Motion: full keel vs small catamaran.

[Kettlewell]

By the way, not something you are discussing here, but moving from a shallow-draft cat to a deeper draft mono can add all sorts of other changes to your life onboard. I find the shallow draft and ability to take the ground safely is a huge advantage of a cat when coastal cruising, and a giant stress reducer if you do inland waterways and gunkholing like we do. Plus, with a bigger mono comes a higher stick, further limiting where you can go due to fixed bridges. The matter of heeling has been mentioned, but rolling is another problem with monos. Old full keelers can really roll their guts out offshore and downwind, and despite the smooth motion it can be very unpleasant. Some people find rolling very unpleasant and it often causes seasickness. My overall assessment having owned both is that a cat's motion is generally better off the wind, while a heavy mono is better on the wind if you don't mind the heeling. Heeling is not only uncomfortable, but can be very tiring moving around the boat while trying to stow everything in such a way it doesn't go flying across the cabin.

[boatman61]

^^^^^+1
Especially headed across the Pacific to the Philippines where 70%+ is downwind.. wind from the stern quarter.

[pianopraze]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Shallow water can get rough really fast.

I think the first time you are caught in any type of rough weather at all, she may be done with it.

Your wife needs to see what it's all about before you go buying a big blue water cruiser unless you plan to sail solo or singlehanded.

I agree, thus the reason we are just going to sail around Florida a few more years before heading to the Bahamas. But my wife loves sailing now and was actually the one pushing for us to get another boat.. first time it was me.

I could point you to lots of people with less experience who have happily posted on here their first boat was a 40’ full keel. They did just fine.

I like sub 40’ thin cats. A Prout and Edelcat are top of my list. Maybe a larger cat this time if we can get it cheap enough. As long as I can still beach it. But I like smaller, less expensive, easier to maintain. Our prout was a fine size.

I basically sailed my Prout singlehanded, I did get help at first and very thankful to them. But the prout was very easy to sail, even if she wasn’t fast or point well. That never bothered me at all.

Originally Posted by boatman61

^^^^^+1
Especially headed across the Pacific to the Philippines where 70%+ is downwind.. wind from the stern quarter.

Thank you.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by pianopraze

I agree, thus the reason we are just going to sail around Florida a few more years before heading to the Bahamas. But my wife loves sailing now and was actually the one pushing for us to get another boat.. first time it was me.

I could point you to lots of people with less experience who have happily posted on here their first boat was a 40’ full keel. They did just fine.

I like sub 40’ thin cats. A Prout and Edelcat are top of my list. Maybe a larger cat this time if we can get it cheap enough. As long as I can still beach it. But I like smaller, less expensive, easier to maintain. Our prout was a fine size.

I basically sailed my Prout singlehanded, I did get help at first and very thankful to them. But the prout was very easy to sail, even if she wasn’t fast or point well. That never bothered me at all.




Thank you.

Why Florida?

It gets super hot down there in mid to late Summer.

After 12 years sailing, running, and cycling in Pensacola, it's nice to be back up this way.

Even Memphis in Summer isn't as bad as Florida.

[pianopraze]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

I find the shallow draft and ability to take the ground safely is a huge advantage of a cat when coastal cruising, and a giant stress reducer if you do inland waterways and gunkholing like we do. Plus, with a bigger mono comes a higher stick, further limiting where you can go due to fixed bridges. ….

… in such a way it doesn't go flying across the cabin.

That was one of the things I loved about our Prout. It is what she answers every time I bring up any boat. "Is it beachable?"

And we went under the railroad bridge on our Prout with no problem sailing through Okeechobee and past Indiantown in Florida.

[pianopraze]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Why Florida?

It gets super hot down there in mid to late Summer.

After 12 years sailing, running, and cycling in Pensacola, it's nice to be back up this way.

Even Memphis in Summer isn't as bad as Florida.

I was raised there, so it’s home.

I love Florida.

My wife loves Florida.

We can sail all year round.

Everytime I drive into the state my heart gets happy and my body relaxes.

And was never happier than when I was on my Prout there.

Only place I love more is the Philippines. Hawaii would be a close 3rd place.

Oh, and my teen loves to surf.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by pianopraze

I was raised there, so it’s home.

I love Florida.

My wife loves Florida.

