What Makes A Bad Catamaran Sailboat? Ep 247 - Lady K Sailing 

Ex Cat/liveaboard (Lagoon470), one of the last made. Only kept it for a year, lived mostly in the Med and a winter in the Canaries. Sorry guys sold it went for a pilot salon mono. Top reason, it scared the life out of the wife, mainly as she simple did not feel safe. Why? first the noise levels in anything over a F4 was scary, creaking, slapping etc. As mentioned clearance above the water is key, and I thought the 470 had plenty, we could easily motor the tender under it. but no, the slapping when it did happed was scary, and from some wave angles the force would actually life you of the aft bunk. It was the creaking and flexing (the latter causing the former) did not inspire confidence and the constant gelcoat repairs along the stress lines was expensive. One thing most youtubers fail to mention is condensation when it turns colder, heating was not an issue, just fit a big diesel heater, like SV Dalos, but condensation is another level of problem altogether. We use our mono in Northern Europe even in the winter, but to do this without getting rained on (inside) we had to get the entire interior insulated. A major job, but worth it for us, makes the boat really quite as well inspiring confidence when the conditions get sporty. We have been in some terrible conditions (not by choice, bad forecasts), in the Cat we did not feel safe, in the mono while not as comfortable, we do. Bottom line, if the wife does not feel safe you ain't going nowhere for long.

For want to be sailors: Consider Thailand and Island Spirit Sailing School. Two locations, one has accommodation and great scenery in the price. While the other has better wind. I just completed the crew course [5 days] , VHF [don't need in the USA] licence but you do to complete the skipper course [6 days]. VHF can be included in the course too. All up 11 days to be able to charter in Thailand and get an IYT certificate. Food is cheap and mostly spicy. You can anchor near restaurants and bars. Do it. I was one of four on the crew course and one of three for skipper. Courses starting every 15 days. Say Hello to Howie and Didi for me. Zero to offshore cruiser starts in April and goes 30 days from memory. Check their calendar. It may involve a 17 hours flight and a few shorter ones for those in North America, but Thailand is worth it. You will be blown away by the shopping in BKK, and the wonders of Phuket. No excuses.

A fellow Canadian 🇨🇦 aboard a Lagoon 400S2, 40,000nm and 9 years in. Still loving my choice, currently in Indonesia 🇮🇩 Thanks for your efforts From Sidney BC, left Canada in 2016 Watching on StarLink while sailing in the Java Sea, what a life 👍 You nailed it for the Catamaran Lifestyle, just one addition, maybe I missed it but the washing machine is a plus. 94.6% of my last 9 years the boat was stopped.

I learn so much by watching Tim's videos

Thanks Tim, As a cat owner, two things that could have been mentioned. Generally I agree with all that you mentioned but I think they all are not a big issue and occur rarely. The two things are; Hobby horsing can be very unpleasant as much as a mono and seasickness from a galley down which is also a mono problem. I have sailed in moderate seas and left my drink on the table and the motion was not enough to lose one drop of my precious drink. Another point is that double maintenance of engines and scraping the hulls is another negative but outweighed by the multitude of advantages. A great advantage is that you can usually travel greater distances in a cat per day. André in Sydney

This dude really has perfected the clickbait game.

We found what was the best compromise for us between comfort and performance in our Nautitech 441. What I dislike is the anchor on the port bow and the fact that one person has to climb over the other to get in or out of bed. The boat is a fast and comfortable passage maker and the cockpit is a great shelter from the sun and rain. Great ventilation and an awesome galley make liveaboard a pleasure. Located in Grenada. SY L’Acadienne

Thank you for this channel and all your hard work.

Great to meet you at the show, keep up the great work!

Great to meet you this weekend at the boat show! Thanks for the videos.

More, More, More! My parents used to tie my car seat to the mast of their Hobie 16. I'm now 53. We've chartered, mostly on cats, in the BVIs, Bahamas and Keys. My dream/3-5 year plan is to buy a smallish (Mahe 36 is on my radar currently) and sail/work southwestern FL and the Caribbean for a few years with the hopes of making the Atlantic passage by way of Greenland, Iceland, the British Iles and visiting the coastlines of Europe and lands east. Enjoy your content! Keep it coming. And Josje, if you're seeing this call me not him.

