Are "Performance Cruising Catamarans" safe?

[catsketcher]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said. But I'm not sure how effectively you've refuted the point.

First, I never said capsize resistance is the only metric of safety. I will say now it is the most important one (for multihulls).

A couple other small points. Performance almost always costs more money - carbon is more expensive than glass, for example. Obviously you can save weight and money by eliminating equipment, but then you're not really comparing apples to apples. Many people would drive cars closer to their limit (the car's, probably past the driver's) if they weren't limited by law.

And yes, everyone can decide for themselves what they want in a boat. No matter how wrong they are.

Performance does not have to cost more - in fact by elmininating things you can have a lighter and faster boat that costs less. Don't put linings in the interior, don't fair the interior much, reduce fridge size, pare back your wants and your cat can be light fast and cheaper. My cat has some carbon, but not much and it is mostly in chainplates.

I would also say that a whole heap of reasons I stated are really important - bar running as we live inside a bar is vital for safety and a cat that can easily run at 18 knots will steer well when doing the same on a wave, whereas a slower boat will have issues. Doing big miles to windward under sail is a no brainer for me - motoring into trades is slow, jerky and expensive, but sailing under a nice cutter rig with your daggers down makes it acceptable.

Whether my cat is a performance cat is debatable. She has done 150 miles in 15 hours along the coast twice and we usually count on an 8 knot average for daysailing. She has never hit 20 knots (19.9 once and 18 pretty often) and she has been passed by one cruising boat in her 23 years so she is faster then most.

I would also disagree with the idea that weight and speed are the only things important in collisions. We have two full height water tight bulkheads on our cat. You could cut the front 3.5 metres off our cat's bows along with the aft 2 metres and no water would enter the bilge. Most people want interior access into the bows. I don't and like having deck storage that doesn't leak into the interior so having deck access only is a plus for me. So a performance cat can go faster, with a foam nose, leading to to two full height bulkheads and be way safer than a slower interior access cat going half the speed.

To equate overall risk with one aspect is plain wrong. We can make our boats safer no matter what their performance if we start out with safety as an important priority from the start.

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by fxykty

I’ve been restraining myself, but the BS being spouted by posters who have no idea other than stories is really irritating. I absolutely don’t care what type of boat you prefer or have yourself and I don’t write to proselytise anything either. I do write to set the record straight.

We have an older cat (2003) with solid glass hulls (about half an inch thick at the turn of the bilge) and foam-cored decks, cabin, bulkheads and furniture. There is no carbon, kevlar or anything else high tech in the build, yet it is 40% lighter than the new equivalent design from the same manufacturer.

It is 16.4m/54’ long and weighs 7550kg/16,600# empty and 11,500kg/25,350# loaded for cruising. We have 122sqm/1313sqft of white sails. Our mast is 19m/62.5’ high. We have no electric winches and don’t need them. If we’re particularly lazy we use the anchor windlass to hoist the main halyard. The boat is easily single handed.

Not long ago we were parked beside a new Leopard 50. Length 15.4m/50.5’, weighs 19,000kg/41,880# empty and 26,000kg/57,320# loaded. White sails 153.5sqm/1654sqft and a 23.5m/77’ mast height. It has electric winches throughout.

By the time we have 20kts TWS we can be double reefed mainsail and 2/3 of our jib and still sail 8 knots upwind or 10-12 knots reaching and downwind. The Leopard will still have full sails and will struggle to make 8 knots at 5* wider and 9kts reaching/downwind.

Which boat do you think is safer?

Not a big fan of the condomarans, but...

As I said above, now paraphrasing, what makes a "performance cruising cat?" I'm not exactly sure. I also said I didn't think the older Outremers were. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

So you're double reefed in 20 kt, then what about 35? Or 50 kt? What happens if it's only blowing 18 kt and your single reefed and you get a 30 kt puff?

But to answer your question, IF safer means the ability to stay upright, then probably the Leopard. If you want to go with some other definition, then maybe that changes.

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by catsketcher

Performance does not have to cost more - in fact by elmininating things you can have a lighter and faster boat that costs less. Don't put linings in the interior, don't fair the interior much, reduce fridge size, pare back your wants and your cat can be light fast and cheaper. My cat has some carbon, but not much and it is mostly in chainplates.

