At the dawn of Chinese New Year in February, Jennifer and Peter Francis were hiding out in the Marquesas aboard Saphira, their 70-foot catamaran named for the strong, loyal blue dragon in the book Eragon. Saphira is their second cat designed by Chris White, but it’s a whole different species adapted for their current phase of life. On the first morning in this Year of the Dragon, Jennifer says, “It should be a good year for Saphira.”

The Marquesas wasn’t in their plan for this cruising season, until El Niño generated rougher weather than usual in French Polynesia. “We decided to leave Tahiti and sail 750 miles northeast to the Marquesas to avoid a busy year for tropical storms,” Jennifer says, adding that they made landfall at the island of Fatu-Hiva. They had just set Saphira’s anchor when a dinghy came by—a Vancouver couple they’d met in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, cruising on another catamaran from the same designer.

White is known for his Atlantic series of cats, and for innovations such as the MastFoil rig and forward-positioned cockpit. The Francises’ previous cat was an Atlantic 55 (their first Saphira). Their 70-footer came to life starting in 2010, the year that White says Peter told him: “When our kids head off to college, Jen and I are going back to the cruising life. We’ll be in touch later.” The next summer, Peter visited White’s shop in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, with broad ideas for a cat that could do it all. “Their concept was a boat with the space of a 40-footer built for two people to sail easily by ­themselves, but with hulls of about 60 to 70 feet to safely make 300 miles in a day,” White says. “Anything less than 250 would be a failure. And they were interested in a free-standing rig. More than most clients, they had deep experience and knew what they wanted.”

Combined, Peter and Jennifer have logged around 100,000 miles on the oceans. Peter started sailing as a kid, when his family had a Cape Cod 30. At age 12, he’d cruise to Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, and the nearby islands with friends. At 16, he raced trans-Atlantic and was on the US Admiral’s Cup team. He completed three trans-Atlantic crossings by 20. In 1974, he met Jennifer, a local gal and fellow sailor. That same year, Peter and his friends sailed his first boat, the 50-foot Aage Nielsen sloop Nunaga, through the Panama Canal and beyond to the Galapagos, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Alaska and Seattle. Jennifer joined them in Alaska.

At various times since then, the couple has spent years together—alone and with their children—living aboard boats. In 2009, Peter retired from his position as a corporate CEO, and Jennifer took a sabbatical from her job as a ­professor of atmospheric sciences at Rutgers University. They pulled their children out of seventh- and ninth-grade classes, and sailed their first Saphira for 14 months from Massachusetts up to Nova Scotia, then south to Colombia, and finally back home. Ever since, they’ve lived in Massachusetts—or wherever they’ve pointed the new Saphira’s bows.

Conceptual work for the 70-footer began in earnest in 2011. First, they bought two 23-foot Stiletto catamarans and modified one to take various rigs. For three summers, they hired a friend who was a good sailor to evaluate each rig. They also invited sailor friends to match race—singlehanded, to emphasize ease of handling. White also tested his MastFoil rig on the Stilettos. 

“First they tried two masts positioned fore and aft, then with them side by side,” White says. “They experimented with normal booms as well as wishbones.”

Peter says that 14 sailors tested all the rig configurations. Each day, after collecting performance data, the couple asked those sailors to rank the setup on a scale of 1 to 10, for how likely they would be to recommend the rig to an older couple going offshore cruising. 

Then they plotted the results. On ease of handling, the biplane prevailed. They also found some unexpected sailing characteristics. 

“Catamarans don’t tack particularly well, especially not light ones,” Peter says. “When sailing the biplane, we trim the leeward sail more than the windward one because the breeze ‘bends’ around the windward rig and presents a narrower apparent-wind angle to the leeward sail. When they tacked, the prior leeward sail became the windward sail and started earlier to ‘sail’ the windward hull around.”

Another advantage appeared when sailing dead downwind, Peter adds. “You can wing-on-wing with both sails out at 90 degrees because of the full mast rotation, making for a very stable rig and also allowing you to steer up to 80 degrees on either side of the course without jibing.” 

Nevertheless, the initial biplane Stiletto lost in the first trials. It didn’t match the standard rig’s performance. The team realized, however, that the biplane could handle longer booms than the sketch, and thus larger sails on same-height masts.

At first, this switch didn’t help ­performance, but once they made larger daggerboards to counteract the leeway from the increased sail area, the performance significantly bested all other rig configurations. 

The couple preferred this setup too, especially for safety in the event of squalls. 

The masts rotate 180 degrees each way but can rotate up to 270 degrees, so if you do need to release them to 180, nothing can break.