Never sailed on a cat but have lived aboard monohulls so I know how much stuff is required to make life work. This seems the main issue with smaller cats, they really hate carrying a load so you are continually worrying about weight. On a mono you just worry about where to put it! This, to me, seems to be the main difference. On a mono you look at how big the boat is and if there is enough storage space. On a cat you need to size the boat you need by how much weight it will carry. P.S. for 2 people it is likely to be about 1 ton not including fuel and water but can easily be more especially with all that space available. The result is that if you are looking at living on a cat you may need to go bigger than you would think. The other big issue is marinas. Marina berths are made to take a mono each side of the finger. A cat takes both spaces so expect to pay double, actually about 50% more as the cat will be shorter. An important issue if you are not going to be permanently at anchor.

there's just something I find elegant about monohulls......

My boat - Capsize Screening Formula: 1.83 -- -- -- The cat of anyone's choice: 100.08. They just never come up again. I would only sail a cat alone.

Thank you! Sooooo many things I had never even considered that just make so much sense! Wow.

This is one of your best! Thank you.

See you at the Sailboat show! This is exactly what I will be looking at there! It was like this video was speaking to me specifically! LOL! Literally follows my plan to get rid or my house and move on to a boat in Caribbean.

I live on my Prout Quest 31’. It’s not big but it’s really a stable design. One of the main advantages is the shallow draft - which allows me to go very close to land when anchoring for nasty weather. Which is an important factor for getting a good sleep and a good atmosphere for waiting out the weather.

Roasting coffee way back then was done by making some small houses that had drawers that opened to each side, or to one side. The bottom of each drawer was aluminum, like what you used on the roof of the house. When the sun is out you open the drawers and have to coffee roast under sunlight and the heat of the aluminum from the bottom of the drawer. when it rains you just close the drawer before they get wet. Very organic, and energy efficient. On the other hand, it is not as fast a gas roasting. Great job out there, the coffee beans look gorgeous, wow!

Great information, as usual Tim. Bridge deck slap is one aspect of cat life I really hadn’t thought about, so good to hear. Thanks!

Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were going all the way. A favorite movie, couldn't help myself.

Once again a very nice video to watch

Tim Island Packet cat. Let’s talk about it. . . See you at the boat show sir. Let’s have a drink.

I just traded in the Hunter 41 for a Lagoon 42.

Thanks for all your insight. I'm on the low budget dream, so the Gemini's have been catching my attention.

Your commentary was 100%, in terms of mono vs multi. I wasn't clear on whether you're a mono or multi-hull owner at present. Anyway thanks for a wonderful presentation.

Love your comments also few people will talk about the reality of boat issues. So i want to share manufacturer installed equipment. So i just tore apart a jabsco water pump that had a micro switch failure twice in the first year. The switch is rated for 16 amps on a 5 amp motor. Because start up requires 25 amps on start up the micro switch contacts fail prematurely as the rating is too low. This is a engineered failure as jabsco is forced to sell the product at a break even rate because the competition will and they make it up by selling replacement parts. The fix is easy by adding a 30 amp relay triggered by the micro switch. They also cast the casing to make it very hard to replace the switch without shaving off plastic. So if like most people you replace the pump it will fail constantly

Great overview…thanks!

Of course, avoid the Lagoon 450 with its grossly under designed bulkheads. It has been determined that it effects all of them and costs tens of thousands to fix it. On smaller cats, i think you are really better served by a mono hull. On sub 40 foot boats, the cabins are basicly singles in the rear and less up front. The Gemini has the athwarts ship birth for the main cabin. Also, if you plan on any time in a marina, expect to pay double for a slp as you will take up 2 slips. A fes of the smaller cats can barely squeeze into a normal slip but may still see a surcharge.

thanks yet another good informative video. I would like to see you do a similar video on Trimarans - whether it is vs mono's or cat's or vs both

Many many moons ago, I was deeply in love with catamarans when they just started to show in the blue water cruising World. It was heaven on earth,space, luxury,you name it. All that changed one night when out of the blue, we pitch poled (We took all precautions for a safe night passage,but nature had her own mind that night). Since then, been knocked down in a mono hull was a non event and my mind changed on cats forever.

good one tim

Thanks for the Cat episode, please - do more with your charming flair and touch for deals

Missing the boat show by a WEEK! But this is a super helpful video!