We can sail all year round.

Everytime I drive into the state my heart gets happy and my body relaxes.

And was never happier than when I was on my Prout there.

Only place I love more is the Philippines. Hawaii would be a close 3rd place.

Oh, and my teen loves to surf.

Well, if it's home that's different.

Good luck with the Hurricanes.

We had like 8-9 Hurricanes the years I lived in Pensacola, FL 1995-2009 with the worst one being Ivan in 2004.

[smj]

Originally Posted by pianopraze

I was raised there, so it’s home.

I love Florida.

My wife loves Florida.

We can sail all year round.

Everytime I drive into the state my heart gets happy and my body relaxes.

And was never happier than when I was on my Prout there.

Only place I love more is the Philippines. Hawaii would be a close 3rd place.

Oh, and my teen loves to surf.

Down to $35k?
https://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/103796

[pianopraze]

Originally Posted by smj

Down to $35k?
https://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/103796

Thank you.

I’d bookmarked it at 50k on another site. Was waiting to see if price would drop.

She’s in rough shape. I paid 26k for one in better shape/more equipment. Might make an offer on that one if it’s still on market when my lease expires. February next year first time I can do that.

Thanks again, definitely near top of list.

Think this Edelcat is top of list right now. Hope she doesn’t sell before we get to see her: https://dailyboats.com/boat/402059-b...arans-for-sale

She looks ready to go. I’m willing to refit the Prout if I get it cheap enough but wife wants to walk on and go and willing to pay more to do it. The Edelcat looks ready to go. Will have to see in person though as we’ve already discussed boat pics often do not reflect current shape of boat.

Frustrated I have to wait to get out of this lease first.

[smj]

Originally Posted by pianopraze

Thank you.

I’d bookmarked it at 50k on another site. Was waiting to see if price would drop.

She’s in rough shape. I paid 26k for one in better shape/more equipment. Might make an offer on that one if it’s still on market when my lease expires. February next year first time I can do that.

Thanks again, definitely near top of list.

Think this Edelcat is top of list right now. Hope she doesn’t sell before we get to see her: https://dailyboats.com/boat/402059-b...arans-for-sale

She looks ready to go. I’m willing to refit the Prout if I get it cheap enough but wife wants to walk on and go and willing to pay more to do it. The Edelcat looks ready to go. Will have to see in person though as we’ve already discussed boat pics often do not reflect current shape of boat.

Frustrated I have to wait to get out of this lease first.

Have you made contact with the owner of the Edel? That cat was for sale a few years ago and may be an old ad. She appeared to be in good shape on the outside when I last saw her.

[pianopraze]

Originally Posted by smj

Have you made contact with the owner of the Edel? That cat was for sale a few years ago and may be an old ad. She appeared to be in good shape on the outside when I last saw her.

Not yet. Thank you for that info.

I’m sure right boat will come along if she’s sold.

Have to wait until February 1st to get out of this 1500/month lease then can get a boat loan.

This thread is to figure out which set of boats to look at this time - small cat or full keel.

Wife not budging off catamaran. She likes the Edelcat over the Prout. And she likes a Seawind 1000 best of all but it’s 199k. Can barely afford, but would require long term boat loan and not leave money for repairs - don’t like cutting it that close, would prefer 20-75k. She likes the ladder down off the front in the Seawind and the swim platforms.

Anyways it’s too early to shop/see boats. More just learning the market now, and watching boats that might still be on the market come February. Am I only one who studies months ahead? I know I’m a little OCD.

I’ll be happy with any of the ones I’ve talked about. I enjoy working on boats.

[Wandering1]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

The problem here, is that there is more to discerning the differences between boats, not all 42' boats are going to weigh the same, let alone comparing a 42' aft cockpit sailing boat with a 44' center cockpit cruising boat.

Your Trintella has a 13' 5.5" beam, my Spencer 42 has an 11'4" beam, That right there alone is a couple of tons of weight, Especially when you consider all of the interior fixings that exist within that extra 25 1/2" of width.

To drive that point home, if you consider 4' of freeboard and an average of 2' of draft, call it 42' long to make up for the rake of the bow, that is 504 cubic feet of volume your boat has over mine. Putting that into context if we go with that average of 2' of draft that is 168 cubic feet of boat below the water line, that is 10,738 lbs of displacement (sea water @ 63.92 lbs/cuft) which Ironically makes up most of the dispalcement difference between your boat and mine using the listed displacement on sailboat data of 31,966 lbs.