 “With no standing rigging, you can depower on any point of sail by quickly easing,” White says. 

The masts will rotate into the wind—what sailing instructors call safety position. When the couple tested the biplane again with larger sails, it blew away its competition.

“The final version on Saphira is a ­biplane with two big mainsails,” Peter says. “The masts rotate 180 degrees each way in normal operations but can rotate up to 270 degrees, so if you do need to release them to 180, nothing can break.”

Jennifer adds: “We have unreal ­visibility from the cockpit. There’s ­nothing to ­obstruct the field of view.” 

Having settled on the rig, they focused the design process on three concepts: the biplane rig with fully rotating masts for safety and maneuvering; 70-foot-long narrow hulls with a beam, weight, and righting moment about the same as an Atlantic 55; and only two staterooms, to free space for comfort and ease of maintenance.

Saphira’s wing-shaped masts make up 7 percent of her sail area. At the first reef, the mainsails are normal in size, but when fully raised, they have the total area of an Atlantic 55 with its main and largest spinnaker flying. “Hull length leads to higher hull speeds and also seakindliness,” Peter says. 

Combined with the narrow 28½-foot beam, this design also allows access to slips and Travelifts that often max out at 30 feet. And the extra length allowed White to design the hulls’ interiors
similarly to the Atlantic 55’s but with more space. For example, Saphira’s engine rooms occupy areas where aft staterooms would normally be, and four adults can stand with full headroom around the engines.

To balance speed and comfort, the couple assembled a team from the racing and cruising worlds, including experts from Doyle Sails, Southern Spars and SDK Structures.

“We’d sit at their dining table for hours, the room full of experts who have worked on America’s Cup boats for decades,” White says. “I was the mom-and-pop cruising boat designer guy.”

Peter says that the couple wanted White’s deep experience from decades of designing and building multihulls. 

“We valued this for many reasons,” Peter says. “One additional design criterion was to make the living space practical and focus on ease of maintenance, given that Jen and I would be sailing on our own or with friends.”

The couple’s 750-mile passage to the Marquesas is the longest they’ve ­completed alone aboard Saphira, and it reconfirmed some goals that went into the design. With the cat’s stability at speed and shallow draft, it can go most anywhere. If one of French Polynesia’s tropical cyclones had whipped up, the couple would have been able to sail quickly to safer waters. As Peter says, “With our 11-knot average speed, we could escape the cone of probability in just two days.” 

Recently, amid the craggy Marquesan coves and bays, they were treated to a shark feeding frenzy about 20 yards from their stern. They’re not entirely sure what’s next, but they love knowing that they can spread Saphira’s wings and take flight to wherever the weather looks fine and their whimsy desires.

The post A Dream Takes Flight appeared first on Cruising World.

There are many outstanding, even outrageous, things one can say about the HH44-SC catamaran. It’s the latest in a series of upscale boats conceived by HH CEO Paul Hakes, with structural engineering by the naval-architecture duo of Melvin & Morrelli and built in China by the Hudson Wang manufacturing conglomerate, which sold more than three dozen hulls on drawings and renderings alone, before a single boat was built. The waiting list is now about two years long.

I’m no math whiz, but with the boat’s sticker price, all up, of over $1.6 million, it’s safe to say that HH Catamarans had something like $50 million of orders on the books in advance of a sole customer actually pushing the button on an electric winch to raise the hefty, full-battened mainsail. Which leads to a pretty simple question: Who are those guys?

In an interview I conducted with Morrelli several years ago, he spoke about the sort of buyer drawn to the HH brand: “It’s unbelievable to me the percentage of newbie owners we attract to HH. More than 50 percent are first-time boat owners, guys who are buying $2 million and $3 million boats. I find that a bit shocking, but they were successful at something at some point in their life, and they’re trying to roll that success and confidence into something else.”

Allow me to take that one step ­further, because I’ve met a few HH owners, and I believe that the boat is catnip to a certain type of tech-savvy consumer. They definitely find the boat’s clean lines and tantalizing performance sleek and sexy, but they also are passionately drawn to the forward-thinking technology itself. I’ve heard folks refer to certain products in the marine sector as something Elon Musk might’ve dreamed up, but the HH44 may in fact be the closest thing there is to a Tesla of sailboats. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that more than a few HH owners have one of those parked in their driveway. 

