For Sale or Trade: 63' Malcolm Tennant Cruising Catamaran

[High Tacker]

Lying Whangarei, New Zealand. Ideal for world cruising, charter, live aboard. Very strong A-frame rig, 4 sails, all on furlers, twin 80hp diesels, 15kVA diesel genset. 12 knots max motoring, 8 to 10 knots economical motor cruising, burning 1 liter per nautical mile. Very good motorsailing. Safe and easy sailing with good upwind performace, superior reaching and running. 30-ft. beam, 4.5-ft. draft. Strong fixed keels, propshaft and rudder skegs, very beachable. Luxurious accommodation in 4 double staterooms with queen-sized beds, 2 with en suite toilet, shower, vanity and a 3rd toilet, shower, vanity between cockpit and saloon. Open plan bridgedeck saloon with dining area, bar, lounge area, nav station, surrounded by stunning big windows. Big, well-equipped galley. Washer & dryer. Sheltered cockpit with curtains that can be furled or tied out as shades. Sleeps 4 couples in staterooms, 6 singles in saloon and cockpit.

Malcolm Tennant designed, strongly built with fine New Zealand craftmanship.

Ideal live-aboard with 2 choice moorings included, one in Town Basin Marina up river in central Whangarei, walk to best shopping, and another, a swing mooring at the Nook, one of NZ's most beautiful and sheltered anchorages, out near entrance to Whangarei Harbour.

Asking NZ$990,000 or near offer. See details and many photos at:

DAMSL — Catbird Suite

Contact: ttbradshaw@damsl.com

[High Tacker]

P.S. I should have added that I will consider trading for a smaller boat and some cash, especially for a boat with a berth in the San Francisco Bay area, where I have family and want to spend my dotage there. Then we can sail Catbird Suite there and you can hire her out as a fantastic spectator boat for the America's Cup.

[High Tacker]

Good light wind performance and other advantages of proa canted sail geometry on a catamaran:

The mainsail and staysail on Catbird Suite are on soft furlers so that they can be easily moved around and the tacks of the sails attached to different positions on deck, not just on the centerline of the boat as with conventional, vertical rigs. I use them on the centerline for short tacking. But they can be moved and their tacks attached to either side deck so that the sails are canted into or away from the wind.

On a long, passage-making tack, for convenience, safety in high wind speeds, and efficiency in very light winds, I attach the mainsail and staysail to the windward side deck, so that, in combination with the genoa attached to the windward bow, the 3 sails are all canted away from the wind. The entire width of the boat is then available for sheeting, so that no booms or poles are needed in order to maintain ideal sail shape, all the way from close hauled through reaching to running.

Cat sailors know that big cats are very unforgiving, i.e., the rig and sails suffer a lot of shock loading in gusts because there isn't the shock absorbing effect of heeling and spilling of wind as with a monohull. With the sails canted away from the wind as described above, the sails are already heeled even though the boat is not heeled. See DAMSL — Catbird Suite and on the welcome page look to your left and click on A-frame Rig and you'll get my longwinded explanation of all the advantages. See also the link below to another forum. Scroll down that page for a detailed discussion of proa canted sail geometry.

Monohull verses Multihull powersailers / motorsailers - Page 15 - Boat Design Forums

It is also advantageous in very light airs to have the tacks of the sails attached to the windward side and thus the sails are canted away from the wind so that they set into proper aerodynamic shape by the effect of gravity when there's not enough wind to lift them into shape. You remember when sailing a little dinghy, when there is very little wind you move your butt over to leeward to heel the boat a bit so that the sail will fall into shape. So in very light wind, as soon as I unfurl a sail I'm away, while all those vertically rigged boats have sails hanging like so much laundry, all drag, and going backwards. Also, my sails don't come flopping down in the lulls; they're already down and so maintain their shape, ready for the wind to come back.

[High Tacker]

We're back in Whangarei, New Zealand now, in Town Basin Marina, and will be here for the next 6 months or so (except for January cruising in the Bay of Islands) if anybody wants to have a look.

I think my asking price is reasonable, only 20%, if that, of the replacement cost, and she's a much better built boat that any production boat you'll find, and is still in very good shape. But, what the hell, the market is lousy and I really need to sell this year. So make me a crazy offer.