EndeavourCat 44

[HollyAnne]

My husband and I have wanted to become liveaboards for years. We have been doing much research and progressed from monohulls to multihulls, also from power to sail. We are thinking the EndeavourCat 44. Is our dream boat! We are both interested in the ease of handling and liveability (with the hopes to have children and currently teo cats that are our babies).
Thank you
Holly Anne

[Ex-Calif]

Welcome aboard Holly Anne - This is a great forum. Feel free to join in with specific questions.

You also might want to fill in a little of your profile so people have a little information about you.

[Captain Bill]

I'll be glad to give specifics if you want to ask specific questions. In general she's a pretty good coastal cruiser with live aboard capabilities. The is not a speed demon, but cruises comfortably at about 7 knots, will do 8 knots at maximum continious power on my 40 HP Yanmars I don't know if your looking for new or used, but I can't give the Yanmar sail drives a high recomendation. My understanding is that they have passed on the sail drives on the current models. I have the Yanmar SD-40s which were only produced a couple of years before Yanmar figured out they had issues and introduced the SD-50. I can cruise at 6 knots on one engine and burn about a gallon per hour. She sails better than she motors on most points. Straight down wind she's not a speed demon without the spinnaker. I recommend you get one. On a close reach I've had her over 10 knots and even seen 8.5 on a broad reach in only about 13 knots of wind. That was in sheltered smooth water. She slows down a bit when the water gets choppy but will still do in the low 7s in such conditions. If I get the sails adjusted just right the bow will point up to about 40 degrees apparent, though she looses a lot of speed that close. In reality while the bow is pointed at 40 she's loosing abot 10-12 degrees of leeway so she's actually making about 50 degrees.

Going down wind, the camberspar Jib makes wing on wing pretty easy, but she'll only do in the Mid 6's on 20 knots true when she's directly astern.

She doesn't like going straight into a 2-3 foot chop. Above 3 she pretty much just rides over it. Because she has a relatively narrow beam she definitley rolls more than other cats I have been on, especially if the sails are not up. I often leave the sails up even when motoring almost into the wind just for the comfort when I'm offshore.

She handles quite easily, My wife and I brought her up from Florida to NC when we bought her and while I had a lot of experience in power boats I had only crewed on cats for about 6 weeks. It wasn't difficult though. I sailed her through the ICW when the winds were favorable. One day on the way up here the winds were blowing about 25 in the GA ICW and we sailed. That part of the ICW is in natural tidal channels and they turn every way you can imagine. When we started out the wind was blowing about 18 and we were doing 9.5 to 10 knots. When the wind got into the low 20s we found a wide spot, turned up an put in a reef. We only slowed down to about 9. When the wind got to 25 we were again over 10 knots and put in a second reef. We stabilized at about 9.5 knots on a double reefed main and the jib. All those twists and turns were quite a challenge for us as relative newbies, but we never lost control or had anything break, even with a couple of hard gybes before we mastered the boom brake and mainsheet. Last winter we took her to the Bahamas on a 6 week trip. We had guests aboard for the first half, but were never uncomfortable due to crowding. My Wife and I brought her back from Andros by ourselves. This included several long passages to take advantage of weather windows. We spent the night near memory rock on the Little Bahamas bank before jumping off for Port Canaveral. We spent the night there and cleared customs and didn't stop until central GA. We had had only about 4 hours sleep in 3 days and decided to pull in and sleep for about 8 hours. From there we jumped back off shore and went all the way to Adams creek in NC. My wife and I pulled 4 hour watches and had no trouble single handing it, though we had a few times when we had both of us on deck. We lived on board her for 6 weeks and were perfectly confortable from an accomodations point of view. We had a few mechanical issues (Sail drives, water maker, and a holding tank problem), but it's a boat and that's going to happen.



With both engines on she'll turn in her own length. She's quite tall and has a lot of windage which you do have to take into account when it's breezy and your manuvering a low speed, but it is easy to compensate. When I first got the boat I had reserved a slip in Melbourne Fl, but when I got there the slip was not available. The only place they had for me was on the back side of a T-dock. To get in, I had to pass between some pilings with 4 Inches clearance on each side, then pivot the boat and pull into a slip with only 2 feet of clearance to the pilings. I did it without touching anything while the wind was blowing 15-20. I had only had the boat a week and this was the first Marina I had put it in. It has to be due to the boat, because I had not docked a boat that big in nearly 20 years. Note that I did this with engine power alone. I put the rudder amidships and never touched it.

We plan to live aboard her and do extended cruising when my wife retires.

As for the cats, ours gets sea sick in anything over a 1 foot sea. I hope yours do better. The only negative with the cats are claws. They can be hard on the leather in the saloon and the walls of the cabins are covered in a carpet like material that they love to scratch/climb on. We keep our leather covered with throws and have provided a cardboard catnip enhanced scratching device which after a few brushes with death the cat has been convinced to use exclusively.

Like I said I'll be happy to answer any specific questions.