What, exactly, are those folks getting for their seven figures? There are two versions of the boat: the HH44-OC (Ocean Cruising), a dedicated bluewater cruising cat with mini keels instead of daggerboards; and the HH44-SC (Sports Cruising), a no-holds-barred rocket ship with C-shaped carbon boards, a solar array, and the company’s EcoDrive auxiliary propulsion package, which we’ll delve into shortly. The SC is the model we tested for the 2024 Boat of the Year contest. Spoiler alert: We were fairly blown away by the boat, and honored it with a Judges Special Recognition Award. Our sister publication, the performance-oriented Sailing World, named it overall Boat of the Year and described it as “the performance sailor’s retirement race boat.”

Aesthetically, in theme and execution, the HH44-SC presents a futuristic appearance. There’s a fixed bowsprit forward; ample freeboard in the relatively narrow hulls (at least compared with your average cruising cat from mainstream builders); a slash of integrated hull windows that offer natural light in the staterooms and double as a nice visual accent; a pair of drop-down swim platforms in the transoms; and a set of dinghy davits in between. The coachroof extends well aft and doubles as a hardtop Bimini over the cockpit, while serving as the base for the traveler and mainsheet arrangement, and as the base for more than 4,000 watts of mounted solar panels. 

Quick aside: The hulls are painted, and I reckon that more than a few owners will go with colors not usually found in genteel yacht surroundings. Our test boat, Titan, the first HH44-SC off the line, is bound for the Caribbean with a magnificent bright-red exterior. The intent is clear: You can go garishly or go home.  

Forward-facing windows in the main cabin can be opened to allow the fresh breeze to course through. M&M employed forward cockpits for steering and sailhandling in many of their previous designs, but eschewed that layout here. Instead, there’s a set of Jefa helm stations well aft that can rotate outboard for increased visibility when driving upwind, or that can be tilted inboard under the Bimini top in inclement conditions or to access line handling by gaining proximity to the winches. It’s a versatile, well-reasoned solution that I like a lot. I wish more cats were laid out similarly. 

Below, a dedicated en suite owner’s stateroom runs the length of the starboard hull. A pair of double-berth staterooms to port share a central head and shower. 

So, that serves as the basic overview of the 44-footer. But what about the ­technology? The big stories there are the propulsion and construction.

The most eye-opening feature is the hybrid auxiliary setup. Boat of the Year judge Tim Murphy is the educational director for the American Boat and Yacht Council and our go-to expert for all technical matters. Here’s his take on the system developed by UK firm Hybrid Marine: “It had the most sophisticated house systems and propulsion we’ve seen in the contest, starting with their parallel hybrid drive, a system unlike any we’ve inspected on any boat before this one.” 

Electric motors are built onto the back of the twin 30 hp Beta Marine diesels (or optional Yanmar 40 hp engines) with a coupling to the transmission. The electric motors can effectively be used as a pair of 5 kW generators to charge the battery bank. Adding regeneration while sailing provides up to 2 kW per shaft at 10 knots of boatspeed. An additional 43 kWh of energy is produced by the solar array on the cabin top.

What this translates to is silent ­operation under power in full electric mode, augmented by hydrogeneration to top off batteries while sailing, with the good old-fashioned reliability of those diesel engines as a backup, or for motoring through high pressure on passages. 

It’s a boat that covers a lot of bases, though Murphy is also quick to note that it will be interesting to see how all this translates to real-world operations, given that it’s new tech. He wouldn’t be ­surprised if, at the outset, there are ­growing pains bringing it all online (though company representatives note that the system has been used in European canal boats for more than 10 years). 

HH president Seth Hynes says: “At full battery capacity, you can run the boat at full throttle using the two 10-kilowatt electric motors and get 7 knots of boatspeed for approximately two hours. In light air, you can even keep your leeward electric motor running to build yourself some apparent wind.”

Murphy is also impressed with the build quality: “It’s thermal-foam construction with panels of Corecell foam core that’s heated up to make the complex shapes of the hull with no slits or kerfs in between. So you’re using those flat sheets to construct complex curves, and then you’re using the best resin ­available—which is epoxy—in the laminate, which also employs carbon cloth. This is infused epoxy construction, post-cured after that fact, so they are very, very high-quality hulls.” 

Carbon reinforcements are also used in high-load areas such as the wing deck, coachroof and daggerboard trunks. The Marstrom rig on the HH44-SC is all carbon (the OC version has a standard aluminum mast with the option to upgrade). 

At the end of the day, the reason one is attracted to a light, fast cat is pretty simple: performance. HH has been well-represented in previous Boat of the Year competitions, with its HH66, HH55 and HH50 all previous nominees (the latter two won awards in 2018 and 2021, respectively). To be honest, I’ve always been startled by the fact that many of these cats have gone to first-time boat owners with varying degrees of experience. I’ve been sailing for decades, and I’d be fairly intimidated to head offshore with a shorthanded crew on the larger HH cats, which are not simple vessels, but rather extremely powerful boats where things can escalate quickly if the first domino falls. 

