorings at Little Shoal Bay in Auckland where you see lightweight racing cats like GBEs, Split Enz, and old Wharrams, Pivers and an assortment of shoal draft monohulls all taking the ground on every tide in all conditions year in, year out. I would be very dissapointed if i spent a crapload of cash on a cat that was not structually sound enough to sit on its own bottom.
Steve.

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by Palarran

If that is true that's great. I had heard the opposite. The keels are designed to snap off and are foam covered with fiberglass inserted into sockets. I just didn't imagine that would be strong enough to carry the total weight.

Really I don't know as I didn't get to talk to FP as a new boat owner. When the boat yards have blocked up my cat they do it under the hull fore and aft of the keels. My keels typically don't have anything under them.

I worked with the FP to design a lift for my Belize. They stated the boat can sit on it's keels indefinitely, their only suggestion was that a hurricane strength wind could tip the boat forward or backward and suggested a strap fore and aft to prevent that during a storm.

[Eleven]

YES. I got caught out on a lee shore in f7, hit by a rogue wave that knocked a rudder off, and doused the engine. I knew there was a gravel beach to port, a headland that needed 3miles clearance to avoid rocks to starboard and no charts to go beyond it.
I chose the beach. Take care where your anchor goes, not beneath the boat. And hope there are no rocks in the bit you choose, that's the real risk, as any swimmer knows.
Not all boats will tolerate uneven loading on lumpy gravel, let alone rocks.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by smj

I think a lot of the cats mini keels are sacrificial. I don't care for a cat that has the keels structurally attached to the hulls especially of they form a bilge. Any keel damage and the cat takes on water.

Our Manta with structurally attached keels has water tight bulkheads in the keels sectioning them off from the rest of the interior. Inside, only a smaller sump exists in the keel area.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Palarran

Really I don't know as I didn't get to talk to FP as a new boat owner. When the boat yards have blocked up my cat they do it under the hull fore and aft of the keels. My keels typically don't have anything under them.

Unless the blocks are placed directly under structural bulkheads and carefully leveled so as not to produce a twisting moment on those bulkheads, not sitting your boat on its keels is very bad practice - particularly on a boat the size of yours. Personally, I would not allow it to be stored that way if it were my boat.

Your keels are definitely designed to support your boat and I would wager that FP would warn you to not solely support their boats blocked by the hulls.

Mark

[Ram]

Originally Posted by colemj

Unless the blocks are placed directly under structural bulkheads and carefully leveled so as not to produce a twisting moment on those bulkheads, not sitting your boat on its keels is very bad practice - particularly on a boat the size of yours. Personally, I would not allow it to be stored that way if it were my boat.

Your keels are definitely designed to support your boat and I would wager that FP would warn you to not solely support their boats blocked by the hulls.

Mark

I agree !!

[Eleven]

That's the advantage of an Old Prout. They are built to take it. Flip side is they are heavy and slow.
The keels are part of the original moulding, heavily built, and used to be potable water tanks until GRP became a suspect container for drinking water.Any damage to a keel wouldn't let water into the hulls.

[Geoduck]

I beached my fishing boat once to cork up a leak & found a rotten plank about 6' long near the stearn. We had a gang plank aboard that was enough material to do the job. We got the old plank torn out & used it for a pattern and had the new one fastened in but not caulked by the time the tide was back. We used duct tape on the seems and waited out the tide to get her caulked up.
I put the boat on the beach every year for a bottom job - I even had the coast guard come out to inspect the boat one time when I was hauling passengers - they had a bawl wading in the water before the tide was all the way out. The inspector said this was a 1st for him - doing an inspection on the beach! He made me remove a lead patch I had over a butt seem that wouldnt hold caulking - he thought I ought to do something about that one of these days - I nailed the lead flashing back over the butt seem and it's still there as far as I know - 25 years later.
If I tried to do that now - they'd put me in jail!

[smj]

Originally Posted by colemj

Our Manta with structurally attached keels has water tight bulkheads in the keels sectioning them off from the rest of the interior. Inside, only a smaller sump exists in the keel area.

Mark

Manta must have changed the design as there was a Manta that hit a reef in the Keys, holed a keel and was taking on water because of it.