See you at the Show!

Enjoy your experiences and expertise points on sale boat models

I love your videos. I want to prepare for retirement with my young children and wife circumnavigating the world… would love to start with a year doing the Great Loop. Can you do a series on best boats for this trip… there are 4 of us… with a 7 and 8 year old.

Two hulls provide double the stability but a very fast righting moment versus a well-designed mono hull which can be balanced and far more comfortable. Yes, multi-hulls are great for island hopping but for anything offshore, you can be sure to feel sick.

great content thanks mate

Just discovered this channel and this awesome video! Very interesting considerations about catamarans ... thank you! IMO about 42 feet is good size for single handed sailing with a reasonable overview and good available space! Good balance of the load is cruzial on every ship! Greetings from Europe!

Hi Tim really good advice very informative

That was a good presentation. Any cat will do as long as it’s yours. I like galley down, but would want a “day fridge” near the cockpit doors. For beverages mostly.

Great vid. 🙏🛥️🛥️🛥️

Im retired and traveling in Greece. The thought of living and chartering out a cat speaks to me.

great show I like Cats allot the 105 is on my wish list

Have fun in Annapolis Tim! Hopefully I can make it next year. Cheers!

Brilliant!

Thanks for going more in depth on cats. Still considering them for the future though I mean mono.

I don't know why you're not listed as being in the Creator's Tent at the show. You have more subs than most of the channels in the tent.

mountain bike storage in one hull is the plan...got to have my toys

dropping some good info... thank you much...

Simples, galley up, beers and cheers in the cockpit as that's where the fridge is and if I feel I need to exercise I just sit down till the feeling goes away and then open another beer. As I said, simples, life shouldn't be complicated.

I have no clue about Starlink at sea but at home, it works great unless a large thunderstorm is parked above you. I've been on the service for 2 years now. Yes the speed did decrease after beta ended but now I just see it getting better and better. In the last 24 hours I experienced 5 total seconds of downtime. That is better than Comcast managed over the 20 years I had them as an ISP. So yeah, the daily thunderstorms might be your only issue. One last thing is latency, the time it takes for the signal from your device to hit the internet and back, now averages 24ms.

Two things missed Type of hull material, I grew up on fiber glass over ply trimaran heavy slow but quiet, I'm building a aluminum catamaran and sailed on the same boat for 10 days, the noise was a lot and being so light when the sail filled with air lurching the boat forward I could feel my skin stay with the bunk and my innards catch up later. But fast in a light breeze and that is more important to me. get to where I'm going and enjoy

As an engineer, high boom height and fat hulls, which inherently narrows hull centrelines is an issue. It's not the beam width that matters it's beam centre line to centre line that matters. Fat hulls (reduced centre to centre) + extremely high centre of effort = bad dangerous design. Low bridge deck can be very dangerous too, if you hit a wave hard this acts like a brake but with sales full of wind and sudden loss of forward motion the boat is seriously stressed and will want to heel=bad news in a crousing cat. Keep the fat cat's in the Bahamas! They're great flat water boats

I have a Maine cat 30 very shallow draft tremendous boat in crazy weather, the 38 is apparently even the higher performance,was boat of the year.... check it out. I never need to plug in

Cheers.

Tim, could you make a video sometime about how a landlocked person with no sailing experience could learn to sail and see if it is a lifestyle for nearing retirement? I'm looking for a place I can fly to for one week and take introductory sailing classes.

See you at Annapolis, Tim.