One doesn’t need to be Superman, however, to sail the scaled-down HH44. Our test boat arrived in Annapolis, Maryland, with only a set of basic ­working sails (main, self-tacking ­staysail), so we didn’t get the full-on, off-wind power-reaching sleigh ride that is essentially the boat’s reason for being, but the sailing was still fast and sprightly. (A hat tip to the HH commissioning team, who had the boat sailing just two days after it was offloaded from a freighter in New Jersey.) Closehauled, with the deep, nearly 10-foot boards deployed, the boat tracked like a train and quite easily flirted with 10 knots of boatspeed. I can only imagine what it would be like to set a kite, then turn and burn, but it’s safe to say that you’ll regularly be registering double-digit boatspeeds. HH reps say that our test boat hit 23 knots on the delivery south to the Caribbean. 

All in all, the HH44-SC is quite a machine to behold. The story of ­production-boat building, starting way back in the 1960s, has been an ongoing evolution—piece by piece, boat by boat. Now this very cool cat has penned its own chapter. There’s really nothing else like it.

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large and was a 2024 Boat of the Year judge.

FYI

The “HH” in HH Catamarans represents the initials of Chinese businessman and ­manufacturer Hudson Wang, who founded the company, and CEO Paul Hakes, a New Zealand boatbuilder who joined forces with Wang in 2012 to launch the brand. There are currently eight models in the HH lineup, ranging in size from 44 feet to 88 feet, including the HH50, which was named the Best Luxury Cruiser in the 2021 Boat of the Year contest. The HH Catamarans design team of Melvin & Morrelli is well-known for their America’s Cup contenders, maxi offshore cats such as the 125-foot PlayStation, the pioneering Gunboat cruising cats, and the current line of Rapido performance trimarans. 

The post Sailboat Review: HH Catamarans HH44 appeared first on Cruising World.

For many cruisers, safer sailing resides in the can—at least when the can contains a nonskid coating. It’s a sure cure to ­banana-peel-slick decks. Fortunately, such surfaces can be rejuvenated by an ­experienced do-it-yourselfer.

In most cases, nonskid ­patterns are molded into a fiberglass sailboat’s deck. Over the years, these ­surfaces ­degrade. As the crazed, oxidized gelcoat becomes more porous, its effectiveness as a water barrier also decreases. 

Recoating a fiberglass deck with a nonskid paint is a lot easier than repainting the shiny topsides. First of all, decks are relatively flat, while topsides are much more susceptible to paint hangs and sags. Refinished topsides are expected to gleam like the side panels of a Ferrari, while nonskid coatings are neither ultrasmooth nor automotive-­glossy. The perfection bar is lower.

What is vital, however, is a thorough understanding of the paint system you are going to use, and strict adherence to the manufacturer’s guidelines. 

The process begins with a degreasing and a washdown with a stiff-bristle scrub brush. This should be a true workout. The goal is to remove the detritus that’s been ground into the surface over the years.

When everything is dry again, scuff-sand the surface with 80-grit sandpaper. A vacuum-linked random orbital sander is ideal for the job. The objective is to scuff up a well-adhered substrate. There’s no need to remove the textured gelcoat as long as it is intact. If it’s failing here or there, it might be necessary to remove some or all of the textured gelcoat using heavier 50- or 36-grit sanding discs. This is a task for those with more experience, and with vacuum dust-collection equipment. 

Options for new nonskid coatings include single- and two-part paint systems. The former streamlines the process. The latter involves a two-part epoxy primer and a two-part linear polyurethane topcoat. In both cases, the finish coat is laced with a specific grade of mineral grit or with plastic microspheres to texture the surface.  

Most approaches utilize a primer and topcoat protocol. And the old wisdom of building a strong foundation holds true. When it comes to primers, nothing beats the durability of a two-part epoxy. Awlgrip 545 has earned a following among pros, but I’ve also come to appreciate how well Interlux’s 404/414 Primekote has stood the test of time. A decade after I applied a two-part linear polyurethane nonskid topcoat over the 404/414 primer, the texture had diminished, but the adhesive tenacity of the epoxy underlayer remained intact. This made repainting for the next decade easier than ever.