Additionally your T44 is a full 2' longer, again in that, substantially more weight, then you consider that the T44 has a substantially wider stern to accomodate your aft cabin, and you have 12-14" more freeboard to allow for the flat decks on the boat.

As well the T44 has a flat back transom, the S42 has a long overhang that is much lighter by comparison. If the T44 had a similar overhang she would be 48-50 feet long.

Now on the drawings I have it says that the design displacement is 18,000 lbs tons with the 7K keel, mine has the 8k meaning her design was 19,000 lbs however, on the travel lift when she came out of the water 3 months ago she was weighing 27,000 lbs with all of my gear aboard so I am inclined to believe that John Brandlmayer was a bit light in his calculations that were done all the way back in 1965 when he designed her, especially considering that where I painted the water line looks to be exactly where it is on the drawings and when in the water there is about an half inch of bottom paint above the water to the boot stripe at the stern and three in the bow. (I am loaded a bit aft heavy at the moment)

What I also know is that the reason my boat being hull #7 was the first to have the 8K keel because the original owner Mike Gibbons, an Engineer at Boeing who worked on the 747, had her built custom to his specifications and from what I can discern he requested the 8K ballast which resulted in a much more sure footed boat that performed incredibly well and thus is why later on 8K ballast went to be the standard.

To that I would like to add that since 2016 I have run the Spencer Yacht Owners group and have dedicated a huge amount of my time to cataloging and documenting the 26 S42's that were made, and have been able to find 23 of the original 26, 20 of them I know to still be actively sailing considering that the last one was built in 1973 I would say that is a testament to their robustness.

Furthermore the Spencer's have earned a tough reputation being sailed by sailors like Hal Roth, who took his Spencer 35 around Cape Horn and had many other sailing adventures on her, and Hal had developed a very solid working relationship with John Brandlmayer in the 1960's and had no qualms telling him everything that was wrong with his boat, which is why the Spencer 35's have the MK1 and MK2 because John fixed many of those problems with the feedback from Hal.

You may be asking why that is significant, well this is because the S42 is the hull of the S35 scaled up to 42 feet and massaged a bit with many of the lessons Hal learned aboard whisper applied.

I think it is also worth mentioning that Hal's Whisper was thrown up on the rocks after dragging anchor in South America and spent a week there getting thrashed by storms, was then pulled off by a tug and floated on her own bottom to where he hauled her, patched her up and she is still sailing living on the east coast of the USA today 50 years later.

As for the S42 listed on yacht world, that would be hull#4, she has the 7k ballast keel, and is an incredibly well done boat, a guy by the name of Jerry Parkhurst did a complete rebuild of her replacing her interior and the entire rig, absolutely fantastic boat one that someone would be well off owning, but she will not be as sure footed as the later S42's with the heavier ballast, although I suspect ditching the wood mast for aluminum probably mitigated a fair bit of that as the aluminum boom I just put on my boat weighted half what the solid spruce boom did.

Then there is also the problem of Tons, which tons is someone quoting? Imperial or Metric, as 1MT = 1000KG = 2,204lbs, which is 2.204T.

8.6MT is ~ 19,000 lbs, yet 19,000 lbs is 9.5T.

Even more so on your T44 which is 31,966 lbs which is 15.983T or 14.5 MT Just going between units there throws a ton and a half difference in the numbers.



So going back to your original quote, Sailboat Data says you are 14.5MT, which is only 6 more than the listed on mine. We can conduct an interesting experiment here and see what a Spencer 42 scaled to have a similar beam to yours is as the Spencer 53 is my hull scaled to 53' with some tweaking to the keel and a skeg hung rudder.

The Spencer 53 has a beam of 13.17' compared to your 13.45', meaning that to get to your beam my hull would have to scale past 53'!

What is really quite interesting there is that at 53' she has a displacement of 30K lbs or 13.6MT! Thus meaning a 53' Spencer is almost a full Metric Ton lighter than your boat! Well, at least based off of sailboat data displacement numbers.

Interestingly enough both boats have right around 6000kg of ballast and similar draft with yours being a touch deeper.

