forward cockpits and picture windows

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

No, I saw what you wrote, and that's actually not what it was. Maybe take a look at what was quoted from your post.

Its on the catamaran forum.. whatdya expect..

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Its on the catamaran forum.. whatdya expect..

I guess I have come to expect stupid comments from uninformed people.

I didn't really expect stupid comments from you.

If you'd clarified and said that people who are SELLING boats often lie sbout them, fair enough. That applies to houses, cars, bikes... just about anything.

[boatman61]

Copied and pasted from my post..

have bought enough boats to know how evasive owners can be.. and in some cases will lie through their teeth to get a sale.. I have also been hired to deliver some of these boats that were to be honest unfit for purpose.

I just dont take life as seriously as some..

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by GRIT

I've never heard of an incident like that. What make and model of cat was split from hull to hull?

You said you have pictures... care to share?

It sounds made up to me. I'm not calling you a liar, but a statement like that has to be supported with some kind of proof.
Especially since you seem to dislike cats so much, judging by your negative posts.
Perhaps there's some exaggeration in that last post?

Paul.

No it doesn't. This forum as so much put out there with little to no proof it's the norm. As was just mentioned, you have to take the posters long term credentials into account to believe something or not. In your case, since I haven't seen your posts and don't really know what you've done, I take it for what it's worth. With Phil, I know for a fact that he has made 3 Atlantic and 1 Pacific crossing since reading his posts. This is at a minimum a fact so I tend to believe what he posts.

[boatman61]

Grit.. Feel free to call me a liar if you wish.. Love shooting people down..
I posted the event on here in my early days with CF.. I was taking a Catalac 9 from Ipswich, UK to Pendick in Turkey.. 2010, boats name Catonga.
I called out the Salva Vidas via Tarrifa Traffic who stood by to take us off if she went down.. and used their searchlights to help guide me through the tuna nets that are ranged offshore of Barbate.
We and a few others including a Lagoon around 50ft sheltered from 5 days of strong E winds before it was calm enough to continue.
Sea was flat calm when we left and I ran past Gib and on to Almerimar where we were lifted out and spent 5 weeks while repairs were carried out and electric bilge pumps were installed..
The boat only had hand bilge pumps which had ripped of the old damp ply bulkheads as my crew tried pumping out.
By the time we tied up in the marina water was shin deep over the cabin soles in each hull.. Great fun..
Everyone who has owned a Catalac says they are built like tanks.
Mind.. I have also done 18.2kts in a Catalac 900.. theres proof of that on CF as well..
Oh.. As to disliking cats.. I have owned and cruised many miles on two Wharrams.. dunno where you get my dislike from.. I just speak my mind.. could accuse me of disliking monos as well..

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Grit.. Feel free to call me a liar if you wish.. Love shooting people down..
I posted the event on here in my early days with CF.. I was taking a Catalac 9 from Ipswich, UK to Pendick in Turkey.. 2010, boats name Catonga.
I called out the Salva Vidas via Tarrifa Traffic who stood by to take us off if she went down.. and used their searchlights to help guide me through the tuna nets that are ranged offshore of Barbate.
We and a few others including a Lagoon around 50ft sheltered from 5 days of strong E winds before it was calm enough to continue.
Sea was flat calm when we left and I ran past Gib and on to Almerimar where we were lifted out and spent 5 weeks while repairs were carried out and electric bilge pumps were installed..
The boat only had hand bilge pumps which had ripped of the old damp ply bulkheads as my crew tried pumping out.
By the time we tied up in the marina water was shin deep over the cabin soles in each hull.. Great fun..
Everyone who has owned a Catalac says they are built like tanks.
Mind.. I have also done 18.2kts in a Catalac 900.. theres proof of that on CF as well..
Oh.. As to disliking cats.. I have owned and cruised many miles on two Wharrams.. dunno where you get my dislike from.. I just speak my mind.. could accuse me of disliking monos as well..

The damage.. and a great repair by a brill glasser.
Basically it was up a wave, crash over into the trough and the next would slam over the top.. repeat for around 4hrs.. the only way I could steer with any form of control was using the engines to keep her head to wind and crab sideways the 6 odd miles into Barbate.

[GRIT]

Thanks for posting those pictures. It's quite a tale, you have to admit. It's the first time I've heard of such a thing, and am glad to see it's no exaggeration.

I haven't read many of your posts, but several I have read seemed "anti cat", even though I saw you liked a wharram 21 and have war looks like a cat on your avatar. I'm glad to be proven wrong.

