Which Cats can actually sail?

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by Eric Jan

Cool & interesting chart AND cool to see that the Fountaine Pajot Venezia 42 is in there as well (we have one ).

Not sure about all the data as I think it says we are faster than an Excess 15 (which I would find hard to believe). (maybe also as the venezia is listed with being 6.8 tons and well, no way 9 tons empty empty at best i would guess).

still, cool to see

Displacement is always contentious.


Wouldn't be surprised the Venezia stacks up quite well against the Excess 15. The Light Displacement figure for the Excess 15 is over 19T.

This is twice the disp of an Outremer 45 and 3 x the disp of a Mumby Cyber both with roughly the same WLL.



A friend has a Saba 50 listed with a displacement of 15.5T (we do not know if this is empty, light or WL) it has a reasonable amount of stuff but he was surprised when it topped the scales at 22T.


I know of a Lagoon 440 listed displacement of 12.2T actually weighing 21T, it did have a lot of stuff. A Catana 431 listed at 8T sailing weight of 14T.

[catsketcher]

Displacement should be easy to determine - if you have the lines plans. But a quick look at the way a boat floats will tell you lots.

You can't cheat Physics - so when a cat is heavier than designed she sits lower. I have my cat at about 4000kg although she has never been weighed. That is because she is almost exactly 2000 litres per hull volume when the transoms kiss the water - so 4000kg (or close enough even for salt water at maybe 2% more dense).

So look at the transoms to see if a boat weighs what the designer says - she will float nice and high if she is light, and low and slow if she is heavy

[ozolli]

Originally Posted by Eric Jan

Cool & interesting chart AND cool to see that the Fountaine Pajot Venezia 42 is in there as well (we have one ).

Not sure about all the data as I think it says we are faster than an Excess 15 (which I would find hard to believe). (maybe also as the venezia is listed with being 6.8 tons and well, no way 9 tons empty empty at best i would guess).

still, cool to see

This chart doesn't say a boat is faster because it more on the right than another boat.
As I said previously the length at waterline (LWL) is a major speed factor that is not taken in account here.
So what does it say? Basically that a boat with a high BN and especially a high LWL/D sails well in light winds. The higher the better.

[catsketcher]

A quick and dirty way to work out how much extra weight a boat is carrying, is to work out its waterplane area and calculate the immersion rate.

You can get a rough waterplane area by multiplying the waterline length by waterline beam by about 0.7. This gives you an area in metres squared. Then multiply by the amount (in metres) the hull is below the designed waterline.

This will give you a measure of the extra immersed volume. Every metre cubed of immersed volume is an extra 1000kg of extra weight. It is rough but good for a quick calculation. To know more, find the waterplane area more closely by obtaining more hull widths at various lengths and produce an area curve on graph paper. It would take about 20 minutes to do this on the hard.

[Mpetri]

I can only confirm that the displacement is THE crucial aspect.
After 3 years with my Lipari 41 2014 Ev, and now after 2 years with my "new for me" FP Venezia 42 1994, I understand how it is important to take light / very light the cat in order to get the best performances.
My Venezia 42 full of the necessary for the family cruising it is about 10,150 kgs (measured on the travel lift) and by the way, the precedent LIPARI 41 i the same conditions it was about 9,400 kg.
The weight is important but not the only aspect to care about.
Also folding props, clean bottom and GOOD & RIGHT SAILS with someone who loves to get best sailing runs...
In my case after almost 1 year of trials, a lot of work, and all the pumps installed (bowsprit of about 2.4m, kiwi props, no uneccessary weight, good 122sm gennaker and good 72sm ZL06 code-0 I can get in calm water the same (or plus) of the TWS in term of SOG/water velocity and about 40° to 55° of (TWA-AWA)
So very happy of that.

With Lipari 41 in the same condition I got about 75%/85% of TWS in term of SOG.
So Venezia 42 is better in speed and laso in upwind performance (almost due to the big difference in term of keels area - the double in V42 vs L41!!)

Enjoy your ctruising cat, and remeber the potentials are so big!!

[Kettlewell]

So, how many cruising couples feel comfortable handling something like an Outremer 51 by themselves, and do they sail it up to its potential? Saw one the other day on a mooring and it looked very nice. When we had a 32-foot cat we found that we were frequently reefing and unreefing, and I would imagine you would be doing the same with a more performance oriented big cat. Plus, maybe it doesn't matter to you, but here on the East Coast I would not purchase anything with a masthead clearance greater than about 60 feet. Under 55 feet would be even better. Too many great places are limited by fixed bridges.

[Flobble]

There are plenty of couples sailing Outremer 51s, 55s and now 52s, sometimes as a family with young kids. They often add 1 or 2 people for longer passages to make the on/off watch ratio more manageable.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by Mpetri

I can only confirm that the displacement is THE crucial aspect.
After 3 years with my Lipari 41 2014 Ev, and now after 2 years with my "new for me" FP Venezia 42 1994, I understand how it is important to take light / very light the cat in order to get the best performances.
My Venezia 42 full of the necessary for the family cruising it is about 10,150 kgs (measured on the travel lift) and by the way, the precedent LIPARI 41 i the same conditions it was about 9,400 kg.
The weight is important but not the only aspect to care about.
Also folding props, clean bottom and GOOD & RIGHT SAILS with someone who loves to get best sailing runs...
In my case after almost 1 year of trials, a lot of work, and all the pumps installed (bowsprit of about 2.4m, kiwi props, no uneccessary weight, good 122sm gennaker and good 72sm ZL06 code-0 I can get in calm water the same (or plus) of the TWS in term of SOG/water velocity and about 40° to 55° of (TWA-AWA)
So very happy of that.