In summary, you cannot tell the whole tale of a boat here without first examining the design of a boat and how she is constructed, using boat length is a misnomer if used as an absolute because there are so many more variables to the design, and your boat is also a very heavy boat for it's length due to the wide beam.

I have the originals ales info for the Trintella 44. It's lists her as 14.5 metric tonnes. The later literature list the boat as 17 tonnes. I can't tell from the literature whether the difference is light ship in earlier details and different in the later details. We have lifted out on a new travel lift when fully loaded at 19.3 metric tonnes but more normally at about 18.3 tonnes. Fuel and water account for 1.2 metric tonnes.
Our keel is 6 metric tonnes of lead and an airex cored hull and deck but the hulls is 1/4" inside and outside glass skins on 1 inch core. The interior is then lined with tongue and groove Bermese teak. In the bow area, the stem is wellmover 1 inch thick.
With regard to beam. She is only wide compared to your boat, since it is so narrow. Compare the length to beam ratio and the Trintella is quite modest compared to say an Amel ketch.

[Wandering1]

Originally Posted by smj

We lived on our TRT full time for 5.5 years. 2 queen staterooms, 2 single staterooms a separate 4’x3’ shower, a salon that had two 8’ long couches. We had plenty of sun protection with the cockpit hardtop. A very livable boat.
They have done numerous ocean crossings, some singlehanded. All the lines are led to within 4’ of the helm and you can easily see all 4 corners of the corners from the helms seat, a true sailors boat.
Yes she has twin outboards which push her at 6.5 cruising and 8 WOT but hardly used if there’s wind as she will sail at or close to wind speed in winds 15 kts or less.
I was down in the Caribbean in the mid to late 80’s on a monohull doing the usual pendulum roll in the anchorage, then I saw a catamaran……..it was a done deal!
I appreciate your love of your monohull but there’s no way I could own one, I’ve been to spoiled!

I went the other way. From two cats to a monohull. We don't roll at anchor. There is a Feeling 446 anchored just behind us rolling like a pig. We don't roll. But we are several tonnes heavier.
Every boat is a compromise and and know all about cat performance but if you want to do long distance in a small light cat, don't expect comfort to go with it if you are going up wind.
If you want to fly across the bay in flat water, a nice light cat is a lot of fun. You just wouldn't choose one to go around the world. Yes, you can say people have done it. My friend sailed an 18ft boat across the Atlantic and back. It can be done but even he says next time it will be a bigger boat. 6 Atlantic crossing later and we still would change our boat.
We are in the Azores where the Jester Challenge boats are arriving. 15 single handers sailing boats 30ft or less from the UK to the Azores. Great to see their achievement but not for me. I will take the comfort every time. Every boat is a compromise and I am glad your works for you

[Kettlewell]

The rolling at anchor thing is entirely dependant on the anchorage. I've been in our small cat in a Caribbean anchorage where big swells were rolling in and we just went up and down like on an elevator, though we had to pull the curtains because watching the scene outside would make us seasick as we went up and down. The monos rolled so mercilessly, every size and type, they all left eventually. OTOH, I have been anchored in the cat when the beam seas rolling in were exactly the wrong period for the cat. When one hull was on the crest the other was in the trough, meaning we snapped back and forth horribly. In general, cats will be more comfortable at anchor, but not always.

[Wandering1]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

The rolling at anchor thing is entirely dependant on the anchorage. I've been in our small cat in a Caribbean anchorage where big swells were rolling in and we just went up and down like on an elevator, though we had to pull the curtains because watching the scene outside would make us seasick as we went up and down. The monos rolled so mercilessly, every size and type, they all left eventually. OTOH, I have been anchored in the cat when the beam seas rolling in were exactly the wrong period for the cat. When one hull was on the crest the other was in the trough, meaning we snapped back and forth horribly. In general, cats will be more comfortable at anchor, but not always.

We find thst when everybody is rolling we dont. The rougher it is, the less we roll. What Sets us off is a very small wave a long way apart. It must match out natural frequency. It happens maybe once or twice a season. We cure the problem by hoisting the mizzen set bar tight so it's flat. This changes the roll frequency by adding some damping.
If an anchorage is untenable by virtue of rolling waves, we would often be the last to leave