Downsides to a Cat??

[BigCat]

Um, the Pacific Ocean. To: the USA, Canada, Marquesas Islands, Society Islands, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Caroline Islands, Marianas Islands, New Guinea, Philippines, and Hong Kong. Sample dialogue: "Tim, wake up! I was just standing on the side of the pilot house wall!" "Oh, well we better turn and run, then!"

For all you know, the boats that disappeared without a trace may have been crewed by crews wearing both live vests and lifelines, which would be my point.

And yes, I know any place in the open ocean with a lot of current can build up huge breaking waves. And I don't consider my advice remarkable.

I think you either have a scary boat or are just plain scared. IMHO, if you think that cruising in company makes you safe, and you would never venture from sight of land without a broadcast radio, weather fax, EPIRB, etc., you should stay on shore. You might just be safe enough from drowning in, say, Nebraska. You know, walk inland carrying an oar on your shoulder until someone asks you what it is?

[ssullivan]

HEY! Back it off a little bit. I don't need my thread shut down on account of this kind of stuff.

Bill - I can't tell if what you're saying is correct because all I seem to see is surfing and jet skiing as well as long intros on those movies. Maybe I missed the sailing one. Your post was maybe a little over the top, but again, I can't tell since I never saw that video.

BigCat - This isn't the kind of board where you can just go out and be this mean toward another member, even if you disagree with his analysis of whatever was in the movie. I realize you're new here, but we don't behave like that on this board (ok... you can look up instances where I did, but I learned my lesson). Bill means well. If you don't agree, just let it pass. Don't taunt him. SurfNRG will take care of himself.

Now let's play nice and drop this derailing of my thread on cats. Everybody cool with that?

Originally Posted by BigCat

Um, the Pacific Ocean. To: the USA, Canada, Marquesas Islands, Society Islands, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Caroline Islands, Marianas Islands, New Guinea, Philippines, and Hong Kong. Sample dialogue: "Tim, wake up! I was just standing on the side of the pilot house wall!" "Oh, well we better turn and run, then!"

For all you know, the boats that disappeared without a trace may have been crewed by crews wearing both live vests and lifelines, which would be my point.

And yes, I know any place in the open ocean with a lot of current can build up huge breaking waves. And I don't consider my advice remarkable.

I think you either have a scary boat or are just plain scared. IMHO, if you think that cruising in company makes you safe, and you would never venture from sight of land without a broadcast radio, weather fax, EPIRB, etc., you should stay on shore. You might just be safe enough from drowning in, say, Nebraska. You know, walk inland carrying an oar on your shoulder until someone asks you what it is?

[SurfNRG]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

HEY! Back it off a little bit. I don't need my thread shut down on account of this kind of stuff.

Bill - I can't tell if what you're saying is correct because all I seem to see is surfing and jet skiing as well as long intros on those movies. Maybe I missed the sailing one. Your post was maybe a little over the top, but again, I can't tell since I never saw that video.

BigCat - This isn't the kind of board where you can just go out and be this mean toward another member, even if you disagree with his analysis of whatever was in the movie. I realize you're new here, but we don't behave like that on this board (ok... you can look up instances where I did, but I learned my lesson). Bill means well. If you don't agree, just let it pass. Don't taunt him. SurfNRG will take care of himself.

Sorry to confuse you. Dave at MaxxinOut asked about some sample of the surfing videos I (SurfNRG) made hence the links to the SurfNRG videos. So happens that I love sailing too and own a catamaran. MaxxinOut has the link to his sailing segment on his post prior to mine and his son David will be releasing a DVD in the near future. I saw preview clips at their Seven Seas seminars and it looked great. Very entertaining.

On another note, you'll notice the surfers getting towed into those huge 40 plus foot waves are wearing life vests - and they're gnarly watermen.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by SurfNRG

Sorry to confuse you. Dave at MaxxinOut asked about some sample of the surfing videos I (SurfNRG) made hence the links to the SurfNRG videos. So happens that I love sailing too and own a catamaran. MaxxinOut has the link to his sailing segment on his post prior to mine and his son David will be releasing a DVD in the near future. I saw preview clips at their Seven Seas seminars and it looked great. Very entertaining.

On another note, you'll notice the surfers getting towed into those huge 40 plus foot waves are wearing life vests - and they're gnarly watermen.

Don't worry about it... you're ok. I was just trying to have the guys here stop bashing each other. That's what gets threads closed down and this thread has been such a good one, it would be terrible to see it shut down for flame wars.

I did watch the surfing vids... Fun to watch, being a snowboarder since 1987. I can relate, although they seem a bit more deadly than a mountain. ha ha

[44'cruisingcat]

Sean, IMHO the only downsides to owning a cat are financial. They generally cost more, and marina fees are usually higher. Since you are looking at a boat you can afford, and you're not intending on staying in marinas much, you've got those covered. It's all good!

[Pelagic]

I’m like Sean, no offshore experience in multi hulls (lots on mono).
So if you are sailing just forward of a beam reach with fairly sharp breaking seas….how is the “comfort” level compared to a mono?

[44'cruisingcat]

I found it to be very good. The motion is quicker, but shorter. More like being in a train. You sometimes need to hold on to something to keep your balance when standing, but things dont fall all over the boat. I found I was less effected by seasickness than I would have been in a mono - but that's an individual thing, someone else might have found it worse.