Cheers.
Paul.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Thanks for posting those pictures. It's quite a tale, you have to admit. It's the first time I've heard of such a thing, and am glad to see it's no exaggeration.

I haven't read many of your posts, but several I have read seemed "anti cat", even though I saw you liked a wharram 21 and have war looks like a cat on your avatar. I'm glad to be proven wrong.

Cheers.
Paul.

You aint heard nuffin yet.. that's my Tiki 26.
And the Captain of the ship said.. Hey Jack.. spin us a yarn.. and the tale began like this..
It was a dark and stormy night.. and the captain of the ship said...

[GRIT]

Palarran, with respect, lots of folks make wild claims on cf.

I take them all with a grain of salt, because, in the grand scheme of things, most don't matter. But a claim of cracking a bridgedeck, from hull to hull, seems quite exaggerated. So you'll, and boatman, have to forgive me for questioning the details.

I don't read cf enough to know if boatman is a teller of tales, or not. So I asked for pictures, since he said he had them. Those pictures were a lot more telling than simply hearing that a cat had it's bridgedeck split from hull to hull. Worth at least a thousand words. (THANKS BOATMAN)

Boatman may have more miles under his belt, or not, but I'm no newbe. I have crossed the Atlantic twice, on my own boat, and have a fair bit of experience otherwise. Either way, I know lots of guys with experience who don't mind spinning a yarn, or slightly exaggerating the truth. One doesn't necessarily follow the other. Ever caught a fish? How big was it?

I'll continue questioning, and learning.

Peace.
Paul.

[contrail]

"The boat only had hand bilge pumps which had ripped of the old damp ply bulkheads as my crew tried pumping out.
By the time we tied up in the marina water was shin deep over the cabin soles in each hull.. Great fun.. "


Could it be that those damp, old bulkheads were at the bottom of the structural failure? In other words, was that particular Catalac no longer "built like a tank" or representative of the breed? Would a Catalac, in good condition, have succeeded, where this one failed?


I take your word that this happened, for the same reason that Pallaran does. But, as a long term monohull and catamaran owner (1999 Leopard 45), I can say that's a really rare occurrence that you have described. And the boat being in compromised condition may have had a lot to do with it.



Having been on a Leopard 44, I must say I questioned the front cockpit and overhang. But, the crew had weathered some really bad stuff in it, filling the front cockpit, and everything had held together. We all know that it is possible to destroy anything, if the weather is bad enough, and that successful voyaging has a large element of good judgement at its core.



Even the older, heavier Leopards have had a few front windows knocked out, over the years, and the forward steps seem to have contributed by not allowing the water from boarding waves anywhere to go. The Leopard community is well aware of this. At the same time, R&C delivered boats all over the world, at all times of the year, to the tune of more than 4 million miles, without serious incident. Eventually, they did have a 44 flip, in the Indian Ocean, with the loss of the crew, but I don't know that the forward cockpit was faulted. As you probably know, it was more a case of someone routing that boat right into a cyclone, as hurricanes are known in the Indian Ocean.



Whilst I have been enjoying the jousting, I think we can sum it up thusly: Bearing in mind the places that people generally sail, and with a considerable margin for poor judgement having been built in, the actual record has proven cats to be at least as safe as monohulls. This record has been achieved over many millions of sea miles, the Leopards having been as good at this, or better, than any other cats. That said, windows on any boat, whether they be in the hull sides of cats or monos, or the front sides of monos or cats, or escape hatches, are always a weak point, if for no other reason than that the structure of the hull has been interrupted. Car bodies can lack stiffness for the same reason. The same thing is true of windows on the bridges of cargo or passenger ships. So, much care needs to go into the design or engineering of any such openings.


Whether Robertson & Caine have got it right with the front windows and doors remains to be seen. So far, so good, And, they are not the only boats with front cockpits, although the overhang is rather unique. Will be reading about one of these set-ups being bashed in? And, if so, would a boat with a different design survive the type of hit it will have to take to bust in those front windows? And, will it have taken awful judgement for such a thing to occur?


We will all have to make our own judgements, until something like that actually happens. I do remember when sailors didn't dare take cats across oceans because they were perceived as unsafe; I was one of them. The Pacific Islanders, with their huge double hulled sailing canoes never heard of that, and we now know that cats do fine on the ocean, but there are always new things to learn. And that applies, in particular, to those who are so wedded to older ways of thinking that they just can't bear the idea of something new being correct.


