cat vs mono for cruising Norway/Faroe/Scotland

[sifar]

Hello all,

Long time lurker and, finally, first time poster. I have learned a lot from reading threads from this community. Now after many years, the dream of getting a boat and going cruising is becoming real. I would love your thoughts on picking the right boat.

We are thinking of sailing from Copenhagen to Scotland taking Bergen, Shetlands, Faroe Islands along the way spread over 5-6 months (or the other way around). Maybe bop around the Baltic Sea the next season. We are trying to pick between a 40' cruising catamaran (eg. Nautitech 40 open) or a ~40' monohull for the journey.

We have chartered both monos and cats. I have read the various general catamaran vs mono threads. If we were cruising the Caribbean, we would pick catamaran. However, for the northern cruising route, I am less sure of the right choice. I understand that monos are recommended for high latitudes. So far, I have looked through satellite images of 17 harbors along the route, and I don't see any catamarans. Not to say that it doesn't happen but, at least, seems to be rare.

If you have experience in these waters, what type of boat would you suggest for cruising this route? If you are doing it in a cat, what makes it challenging if anything?

Also open to any other feedback.

Thanks!
Sifar

[fxykty]

Not sailed in those waters, but have sailed in similar climates on the Pacific coast of Canada and the South Island of New Zealand. I’ve also watched a fair bit of RAN Sailings videos of their cruises around Sweden. We own and now live aboard our cat and I sailed a variety of monohulls up and down the Pacific coast.

Problems with cats in those waters:
1) wide beam: problems with getting into marinas and some anchorages, very little suitable berthing, very few places that could haul if that became necessary
2) more difficult to keep warm: with a monohull you have a single cabin that needs to be heated and a handy bulkhead to mount a diesel or wood heater. With a cat you have two hulls and a cabin - we have hydronic heating to all four corners and the salon, but it has to run constantly to keep things warm. Proper insulation would be expensive and require redoing much of the interior
3) sailing in short and steep seas: many accommodation-oriented cats don’t sail particularly well upwind, and generally you need at least mid-40s in a cruising cat to avoid excessive hobby horsing. That’s quite a bit longer than a suitable monohull
3.5) cats generally sail more on top of the water than monohulls (though heavier accommodation-oriented cats can plow through the waves) and have a lively, somewhat jerky motion in the kind of cross seas you are likely to encounter
4) extensive motoring: engines in most cats are less noise insulated and become tedious motoring over long periods when there is a calm

That said, Northern Europe is on our sailing bucket list and when we do eventually make it to Europe it will likely be in the cat we now have. We will live with the shortcomings as the good points, for us, far outweigh the negatives.

I hope this helps.

[Manateeman]

I think it’s just a question of freeboard and surface areas which can be easily breached...not by seas, but ice bears. A nice low catamaran , lightly constructed to sail fast, vs an aluminum tank monohull with high freeboard and bank glass ports that sails as slow as a manatee swims.
I’ll take the tank.
Ice bears can easily climb up 6’ of freeboard but it delays them for just enough time for you to get below. LOL...That’s the plan anyway..They are cautious but incredibly strong. There is a video somewhere that shows an ice bear trying to smash its way into a steel boat after it climbed onboard. I wish someone would post the link.
Happy trails to you.
The manatee crew.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Manateeman

I think it’s just a question of freeboard and surface areas which can be easily breached...not by seas, but ice bears.
The manatee crew.

I am kind of hoping that finding any sort of bears in the locations he wants to sail is a bit of a rarity. Even Paddington came from darkest Peru.

Have a look at the latest style of mono coming out of Europe, you need step ladders to get on board from the jetty, never mind the water.

Pete

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by sifar

Maybe bop around the Baltic Sea the next season. We are trying to pick between a 40' cruising catamaran (eg. Nautitech 40 open) or a ~40' monohull for the journey.
Thanks!
Sifar

Sifar, welcome to CF If the second year you go into the Baltic then are you aware there is a canal from St Petersburg to the White Sea and Murmanst? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_...93Baltic_Canal

That lines you up for a homeward leg over the top of Finland/Sweden/Norway to Svalbard and then home.

Not for the faint hearted, but would be a super trip to write home about.

Your choice of boat? well for me it will be a mono, something like Ran Sailing have just chosen. Najad I think. However, if I was going to do it in a cat, then it would have to be a Dazcat. See sailing Uma's trip on one in 30 knots filmed about a year ago.