One thing to keep in mind, that I dont see discussed about these modern cats, is boom height. Even the cat in the thumbnail has a boom near 20feet off the water line. Its not a number you can just see on Sailboat data simply because it never really mattered since manufacturers weren't making apartments. A lot of people buy, or base a boat's performance around those sailboat data numbers but no one is tracking this height yet. The massive sail area on a cat, being up 20 feet on a deck stepped mast sounds like a recipe for disaster. Im not an engineer or expert of course, just wondering if what I'm saying makes sense to others?

catamaran are very interesting. I would note that multihuls that are larger in size can offer much of what a cruising camera can offer. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to cost. For the cruising or level board cat, they’ve really become attractive and reasonable in the $300,000-$500,000 price range. If you budget is 30,000 to 50,000 you’ll probably need to forget about cats for cruising completely.

Thanks Tim for this again interesting and information rich vlog on catamarans.👍👊 But after many videos about them and all the pro-propaganda lately (often not talking about the so much higher costs) I still prefer my beloved❤ steel Chiquita 38 monohull called 't Boegskip and since last July also my home. But always willing to inform myself on all the pro and cons in mono vs multihull discussion and see some interesting things in multi-hulls..also here in the marina in Den Helder Netherlands (last month the Dutch cat-trimaran association had their anniversary here with 45 catamarans and trimarans in marina) that trigger my creativity to copy it redesigned to my monohull.😎

Crossed the Pacific on a Cat and I will never go back! 12-15' following seas to Hawaii flying 8-12kts reached 16-18 kts and never felt worried or spilled a drink on his 50ft cat. Btw none of us been on a Cat before and we pushed her and she wanted more until we blew the main hehe. The cat slap was real and sounded like thunder but you get used to it. The slowest speed we did was 6kts.

Hi Tim, My wife and I just completed a Pacific crossing - Mexico to New Zealand - aboard our Catana 431, and arrived back home in Canada for Thanksgiving. For the most part I agree with many of your observations. Having previous spent 3 years living aboard a heavy monohull cruiser, catamarans offer a number of practical advantages that make day-to-day living much more enjoyable. To start with the usable space is in the right place - we spend 95% of our hours awake in the main saloon and cockpit, which are on the same level, up above the waterline where you can see what's going on and walk about effortlessly. At anchor, which is where sailors spend most of their days, cats are stable and don't rock around nearly as much. We sometimes watch the masts of our momohull neighbours swinging wildly while we're barely moving, and feel very thankful indeed. While some catamarans have been designed to cross oceans, most were designed for the charter trade. Those charter cats are very livable, but some aren't particularly good sailboats. They often have very low bridge decks and wide hulls to maximize interior volume. That results in much more hull slapping and relatively poor sailing performance, and in some cases compromised build quality. Sailing performance, particularly light-wind performance, matters for passage-making. Almost any boat will make reasonable progress in 15 plus knots of wind. But many boats struggle in light conditions, and need to motor surprisingly often. While motoring is necessary, it isn't nearly as nice, or as much fun, as sailing. Properly designed cats can sail well in a very wide range of wind conditions. We only used the motors for one hour during the 3,100 nautical mile passage from Mexico to French Polynesia. The apparent wind was 10 knots or less for nearly half of the trip, but we were still able to complete the passage with an average speed of 6 knots. And, that was sailing pretty conservatively - preemptively reefing the mainsail at night, regardless of the conditions. As you note, payload weight is a issue, and keeping cats relatively light is key to maintaining good sailing performance. As such, anything less than 40 feet is probably too small for living aboard. Especially, once you factor in how much tankage, stores, tools, spares, are needed, plus the toys most people want. One needs to be a real minimalist to make a smaller cat work. Lastly, a lot of people, particularly non-sailors, feel uncomfortable on boats that heel. Sailing isn't fun if you're uncomfortable. After living on both, my wife simply wouldn't go off-shore cruising on anything other than a cat. And she's not alone. That's why Catamarans are currently selling at something of a premium and monohulls at a discount.