I would also say that a whole heap of reasons I stated are really important - bar running as we live inside a bar is vital for safety and a cat that can easily run at 18 knots will steer well when doing the same on a wave, whereas a slower boat will have issues. Doing big miles to windward under sail is a no brainer for me - motoring into trades is slow, jerky and expensive, but sailing under a nice cutter rig with your daggers down makes it acceptable.

Whether my cat is a performance cat is debatable. She has done 150 miles in 15 hours along the coast twice and we usually count on an 8 knot average for daysailing. She has never hit 20 knots (19.9 once and 18 pretty often) and she has been passed by one cruising boat in her 23 years so she is faster then most.

I would also disagree with the idea that weight and speed are the only things important in collisions. We have two full height water tight bulkheads on our cat. You could cut the front 3.5 metres off our cat's bows along with the aft 2 metres and no water would enter the bilge. Most people want interior access into the bows. I don't and like having deck storage that doesn't leak into the interior so having deck access only is a plus for me. So a performance cat can go faster, with a foam nose, leading to to two full height bulkheads and be way safer than a slower interior access cat going half the speed.

To equate overall risk with one aspect is plain wrong. We can make our boats safer no matter what their performance if we start out with safety as an important priority from the start.

Yes, I said you can reduce equipment to save weight. Which costs more, a new Lagoon or a new HH? A new Leopard or a new Outremer? (Yeah, they're all pretty expensive.)

I never said capsize was the only risk. However, it is the biggest one for catamarans, IMHO. Watertight bulkheads are nice, but you don't hear about a lot of cats sinking. (With monohulls those concerns may be reversed.)

[Lee Jerry]

How many cruising cats have flipped in the last 30 or years?

How many "performance cruising cats" have flipped in the last five or so years (or however long they've been around)?

I doubt the first number in 6x the second. They are probably closer to equal, or maybe the latter is already greater. I'm not sure. Does anyone know?

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

How many cruising cats have flipped in the last 30 or years?



How many "performance cruising cats" have flipped in the last five or so years (or however long they've been around)?



I doubt the first number in 6x the second. They are probably closer to equal, or maybe the latter is already greater. I'm not sure. Does anyone know?

It's much more due to the crew than to the boat why the performance boats might flip more easy.
Secondly it's the marketing which makes inexperienced crews want boats beyond their abilities or needs.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

.......

A Ferrari is obviously and demonstrably less safe than a "regular" car or SUV.

So a car that accelerates better, brakes better, handles better, is less safe than a car that is slower has comparatively crap brakes and all the dynamic behaviour of a wet sponge on a soapy floor?

[arsenelupiga]

predictable responses on that provocative video Not going to discussion but provide 2 data points.

When starting, sailed full sails upwind in sydney harbour, around 20 app and overtaking certain monohull. Sudden squall and got 45 kn app. Number of cats on that list would flip me. Lagoon 400 has 50 kn flipping wind speed so that saved the day. Overlooked the squall, as overtaking that mono upwind.

Another day in Sydney, gusty sail, put in couple reefs just in case. Other lighter cat flipped with full sails in same conditions as we sailed at the same time.

My point - performance cats are not for beginners. What the point having it before you learn to sail properly?! We typically get 1 x year totally unexpected violent wind change. One has to cater for that and not hope that he/she is special.

I certainly like new SW 1370.

[smj]

Originally Posted by fxykty

I’ve been restraining myself, but the BS being spouted by posters who have no idea other than stories is really irritating. I absolutely don’t care what type of boat you prefer or have yourself and I don’t write to proselytise anything either. I do write to set the record straight.

We have an older cat (2003) with solid glass hulls (about half an inch thick at the turn of the bilge) and foam-cored decks, cabin, bulkheads and furniture. There is no carbon, kevlar or anything else high tech in the build, yet it is 40% lighter than the new equivalent design from the same manufacturer.

It is 16.4m/54’ long and weighs 7550kg/16,600# empty and 11,500kg/25,350# loaded for cruising. We have 122sqm/1313sqft of white sails. Our mast is 19m/62.5’ high. We have no electric winches and don’t need them. If we’re particularly lazy we use the anchor windlass to hoist the main halyard. The boat is easily single handed.

Not long ago we were parked beside a new Leopard 50. Length 15.4m/50.5’, weighs 19,000kg/41,880# empty and 26,000kg/57,320# loaded. White sails 153.5sqm/1654sqft and a 23.5m/77’ mast height. It has electric winches throughout.

