Bridgedeck clearance - small cat

[Be Free Sailor]

Hi
I previously sailed Lagoons 440, 410 and 380 and now I am looking to further reduce my upfront cost of buying a boat, and at the same time I want to increase the waterline length and reduce windage/weight Problem is the cats I like, that are also in my price range, they do not have much bridgedeck clearance at all. Having offshore sailing experience with Lagoon 380, I did have a very noisy life aboard when going 60 degrees into waves in the Biscay with winds 30-35 knots, but other than that I think it was OK. Even the 440 was very noisy in a beam on 30-40 knots wind and waves in the Med...and the 410 was more noisy than the 380 due to the "box" design of the underside of the bridgedeck - Lagoon made room for a transverse bed in the aft cabins, hence the square sticking out under the hull - very noisy!
The boat I am looking at is a 39 foot South African designed (Simonis) catamaran, which has a slightly lower bridgedeck clearance than the Lagoon 380. I talked with an owner who did 2 circumnavigations on an identical boat, he did not think it was any problem at all, and he loves his boat.
I know it is hard to make any advice on such matters, but perhaps someone did offshore sailing in one of the "old" Leopards which I believe was also Simonis design, with pretty low bridgedeck clearance. Downwind I am sure everything is great, and not problems there...am I correct in this assumption? And I assume it is going to be noisy going upwind, something I always did try to minimise anyway in my Lagoon, but did enjoy when there were no big waves...but in reality is there that much difference going upwind in a Lagoon vs e.g. an old Leopard 38/40, when comparing the slamming of the bridgedeck?
The clearance for a Lagoon 380 is around 75 cm (2,5 feet) if I remember correctly, and for a Simonis 38/40 foot boat, like the one I am looking at, the clearance is around 55 cm.
Apart from looking a bit odd, when viewing the new boat from behind, I am not really sure if it should be a deal breaker.
I am looking at a cheaper boats than the previous Lagoon 380 I owned, and I like the design of the older Simonis designed boats. Also many are better built then a Lagoon, where some of the manufacturers (well, actually I would tend to call them boat yards) are using closed cell foam core instead of balsa, and fully tapped in bulkheads etc, making it a nicely built boat, I think. Strangely enough, these much better built boats cost less than a Lagoon 380, but of course there is much less "apartment" feeling / less volume inside, but then again better saling ability - less windage, less weight a.s.o.
Any thoughts or comment, please feel free to share
Thanks!

[Tupaia]

What boat are you considering?


For some unknown reason both Simonis and Lavanos's older designs especially the small sizes have truly awful bridge deck clearance. Seemed to be the trend in SA a while back. Provides for less windage and a lower profile on a smaller cat but with very reduced under wing clearance. So much so that a bad sea state will make going to windward a real chore. Probably the only exception I can think of is Scape by Simonis. Try, in less than optimal conditions before you buy.