If I had the money for a Leopard, or Lagoon catamaran, I would just instead get a 10-15 year old mid 40s LOA monohaul, with the beam going back to the stern, dual wheels, electric main winches, plenty of off grid power, and probably have some money spare other things.

Missed you at Annapolis

The cat I am curious about won’t be at the Annapolis show but the founders will be in L tent. That’s the Hop Yacht 30. I think it might be a good boat for seasonal trips up and down the ICW and maybe a Loop. I have looked at some used lower priced cats like the Gemini and while the galley is down in the hull, the fridge is next to the cockpit, so it looks reachable from the galley, salon and just in from the cockpit. I’m not a chef so the fridge would be most of my interest. Although I have a portable 12v fridge I could put in the cockpit. The design choice I’m not a fan of is that there is a nice owners bunk forward, but the head is forward in the other hull so at night you would need to go through the entire boat to use it. Regarding hull slap, you get that on mono’s with aft cabins, so I don’t think it’s a big deal. If Bridge deck slap is happening, I doubt anyone is sleeping. My mono sailboat would be rocking so hard it might be hard to stay in bed let alone sleep. Slamming bridge decks is a thing underway and I would hope to know how a particular boat acted before buying it. Also hobby horsing that some smaller cats are known for. I think cats are becoming popular because you spend a lot more time at anchor than sailing and the space is great for that. Over time they have been evolving into condos and sailers, so it’s good to research what kind you want. My budget is primarily keeping me in monos, or some older small cats

Catamarans are the Oximoron of the boating world, let me explain it simply like this: You have a stable platform that's fast! It's large with loads of storage! However once you add weight and fill up that storage it's no longer fast nor stable cause all that weight now causes other issues down the line.

Great video! I am leaning towards the Gemini 105mc , because of the shallow draft and price , want do the great loop and some island hoping!

Dream cat is a galley up but I have never sailed anything yet. Maybe someday. :)

No desire to cruise in a Cat. For the cost of a modern cat you can get an amazing monohull.

My kids want a giant cat, I’m happy with a monohull. I’d like to get to the staycation level of working on my boat most days but at my local lake. Sadly still a few years before a slip might open up at the spot I want.

If the buyer is not seasoned to blue water sailing, a cat's speed can be sudden and scary. Excelleration from 7-8 knots to 17 or so plus is awesome but like in the bahamas you can run out of space quickly and drifters can unleash strong winds. Had a Lagoon 47, loved the speed, livability but the inner hull slam can be unnerving. At anchor with a bridle, road much better than my monohulls, less likely wobble in side rollers like main harbor Rum Key or Little Harbor in the Abacos. But my real concern: I never had to face on the cat northers arguing with the gulf stream. Best laid plans . . . forecasts are intelligent guesses. I have serious doubts about unseason dreamers fairing well physically and emotionally. You can't always run down wind in the Gulf Stream or maneuver out of the shallows once under sail in the Bahamas. Shud we buy another boat, most likely wud be a cat but not under 48. Your comments and knowledge are excellent and for me, your videos of the Bahamas nostalgic. Spent half of my 15 years of blue water sailing there including to most of the islands but Andros (that's a lot of islands).

I just traded the MacGregor 26X sail/speedboat for a gutted 30 foot Iroquois catamaran. All bulkheads and rigging are gone. I'm putting in different bulkheads where the front and rear cabin walls are so the cabin makes a box beam which hopefully makes the boat stronger. A different youtuber called 9to5less drove it from Virginia to Florida with a 15 horse outboard. My plan is to have the galley in one pontoon and floor sections that cover the pontoons making the center cabin wider and the floor sections over the pontoons flip up, letting you stand in the pontoon and there is a counter under the floor which is on top when it flips up onto the center floor. I really like the idea of a huge, wide floor area where large things can be worked on inside. The fold-up floor lets me have a floor space as wide as the boat at times, and use the pontoon area at other times.