Pete

[goboatingnow]

Any half decent AWB will sail those waters they do so every year

[tarian]

Can only speak for Scotland , not many cats around in fact IVe seen three in my travels. Most marinas will handle a cat, good anchorages for shallow draft. Plenty of mooring bouts around popular crusing grounds, yards are set up for lifting if necessary, canals may be an issue , Caledonian and crinan , check Scottish canals website for sizes
Appart from that why not no issues at all with weather. Wind and waves are the same around the world , pick your passage and weather windows easy

[Paul Howard]

I sailed my Manta 38 (1992 foam core that I extended the transoms by about 18" to make boarding from the dinghy easier) catamaran from Toronto, Canada, to Labrador, to top of Iceland and across the Arctic Circle (saw one other catamaran in Iceland) to the Faroe islands to Orkeney islands to Inverness, Scotland, through the Caledonia canal (21ft+ beam would not fit through the Crinnan canal) to Wales and Ireland before sailing to the Beagle Channel of Argentina and Chile (several catamarans were there), then around Cape Horn, to the Falkland Islands, etc. and back to Toronto.
Also sailed on a friends 47ft. mono along the Norwegian and Swedish coasts for 6weeks. Both boats had Espar heating, the catamaran had one in each hull engine room, the mono only one.
Both boats had dodger/bimini set up to help keep out of the rain and cold, but much easier to step inside the bridge deck cabin in the cat to keep warm than up and down the companionway ladder of the mono, much easier to keep watches on the cat, both were set up with good autopilots so only had to keep lookout, not hand steer.
The cat was much easier to relax in anchorages and look around both in the centre cabin and in the cockpit. Much easier to board the cat up the transom steps that going up a vertical ladder to the mono deck.
Much easier to launch and retrieve the dinghy on the davits of the cat.
Overall, I would take the Cat any time.

[Stewie12]

I have sailed a lot in the North Sea and at the best of times it is rough and there can be gales from the North. Take the monohull.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Not sailed in those waters, but have sailed in similar climates on the Pacific coast of Canada and the South Island of New Zealand. I’ve also watched a fair bit of RAN Sailings videos of their cruises around Sweden. We own and now live aboard our cat and I sailed a variety of monohulls up and down the Pacific coast.

Problems with cats in those waters:
1) wide beam: problems with getting into marinas and some anchorages, very little suitable berthing, very few places that could haul if that became necessary
2) more difficult to keep warm: with a monohull you have a single cabin that needs to be heated and a handy bulkhead to mount a diesel or wood heater. With a cat you have two hulls and a cabin - we have hydronic heating to all four corners and the salon, but it has to run constantly to keep things warm. Proper insulation would be expensive and require redoing much of the interior
3) sailing in short and steep seas: many accommodation-oriented cats don’t sail particularly well upwind, and generally you need at least mid-40s in a cruising cat to avoid excessive hobby horsing. That’s quite a bit longer than a suitable monohull
3.5) cats generally sail more on top of the water than monohulls (though heavier accommodation-oriented cats can plow through the waves) and have a lively, somewhat jerky motion in the kind of cross seas you are likely to encounter
4) extensive motoring: engines in most cats are less noise insulated and become tedious motoring over long periods when there is a calm

That said, Northern Europe is on our sailing bucket list and when we do eventually make it to Europe it will likely be in the cat we now have. We will live with the shortcomings as the good points, for us, far outweigh the negatives.

I hope this helps.

With the exception of heating, all those issues are equally present in warm water cruising...and people love them.

We had a 34ft cat and excessive hobby horsing was never an issue.

If you are going to frequent areas with a lot of sea ice a STEEL monohull may make sense as they can take a beating. Your average FIBERGLASS monohull vs fiberglass catamaran...not much difference if you start bouncing off small bergs. Having hit more than 1 log on the inland river system (not that you want to), the shallow draft of a fiberglass cat may hold up better than a deeper draft monohull.

I suspect the lack of cats is cost related. Catamarans are more expensive per foot of length (not volume of accommodations), so they are harder to justify given a very short sailing season. With a longer sailing season in warm areas, it's easier for cruisers to justify the cost.

[smj]

I’m guessing the Nautitech 40 open catamaran will have a much higher freeboard than a 40’ monohull, so if worried about the “ice bear”, better to buy the cat.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by smj

I’m guessing the Nautitech 40 open catamaran will have a much higher freeboard than a 40’ monohull, so if worried about the “ice bear”, better to buy the cat.