Cheers,
Tim

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by boatman61

You aint heard nuffin yet.. that's my Tiki 26.
And the Captain of the ship said.. Hey Jack.. spin us a yarn.. and the tale began like this..
It was a dark and stormy night.. and the captain of the ship said...

I KNEW IT!!! Who'd want to crew for a captain who couldn't tell tales!!!

Thanks again for the pics.

Cheers.
Paul.

[boatman61]

Hi Contrail..
No the bulkhead the bilgepumps were attached to had nothing to do with the bridgedeck splitting.
All that happened was the screws ripped out.. zero failure of the bulkhead itself which was the aft saloon bulkhead.. No backing pads.
The guy who did the repair (and I agree) concluded the unusual sea conditions caused a repeated rapid pounding that flexed the bridgedeck to such an extent against the square internal wooden beam that runs hull to hull.
The split ran 6 to 9in aft of this beam.. water then entered and the small drains at the stern could not cope.. Pressure built and the internal hull/deck seams began splitting allowing water to jet in both sides by the step upto the berths fore of the saloon.. this was not helped by water jetting under the hatch over the bunk each time every other wave burst over us..
Nice try tho'..

[tp12]

Despite all the self justification and noise on this thread .... I still haven't seen a comment that can refute the fact that windows, hatches and doors can be made seaworthy. This is the job of NAs and is bread and butter stuff.

Some builders, often building for the charter market, cut corners to save costs. Some designs are done poorly, some designs are great but there's a manufacturing fault or faulty product. None of these issues are irreparable. None of these propositions are made invalid by the number of hulls a boat has, or are even unique to the number of hulls a boat has.

This should come and no surprise to anyone. It's just that some would like to think that's the case because they're biased. There's a lot of unconscious bias against multis on this forum. I hope I'm not being kind in saying that.

I hope you all have a lovely Wednesday evening (timezone, Sydney) and get a chance to go for a sail. I'm itching for twilight's this Friday night around Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour with Balmain Sailing Club. Get out on the water!

[jmh2002]

It sounds made up to me.

I realise this has been covered (so I deleted who it was quoted from) but now we are in a generation of more fair weather sailors what with weather routing, internet access, etc being the norm - and in general that is probably a good thing. Who needs to get a good kicking if it can be avoided?

But it does also seem to create astonishment at some things, some possibilities, some realities than can still happen. "There is no ship that man can make, that the sea in all its fury cannot break"

So, how about being literally thrown sideways down the face of a breaking wave?

It sounds made up to me...

But it happened, in 50kn+, trucking along at a solid 10kn+ under tripled reefed main when a rogue (as they call it) wave came from a different direction, and off we went...

But that was in a big, old, and fast Swan, and whilst there was quite a bit of superficial damage (both dodgers and frames wiped clean off as though they never existed) the old girl shook it off as mostly no big deal and we were soon back up and flying.

Yes there was some mess to sort out down below of course, but probably less than expected these days as everything was properly stowed and secured for these conditions.

It sounds made up to me...

For the purpose of this thread, I have no idea what might have happened if we would have had 'picture windows' but I doubt that it would have been good. Swans of that era had tiny little slits either side, about 6in tall at most.

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by tp12

Despite all the self justification and noise on this thread .... I still haven't seen a comment that can refute the fact that windows, hatches and doors can be made seaworthy. This is the job of NAs and is bread and butter stuff.

In theory I agree with you, but then there are unexpected possibilities like I posted earlier in the thread:

Originally Posted by Rainmaker Captain
CB: The boom and rig impacted and compressed the pilothouse port mullion above the companionway. This bent the port companionway sliding hatch frame so we can’t shut it all of the way.

So the hatch itself may have been seaworthy enough, but damage to the structure around it prevented it from performing it's job correctly. And probably nobody thought about that, or at least not enough.

I think in conclusion all that can reasonably be done is to take a belt and braces approach and consider, "what if" and after "what is my plan for that"?

On regulated vessels these type of events and the action you should take is (in theory) foreseen, and stipulated. But even then it doesn't always go to plan, and the most unbelievable messes occur from a simple original event.

In the past it was always normal and common to carry equipment to somehow patch a hole, wherever that may be, and on larger vessels it is normal to have metal storm shutters which are fixed to 'picture windows and hatches' before ocean crossings.

Possibly such thinking needs to also apply to some of the yachts we are talking about too.

I also mentioned earlier in this thread that designs could consider these windows to not be critical and that damage only impacts comfort rather than safety.

Eg: this could be achieved with additional 'companionway hatches' that make the hulls watertight in the event of the main salon windows being breached.