By the time we have 20kts TWS we can be double reefed mainsail and 2/3 of our jib and still sail 8 knots upwind or 10-12 knots reaching and downwind. The Leopard will still have full sails and will struggle to make 8 knots at 5* wider and 9kts reaching/downwind.

Which boat do you think is safer?

Basically what I stated in post #3, of course the performance cat would have much less stress on both the boats structure and the crew.

[smj]

Which is safer when it comes to lying hull to with no sails up, the wide beamed lightweight performance cat with daggerboards raised or the heavy narrower beamed cat with a higher center of gravity and minikeels it can trip over?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

Not a big fan of the condomarans, but...



As I said above, now paraphrasing, what makes a "performance cruising cat?" I'm not exactly sure. I also said I didn't think the older Outremers were. (Maybe I'm wrong.)



So you're double reefed in 20 kt, then what about 35? Or 50 kt? What happens if it's only blowing 18 kt and your single reefed and you get a 30 kt puff?



But to answer your question, IF safer means the ability to stay upright, then probably the Leopard. If you want to go with some other definition, then maybe that changes.

Yes, you’re wrong about a large number of things, including that the Danson cats weren’t performance oriented. They absolutely are - arguably more so than the modern Outremers.

If we’re double reefed at 20 knots and a staysail (equivalent to 2/3 of our full self tacking jib) then according to our reefing plan we’re good to 45 knots. So a 30 knot puff will be fine. One of the benefits of a lighter weight performance cat is that it accelerates quickly, reducing the force of a strong gust. Reaching or downwind the boat squirts away and AWS rise is minor. Upwind, she accelerates, which brings the AWA forward and feathers the sails. No worries either way.

But at 35 knots TWS point we’ll have a triple reefed main and a storm jib, and at 50 knots TWS just one or the other. And we’ll still be sailing along just fine.

We recently got hit by a 50 knot TWS squall while sailing upwind in 15 knots TWS. We had a single reef mainsail and full jib. For the 20 minutes that the squall lasted (thunderstorm cell that we had thought we’d avoided according to radar, so we also had lightning all around) we feathered at a 20* AWA and kept the sails half inside out but not flogging. Boat speed was 8-10 knots and the windward hull wasn’t anywhere close to lifting. Admittedly, it would have been a whole lot more exciting had we been reaching at the time - the turn downwind would have kept us upright and the 20+ knots boat speed would have kept the AWS manageable for the sail area.

How would a heavier, slower, more powerful cat have reacted in either of this situations? Who knows, but if the rig didn’t give way then the much larger forces acting on that weight of boat could certainly capsize it. There’s huge surface area to those high hulls and vertical cabin sides, so that kind of boat cannot sail itself out of trouble. The performance cat can. That is safer! And I do mean staying upright and with the ability to keep sailing.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Lee Jerry

I get it just fine.

Throw a person at a wall at 8 kt. Throw a person at a wall 15kt. What happens?

Velocity is speed with direction; it's a vector quantity.


Ok, you keep editing your post and I'll keep editing mine.

"A boat" means the same boat at two different speeds.

Shall we talk about kinetic energy?

Or would you rather go back to the cars? You know they test those by actually running them into your "brick" wall? I'm pretty sure a small car going fast does worse than a large one going slower.


OK, changed my mind - I'm not going to keep editing mine. Last one...
If you're referring to my boat, it's a 46 and has a lightship more like 28,000 lb.
Damage would depend on the nature of the impact. Do you have centerboards?
But the point is you're supposed to be going faster...

You really DON'T get it.

I don’t understand how you can almost have a grasp of science here, but at the same time not understand basic principles of logic and children’s mathematics.

In your post, again, you are only looking at half of your momentum equation. If you throw the person against a brick wall, and then you throw the person against a brick wall again at a different speed you are forgetting half of the equation. (Again)

We are talking about things that have different mass here. You cannot discount the mass or the velocity when you are calculating momentum. I calculated it all out for you. I’m sure you can understand it if you look back.


And if you’re using doctored light ship for your boat, trying to finesse these numbers as you are, when I am counting mine for laden with all fuel and water and all of my stuff and food inside? Sure. Will use your doctored numbers. No problem. Even if we do your boat still has twice as much momentum when it hits something as mine does. And that means for the same momentum, you can hit something at 8kn and I can hit something at 16 kn. And it’s the same momentum. And I doubt you have two watertight bulkheads forward and a sacrificial bow. And I doubt yours is made out of material that can absorb impact.