With Lipari 41 in the same condition I got about 75%/85% of TWS in term of SOG.
So Venezia 42 is better in speed and laso in upwind performance (almost due to the big difference in term of keels area - the double in V42 vs L41!!)

Enjoy your ctruising cat, and remeber the potentials are so big!!

This goes to prove that there is more to "performance" than the limited numbers in the spec. Boards, keels, shape of keels, size of keels even is just another aspect that is not obvious and has many more outcomes than changing from fixed to folding props for example.


A rotating rig is another "feature" that can be good if tended 100% of the time but usually performs worse than a fixed rig if not trimmed precisely.


If things were so easily defined by the specs alone we would all be sailing ACME cats.

[Mpetri]

Agree!
Let me say moreover the real important thing is the skipper must KNOW the cat he is sailing; he has to be prepared to do (mental & physical) efforts in order to get the best from his cat.
Trimming the sail, check the changing of wind, arm barbers.... listen to the hardware of his cat.
After 25 years and 11 monos and 2 cruising cats I believe that these aspects are as important as the sails, folding props, light weight... if you want go faster and safe.

[sw34]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

So, how many cruising couples feel comfortable handling something like an Outremer 51 by themselves, and do they sail it up to its potential? Saw one the other day on a mooring and it looked very nice. When we had a 32-foot cat we found that we were frequently reefing and unreefing, and I would imagine you would be doing the same with a more performance oriented big cat. Plus, maybe it doesn't matter to you, but here on the East Coast I would not purchase anything with a masthead clearance greater than about 60 feet. Under 55 feet would be even better. Too many great places are limited by fixed bridges.

I am guessing by your location that its possible that O51 you saw on a mooring was mine, if your in the area again say hi! The boat is moving to its permanent mooring this weekend but in the same harbor.

Before purchasing it we chartered 42-45' cats in the BVI and other than the dagger boards adding a tiny bit of complexity, its just as easy for two of us to sail the O51 as it was the charter cats using main and genoa/staysail. Obviously using a codeX/gennekar/spinnaker adds more complexity but that is true on any size boat. Yes the loads are higher but the winches are properly sized and we have two electric winches that handle the biggest of the loads.

Reefing on any cat is more than on a monohull as we don't get the heel angle to spill any wind. The amount of reefing/unreefing is totally dependent on your sails and reefing guidelines, but again I don't see any big difference between the 42'-45' charter cats we sailed.

For me the deciding factor to go to a "performance" cat was the last charter we had a Nautitech 44 and it felt and handled considerably better than the Leopards we had before. We strongly considered buying the Nautitech 44 until we spent the whole week on board and realized it would not work well for our lifestyle. Our last few boats have all been power boats and this was a purposeful switch to a sailing cat - I missed sailing! For me the main requirement was we have something that was fun to sail and provided a way of travelling without running engines as much as possible.

The O51 is bigger than we planned originally to purchase as we had targeted 44 to maybe 48. Unfortunately our budget and timelines prevented us from moving forward with a new build. As we came to grips with that decision we looked at every used option we could that was less than 5 years old. Fortunately an opportunity on a well optioned O51 came up and we went for it. Having now sailed it a bit we are very happy with the choice.

I do wish the mast was shorter, but every boat we looked at was over 63' and I was not willing to take a shorter mast and lose more sailing potential. For our plans the bridge height is not an issue. If we wanted to stay on the east coats exclusively we would have stuck with a power boat.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

So, how many cruising couples feel comfortable handling something like an Outremer 51 by themselves, and do they sail it up to its potential? Saw one the other day on a mooring and it looked very nice. When we had a 32-foot cat we found that we were frequently reefing and unreefing, and I would imagine you would be doing the same with a more performance oriented big cat. Plus, maybe it doesn't matter to you, but here on the East Coast I would not purchase anything with a masthead clearance greater than about 60 feet. Under 55 feet would be even better. Too many great places are limited by fixed bridges.

Totally agree. Our last cat had a mast height of 62’ above water and we ended up knocking 3 windex’s off. From our experience most of the east coast Florida bridges are below 65’ and the stated heights on the batter boards aren’t that reliable.
Now being under 55’, or better yet 50’ opens up way more cruising grounds, haul outs and marinas.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

This goes to prove that there is more to "performance" than the limited numbers in the spec. Boards, keels, shape of keels, size of keels even is just another aspect that is not obvious and has many more outcomes than changing from fixed to folding props for example.


A rotating rig is another "feature" that can be good if tended 100% of the time but usually performs worse than a fixed rig if not trimmed precisely.


If things were so easily defined by the specs alone we would all be sailing ACME cats.

Maybe ad on a good lwl to bwl ratio, and lack of low lying bump outs on the bridgedeck undersides.