Though I’ve heard that the transom steps of catamarans are an easy walk out of the water for crocodiles. I expect a brown, grizzled or polar bear would all be more dexterous than a crocodile. So do think (if necessary) how to keep animals from using your cat’s easy to board transoms :-)

[sifar]

Thank you all for the warm welcome to the forum

@Manateeman I couldn't find the video of the polar bear trying to get into a steel boat but I did find this video of a polar bear going to town on a RIB. I have accordingly, with some sadness, crossed RIB off the list of candidate vessels for the adventure. In all seriousness, I am terrified of these things. cuddly but claws

@Pete7 I did not know about the canal to the White Sea. Your suggested route looks legendary. It would be a trip of a lifetime. I would die happy. Hopefully much later on land.

@Paul Howard Your top of the world travel with the manta 38 sounds like an amazing trip. Didn't realize the caledonian canal would fit a cat. Either way added it to the bucket list. I agree on the point about easy access to saloon with good views. If we end up on the monohull route, I would like to get one with a deck saloon.

@stewie12 noted. I would feel safer in a mono in a real blow.

@fxykty Thank you for the thoughtful points. I share the concern about finding berths in the smaller harbors. Erik Aandreaa's videos shows him going into some tiny fishing towns (Eg. Utvaer) where it looks like to be a tight fit for a cat. I am relieved to hear @tarian's post about scottish marinas being cat friendly. Would love to hear other's experience of docking situation in norwegian coast or baltic seas for a cat.

The motion in short steep seas is interesting. Are short steep seas common in these waters? This may be a very subjective question but is seasickness worse in a cat than a mono with steep seas?

I am also curious about sailing to weather. O'Kelly's excellent cat vs mono video says that they are sailing upwind only 5% of the time. I imagine that is true in the trade wind routes. For those cruising in these northern waters, how often are you sailing to weather?

[Colin Oslo]

Hi there, well we are based in Oslo, sailed a quite a lot in Sweden, Denmark, a little in the Baltics, on the Norwegian west coast, to Shetland a couple of times Fair Isle and Orkeneys (have been on the Faroe`s but tok the plane).

In gerneral, Mono`s are 99% of what you see in this area, however - it is changing a little at least in the Oslofjord. Sometimes on a weekend, but not every we see a cat. My guess they are bought as owners are planning a long term cruise (but might be wrong on this of course). Our boat is 45 feet, and on the larger end of the scale of what is most common.

A lot of harbours are small, and tight (of course you will still find plenty of harbors that will fit a cat) . But both in Sweden and in Norway, there are many small beautiful quaint villages - especially from Gothenburg up to Oslo, and down to the south tip of Norway - Boating is very popular from end June til first week/2nd week Aug. (then back to school for the younger ones). I think you will find it more challenging to find a space in a harbor with a cat (for sure). One small tip, at least for the "old fishing/ smaller tows villages" - on the stretch mentioned, come 2nd week in august - a lot close down and go very quite as they are mainly active for the holiday season ( I remember years ago, we where in Sweden, guess around 10-12 Aug, and only one restaurant was open in the village, the week before - busting busy ! =

Temperatures can vary, yesterday we had over 30 degrees C., sea temp in the Oslo fjord, 23 degrees. but I would say typically summer temps air temp are in the mid 20 degrees C. Generally west coast is wetter and colder, but naturally exceptions and you have nice temperatures, and we see from time to time that the have temps in the high twenties in Tromsø too ( but more the exception) Recommend as mentioned over you at least have some heating arrangement on board ( if one week with 15 degrees C of rain, you will need some heating ). West coast Norway is beautiful (I guess visitnorway.com will give some inspiration)
also useful is https://www.harbourguide.com*)*-*select language at bottom of page. Also there is a facebook page, but in Norwegian, with a lot of harbors, mainly natural for anchorage. If you need some more tips/ questions - I would be more than pleased to help best possible. Cheers and regards - Colin

[SailFastTri]

@Sifar, Have you been aboard a Nautitech Open 40? Setting aside the cat vs. mono question, there would be better cats for those climates you’ll be visiting. Consider the sight lines from the (exposed) helm positions and the (dangerous) blind spots that would require a helmsman to constantly leave the helm to keep proper watch. Also, have you sat in it and considered the spacing and layout of the cabin/cockpit benches and tables? The bridge deck layout seems to me like it’s designed for a day charter in the tropics, and the ergonomics/spacing poor for living aboard.