[roblanford]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Sean, IMHO the only downsides to owning a cat are financial. They generally cost more, and marina fees are usually higher. Since you are looking at a boat you can afford, and you're not intending on staying in marinas much, you've got those covered. It's all good!

Right on!!!!!!!

The only other downside is that you will be kicking yourself for not going multi sooner.

[roblanford]

I was going to ask about this. I have never heard of any switching back to a mono after owning a cat. anyone?

The only guy I know that is talking about going back to a mono, is doing it because of the cheaper cost of the mono. He (Terrible Ted) is one of the most hard core multihullers I know of, 37 boats, 40 years, and hundreds of thousands of miles.

[Pelagic]

Thanks’ 44… the one thing I noticed when I watched Dave’s video (Maxingout) was how messy their boat was on the inside.

Ooops! ….Let me explain Dave…that’s a good thing, on a mono everything has to be stowed away and secure. On your video in the middle of an ocean passage, everything seemed to be spread out and being used. That impressed me!

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by SurfNRG

None on You Tube but I have some short trailers of my SurfNRG dvd's on my website .

Enjoy!

Thanks for the video trailers. Good music and exiting shots. I've been away for a couple of days, and I am just getting back to the thread. I enjoyed them a great deal. Keep up the good work on the videos. After participating in videos, I have an idea of what you went through to get the shots.

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

Dave:

Congratulations on your voyages and your video. Very, very nice.

However, one gets about 2 minutes into the video before asking, "What's wrong with this picture?".

What's wrong is that the guy going forward to check the headsail -- presumably offshore and in 39 knots of wind -- isn't wearing a life jacket. Nor is he wearing a harness. Nor are there jacklines visible.

Later in the video, the guy in the cockpit is similarly unattired. Unattached to the boat.

Bill

Good powers of observation Bill. You are right about the lack of safety harness. Things have to get pretty extreme before we clip on our safety harnesses. We have a rule on board Exit Only that nobody goes forward unless there is someone at the helm watching them move on the wide decks of the catamaran. Certainly a safety harness is a good idea, and if someone went overboard in those conditions they would have been in trouble. When those pictures were taken, we were pulling two drogues and our speed was reduced to a steady four an a half knots. If someone went overboard, they would need to swim for one of the long drogue lines behind the boat. That being said, it's always a good idea to wear a safety harness.

Our usually arrangement when sailing offshore is to put up high lifelines between our aft wind generator poles and the cap shrouds amidships. We use jackline webbing to create multiple elevated lifelines in the area where people are most at risk for going overboard. The Life lines are at waist height and shoulder height with an X-shaped lifeline filling the space in between the waist and shoulder height webbing. You can see our usually offshore lifeline arrangement if you look at the video called Episode 4: Gate of Sorrows on Maxingout.com.

In the Gate of Sorrows video, you can see our normal safety arrangment at the following times into the video:
1 min 50 sec, 2 min 09 sec, 2 min 14 sec, 2 min 52 sec, 3 min 06 sec, 3min 30 sec, 3 min 46sec, and 4 min 00sec.

You can pause the video in approximately those locations and you will see our offshore lifeline arrangement in the aft section of the catamaran both to port and starboard.

Normally, we rig these safety lines before heading offshore. I'm not sure why we didn't have them up on the run from Gibraltar to the Canaries. Our bad.

[maxingout]

[quote=Pelagic;128723]Thanks’ 44… the one thing I noticed when I watched Dave’s video (Maxingout) was how messy their boat was on the inside.
quote]

You are right. Our salon was stirred with a spoon by the third day of challenging weather.

What you are seeing in the salon is me asleep on cushions that are positioned on top of a series drogue, an 18 foot diameter parachute, 500 feet of double braid, and associated bridles and warps in case they were needed during the storm. Most of the stuff on the table is snacks, kleenex, pillows,reading material, and sleeping bags.

In storms, I usually sleep in the salon on cushions so that I am immediately available if there are any problems.

Just to put what you are seeing in perspective, we were sailing in the company of a J-44 monohull. In the same conditions, they filled their cockpit with water, and they had two inches of water on the cabin sole in the galley - at least that is what they told us over radio. They said when the water came down below it doused their autopilot control shutting it down for a time.

We were relatively comfortable because we are towing two drogues/warps and speed is only 4 and a half knots.

[maxingout]

Our usual arrangement when sailing offshore is to put up high lifelines between our aft wind generator poles and the cap shrouds amidships. We use jackline webbing to create multiple elevated lifelines in the area where people are most at risk for going overboard. The Life lines are at waist height and shoulder height with an X-shaped lifeline filling the space in between the waist and shoulder height webbing.

I just went back and reviewed some of our offshore videos to see if I could locate better pictures of our elevated lifelines on Exit Only. One of the best places to see them is in the last third of the video called:

Episode 2: Pirate Alley. dvd

Toward the end of the video segment, you will see the elevated lifelines that we normally used when sailing offshore. You can see me sitting next to the lifelines in a deckchair in the Gulf of Aden heading for Yemen. I think that the reason you don't see us with safety harnesses much in our videos and photos is because those elevated lifelines are usually present and they protect us as we move forward to raise or lower the mainsail.

[c.spots]

Dave
Another advantage of the catamaran, which you may have alluded to but not made clear was that you slept in the salon, where you would be readily available if needed. The salon is at the same level as the cockpit, with 360 visibility, not down below, out of sight. Nor did you have to climb up and down a companionway to check things out.