Beaching small multihulls for service

[owly]

Being a poor man, there are two big cost factors that make multihulls and especially cats attractive.

One is the ability to exist comfortably at anchor without rolling all over. That means being able to live aboard almost anywhere, and in particular in the shallows where other boats cannot go. This gives you both quality of life.........I like solitude and quiet, and low expense .....I'm a poor man. This also applies on passage........ just watch masts.
Another is being able to take the ground, which in theory means avoiding boatyard expenses / travel lift costs........... but how many locations have enough tidal range AND will tolerate someone scraping his bottom and perhaps even applying bottom paint? I suspect that one might be run off for trying this in some places. What is the reality?? Of course most folks never try such a thing.....It's easier just to pay........ assuming you have the money to spend.
Of course along with the motion of a multihull there is the vast amount of deck space, and the fact that they are safer by far in rough weather than a monohull statistically though people obsess about capsize ..... which virtually never happens in real world offshore voyaging.... at least with cats.

[Tupaia]

Would help to know where you are. There are lots of places with "mud" berths (drying moorings) that are more than suitable. The areas are not popular with plastic fantastics so you are often able to lay your own mooring. Depends where you are.

[owly]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

Would help to know where you are. There are lots of places with "mud" berths (drying moorings) that are more than suitable. The areas are not popular with plastic fantastics so you are often able to lay your own mooring. Depends where you are.

This was just intended to be a general question........ not specific to any location. I was wondering if anybody in the "real world" actually does that anymore... In the old days they careened ships to work on the hull. For a modern small catamaran sailor it is a much simpler proposition, but environmental laws could make it difficult to find a location I was thinking. Some hulls are going to take the ground better than others due to LAR keels, etc. The ideal situation would be to have something you could actually put between keels and sand or mud... so your keels were not dug into the sand or mud. This is something that would appeal only to do it yourselfers like me I suspect.

[Jeannius]

I beached my Privilege many times (always intentionally) and did maintenance such as changing the lower seals on saildrives. A bit terrifying the first time you have a big hole in the bottom of an expensive piece of kit and the tide is coming back but, ok, once you know you have the right tools and will get the job done in time. Wouldn't want to be scraping old anti-fouling and applying bottom paint on a nice beach these days. Someone will come and tell you not to do it I would imagine.

[Redreuben]

Use one of the copper clad type bottom treatments so you don’t have to scrape your toxins off on someone’s beach.
Most of them just need going over with a scourer type pad or wet and dry paper at worst and you can do that in the shallows without beaching.

[Tupaia]

There are thousands of "mub" berths even drying marinas on the east coast of the UK. Boats take the ground on every tide.

[Mr B]

I sit my Cat on a nice sandy beach every three months or so to scrape the barnacles off the hulls,

It takes me three hours to do both hulls with a scraper.

I come in at 3/4 tide to make sure I can float off again,
Drop the anchor and wait for the tide to go out,

Only do it if there is no wind, as you will bounce up and down if there is wind and waves,
Select a beach away from crowds,

I am merely returning the barnacles back to the ocean where they came from if any one asks,

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by Mr B

I sit my Cat on a nice sandy beach every three months or so to scrape the barnacles off the hulls,

It takes me three hours to do both hulls with a scraper.

I come in at 3/4 tide to make sure I can float off again,
Drop the anchor and wait for the tide to go out,

Only do it if there is no wind, as you will bounce up and down if there is wind and waves,
Select a beach away from crowds,

I am merely returning the barnacles back to the ocean where they came from if any one asks,

We do too. We also beach to install through-hulls, clean the bottom, change the anchor chain, and whatever else would be easier "on the hard".
Scrape the bottom "yes", sand the bottom "no", Paint the bottom "no". I wouldn't want to foul the water by sanding the bottom paint. I would consider painting over a bottom that was just scrubbed, like maybe soft paint over soft paint, if it was possible, but I don't know about drying time. Maybe on a sandbar, in the bay of fundy, you'd have a good 8 hours or so of "dry time". Copper/Epoxy bottom is the way to go; Copperbot or some such product.

We don't foul the area where we careen. Barnacles and bottom growth only.