Why don’t you go back and review the math in my post? You didn’t even answer any of that because it’s airtight. For some reason you are trying to apply science but you are not applying science. You are only applying half of the equation. You need to get a little more understanding of this most simple equation. It has 2 parts. Mass and velocity.

A boat most definitely does not mean the same boat. Because you are trying to compare performance Catamarans which weigh nothing and are made out of different materials with heavy fiberglass boats. So it’s apples and oranges. They are different. And you don’t understand anything about the differences. I mean look. There is an entire thread here saying you are wrong. All over this entire thread. Not a soul agrees with you. And you don’t even own a catamaran. Did you ever stop to think you are wrong? That you don’t have any idea what you are talking about? Because you don’t.

Further, if you ever had anything to do with science and mathematics , you are giving it a bad name. Because you are trying to twist it to support faulty assumptions that you have made.

You are doctoring the mass of the boats, you are continually ignoring one of the terms in the equation for momentum. And worst of all you just skipped over everything I put in about momentum. Because you don’t want to face the facts that the math SHOWS your assumptions are wrong.

All the facts are there. My post stands. You can’t refute the actual numbers with your wishy washy bs

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Chotu

You really DON'T get it.

I don’t understand how you can almost have a grasp of science here, but at the same time not understand basic principles of logic and children’s mathematics.

In your post, again, you are only looking at half of your momentum equation. If you throw the person against a brick wall, and then you throw the person against a brick wall again at a different speed you are forgetting half of the equation. (Again)

We are talking about things that have different mass here. You cannot discount the mass or the velocity when you are calculating momentum. I calculated it all out for you. I’m sure you can understand it if you look back.


And if you’re using doctored light ship for your boat, trying to finesse these numbers as you are, when I am counting mine for laden with all fuel and water and all of my stuff and food inside? Sure. Will use your doctored numbers. No problem. Even if we do your boat still has twice as much momentum when it hits something as mine does. And that means for the same momentum, you can hit something at 8kn and I can hit something at 16 kn. And it’s the same momentum. And I doubt you have two watertight bulkheads forward and a sacrificial bow. And I doubt yours is made out of material that can absorb impact.

Why don’t you go back and review the math in my post? You didn’t even answer any of that because it’s airtight. For some reason you are trying to apply science but you are not applying science. You are only applying half of the equation. You need to get a little more understanding of this most simple equation. It has 2 parts. Mass and velocity.

A boat most definitely does not mean the same boat. Because you are trying to compare performance Catamarans which weigh nothing and are made out of different materials with heavy fiberglass boats. So it’s apples and oranges. They are different. And you don’t understand anything about the differences. I mean look. There is an entire thread here saying you are wrong. All over this entire thread. Not a soul agrees with you. And you don’t even own a catamaran. Did you ever stop to think you are wrong? That you don’t have any idea what you are talking about? Because you don’t.

Further, if you ever had anything to do with science and mathematics , you are giving it a bad name. Because you are trying to twist it to support faulty assumptions that you have made.

You are doctoring the mass of the boats, you are continually ignoring one of the terms in the equation for momentum. And worst of all you just skipped over everything I put in about momentum. Because you don’t want to face the facts that the math SHOWS your assumptions are wrong.

All the facts are there. My post stands. You can’t refute the actual numbers with your wishy washy bs

Chotu. You may be right, but don't work yourself up on it...

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Chotu. You may be right, but don't work yourself up on it...

OK. Too forceful. Lol posting from the helm. I should stop doing that. It’s just so mind numbingly boring in the intercoastal out here. I have done this run way too many times.

My apologies to everyone for being a little bit forceful.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Chotu

OK. Too forceful. Lol posting from the helm. I should stop doing that. It’s just so mind numbingly boring in the intercoastal out here. I have done this run way too many times.



My apologies to everyone for being a little bit forceful.

Peace, we know you by know [emoji846]

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by Franziska

It's much more due to the crew than to the boat why the performance boats might flip more easy.
Secondly it's the marketing which makes inexperienced crews want boats beyond their abilities or needs.

Yup, I said crew was an important factor up-thread. Thanks for agreeing with me.