Zatara is my favourite catamaran on RU-vid

nice intro music

Because of their speed catamaran hulls going through the water are much noisier. In a monohull if you go off course, you can feel the difference from the angle of heel. Not so much with a catamaran, as it does not heal, and the cat needs more attention maintaining course

Thank you for your video sir! Well done as always. Huh. Catamaran. I haven't considered a catamaran for two reasons. One, price. They're going for big bucks out by me and usually that stops my investigation on anything as far as owning it. Number two, (this is just my thoughts, they may not be apt) it's almost like two boats instead of one. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. However I will say the live aboard part seems a heck of a lot easier on a catamaran. Just my thoughts. Thanks again!

I like the ideas put forward on live ability. Iam building a small trimaran 20 foot. I like the speed and comfort. In the future going larger. Cat or trimaran.?

Should I go with capsizing or non-capsizing? How about bulkheads - structural or French?

How about a video on antifouling paint; hard vs. soft.

Howdy! Cats are what I'm really looking for but it looks like a small mono hull is my budget lol

My watching was interrupted sorry if I'm incorrect here, but a big issue for me is fwd visibility, I don't think you mentioned it. Think looking thru is my preference.

It's funny you mentioned the Gemni MC105 I have been looking on line at them for a small CAT. I would love to see your opinion on them, Or maybe the Snowgoose?

I really appreciate your inciteful views regarding the mono vs multi hull experience. And the price point didn't even rate a mention. Two hulls seem to cost twice as much. Plus mono hulls don't require escape hatches for capsizes.

Cats are condos on the water. Yes, they’re easy to live on, but they don’t sail to weathah for crap. I sailed 2300 miles across the Caribbean on a Lagoon 42, it was fun, but I wouldn’t do it again.

I wish I would've TOLD the wife I was giving you a ride to the boat show last year...instead of asking for permission.... Now life is too much in the way and I'll probably not be able to do it until I'm closer to retiring.

Aventura is a lesser known brand and is at a lot lower cost for brand new cats

Talking about gemini catamarans. would it be a feasible to use a sub 40 gemini catamaran (coastal cruise) as a live aboard sail the world type of boat?

Draft? And anchoring?

Gemini 105s are nice little Coastal Cruisers. But the Gemini Legacies are much nicer boats than the 105s for not heaps more money in the grand scheme of things. They also have a bit more head room more interior and storage space, and fixed keels instead of the swing keels. The Legacies also have dual modern inboard diesels instead of the lethargic and getting to be problematic to work on Westerbeke diesel hooked to that problematic to service stilletto drive, unless it has been repowered, which most people decide to glass the hull and put a loud outboard on them instead of messing with matching that old stilletto drive up to a new engine. They still have a base of $175k new so even as inflated as boat prices went for a Dual engine american made 35 foot class catamaran, you should be able to find a 10 year old chartered Legacy at or under $100k no problem if you keep your eye open in the spring time. I know of 1 for sale in Wisconsin right now asking 100k i bet they would take significantly less for with the prospect of winter rapidly approaching. And 6 months+ of boat yard fees looming.

I imagine a 46 foot cat must cost much more for a slip at a year round marina then the traditional mono hull boats correct? Any idea by how much per foot?

I wonder what your thoughts are on trimarans?

Most Catamarans find it hard and slow moving to travel upwind. So a nice cabin will take away the long hours of boredom, as you travel 24 nautical miles in any 24 hour period. And when you say blow this and try to rush it, the whole thing just flips over and you wish you had stayed in playing monopoly.

In a past episode you mentioned that it is hard to get insurance on boats older than 10 yrs. I can't imagine a company that doesn't want to make money which is what you're describing. I've seen stranger things. Hangar companies for aircraft do the same thing. How do you get around this problem because with hangars they wont even let you build a T hangar and give it to them.

@ 5:20 LMAO Been out there in Open Water a few times when the autopilot got drunk.

We are looking for a fast 30 to 34 boat that will win on the weekends. Anybody have any suggestions? im talking that sucker needs to be fast!!

Now did we talk about the washing machine? 😉😂

"Gin clear water" 😂

Thought there was a whole snafu on using Star Link RV on boats because they want you to buy the (expensive) Marine version? Did they change that policy?