We've careened both our old monohulls to clean the bottoms, and installed one through-hull in one, and removed the rudder in the other. Careening is almost a lost art.

I can't find pictures of our monohulls careened, but I did it once in Cape Fear NC USA, and once at Cape lookout NC USA, several times in Summerside Pei Canada, once in Lunenburg Nova Scotia Canada, and once in Concarneau France. Concarneau was up against a pier, which is really common there.

It's a lot less fuss with a cat though. It doesn't hurt that we only draw 60 cm (2 feet).

Cheers.
Paul.

[Tupaia]

Despite what people complain about modern antifoulings are quite good negating the need for regular careening. If you like careening then try Copperbot, it is good regular exercise.

Careening monohulls is much more difficult as they fall over, requires 2 tides to do both sides, although some folk boats have legs that enable then to stand upright.
There are some countries do not allow beaching at all.

[owly]

The bay of Fundy makes good sense as far as tidal range, as do a number of other places in Canada, as well as the gulf of California / Sea of Cortez. North Western Oz looks good as far as tidal range, but I suspect that they have some pretty strict rules. I've read that they have piles driven in some places in North East Africa...Kenya I think specifically for lashing a boat to so it will stand at low tide for repairs and scraping, etc.

It is unfortunate that ultrasonic seems to be a fraud........ In tropical waters, becalmed mid ocean ITCZ a hooka rig would seem to be a good thing to have for scraping... but I would always be worried about big hungry sea creatures... I've swam among sharks before... both figuratively and literally, and it does not give me that "warm and fuzzy feeling" ;-)

[chalkgsy]

Anyone know if you can beach pretty much any Cat then? I have this old video of a privilege 37 I'm buying and was wondering if that kind of hull looks normal and is ok for parking on sand etc?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEkTdkqix3Q&t=21s

[catsketcher]

As for beaching, no, not all cats can take the ground.

Personally I find this dumbfounding but an acquaintance put his production cat up on the hard and the boatyard put it on its keels which then started to distort the hulls. Lawyers at ten paces after that. It seemed that the keels did not line up with the bulkheads - again a truly crazy state of affairs. Having a cat that can't take the bottom solidly is such a given for me that I couldn't believe it at first. It is funny that all the Youtubes done by people who are assessing cats rarely seem to include this, what I think, is vital facet for safety and the comfort side of design and construction.

So I would check with other owners of the Privilege. I would also check to see that the keel has large bulkheads near each end of the keels. Also the keels need to be strong enough to take some side loading on the hard. Some keels are glued on after hull laminating and this could be an issue if they are not subsequently glassed on with heavy laminates.

I remember talking with a fellow cat owner about staying in the lagoon at Middle Percy Island - a jewel of the Queensland coast. He replied that his large production cat was unable to sit on the ground so he would be unable to be secure inside the lagoon and dry out. I couldn't believe it. I find drying out when cruising so important that it would rule out any cat that could not dry out with no issue. At Percy we stayed in the lagoon so long they offered a "job" as co-caretakers, drying out twice a day. Great stuff

Cheers

Phil

[chalkgsy]

Hi Phil, yeah it was a must for me really and luckily the broker confirmed that you can dry out fine with that model!

I just saw the fins and rudders and thought 'how the hell is that gonna work' but I guess It does.

What sort of technique do you use to dry these out then? Is it really as simple as find somewhere flat and soft? The rudders do look level with the bottom so Im imagining that you'd want to have the weight slightly forward so as not to put any on the rudders, or maybe they are designed to take weight?

[catsketcher]

Yes, somewhere nice and flat, with no rocks and no chop. No wind is nice too. The rudders should be fine as long as they are just taking some weight. Mostly they sink into the sand a bit, making everything stable. Just ensure you are not going up sideways in wind or chop. The side loadings may hurt your keels and rudders.

Our cat has lift up rudders and daggerboards but the family cat had minikeels and non lifting rudders. This is pretty standard on most cruisers that take the hard. Only go on the hard on good days and in sheltered spots with no passing powerboats.

Cheers

Phil

[GRIT]

I would confirm with someone other than the broker, that it can sit on it's keels. A broker is not always well informed, and has a financial motivation to invent answers that suit his purpose.

Cheers.
Paul.