Single-part paints also have significantly evolved in terms of easy handling and longevity. I had painted the cockpit sole of my sloop, Wind Shadow, with Interlux’s single-part Brightside, and the deck on a Cape Dory Typhoon with Pettit’s EZ Poxy. Both were over a two-part epoxy primer. After five years, the coatings remained well-adhered, and there was still some Topsider-grabbing grit left in the paint. I recently applied some of Interlux’s Toplac Plus over the single-part primer Pre-Kote Plus, and I found the comb easy to handle.

When it comes to additives, I favor Awlgrip’s Griptex and Interlux’s Intergrip. I prefer a foam roller (West System 800) and a bristle brush, along with a homemade extra-large shaker to dust the surface with additional grit. This light dusting will leave some microspheres poorly immersed in paint. After a couple of days of curing, hose down the deck and scrub away the excess grit. The poorly adhered material will wash away, leaving an evenly coated, excellent ­nonskid deck.      

Prior to primer application, do a final dust-off, and mask the boundary that delineates the end of the nonskid area. Use a good-quality masking tape such as 3M 233+. It’s a solvent-resistant, highly adhesive tape that leaves no residue. Put on a pair of kneepads, bring along a cotton dust cloth, and have a single-edge razor blade to cut the tape. Work around stanchions, hardware and other tight corners. Once the tape is in place, do a secondary press to make sure the tape is adhered to the surrounding smooth gelcoat.

Painting the nonskid portion of a sailboat’s deck doesn’t necessarily mean tackling every bit of the job at once. Start with a small area, such as the cockpit sole. Sample products and procedures. Build the skills you’ll need, and then decide what’s next.

Nonskid Manufacturers

Paint manufacturers have come up with some interesting ­approaches to creating nonslip surfaces on sailboats. Each of these has websites with training videos. Stick with one manufacturer’s product lineup, and follow the mixing and application guidelines.

Interlux’s new single-part silicone alkyd Toplac Plus and the microsphere additive Intergrip are easy to apply. They create a durable nonskid finish that teams up with Pre-Kote Plus primer or two-part Epoxy Primekote. 

Pettit Paint’s Tuff Coat is a water-based, rubberized nonskid that requires surface preparation. Prior to the final washing, Surface Prep 92 is applied. After sanding, Tuff Coat primer is applied. After that’s cured, two coats of Tuff Coat are spread using a Pettit roller.

Epifanes offers premixed Nonskid Deckcoating that is a blend of single-part mono-urethane topside paint and polypropylene bead traction additive. The latter is also marketed independently for use with two-part topcoat products.

The post DIY Tips for Repairing Nonskid appeared first on Cruising World.

Not you too, Son,” my father said sadly. 

It was the late 1950s, and the crew of the schooner Elizabeth, wearing rags, were lined up for a dressing down on the foredeck. We’d been heading into a setting sun in the Florida Keys and had run hard aground on a shoal. We’d then attempted to kedge off—with a large anchor, a clinker-built rowing dinghy named Lil’ Liz, and a stiff, tarred-hemp anchor rode that handled like unruly razor blades. 

Father wasn’t happy. Our schooner had a 52-foot length on deck and a 64-foot length overall. This Alden-designed schooner weighed three times more than a modern vessel. She drew 8½ feet. Her iron keel was long and narrow. Our anchor windlass was manual and inefficient. Darkness was only two hours away. A northerner was coming. There were building swells too. 

All of this was bad, but what happened next was far worse. Carole, my oldest sister, made a sound. It was kind of a yelp but strangled in mid-cry. All of us became wide-eyed at her insolence until Mother, aka the Sea Siren, began to laugh. Gale, the middle child, also began to giggle, chuckle, and then outright hoot and guffaw. Jerry, our ship’s dog, let go a howl or two to show her solidarity with the sisterhood.

I’m loath to point out the petty sexism of male sailors back in the day, but all this made unfortunate sense to my provincial father. To him, women were the weaker sex. This was an emergency. They should be dutifully following orders, not giggling or openly mocking their captain. 

I, a mere lad of 8 years, stood off to the side, leaning toward my beloved father’s view. But then, for an instant, I saw the absurdity of what was happening—a sun-bronzed, freedom-crazed skipper dressed in a Tahitian pareo aboard a dilapidated schooner that had somehow sailed out of the 1920s was yelling at his cowering family because he’d failed to have the sun over his shoulder as he entered a tropical port.

I realized that nothing can turn an easygoing man into a drill sergeant faster than a tiller in his hand. And that was when I too allowed a giggle of amusement to escape, causing my betrayed father to utter those fateful words: “Not you too, Son.”

Yes, we learn as we sail. I’ve sailed a lot, so I can claim­­—however falsely—to have learned a bit. This little episode taught me that, on any pleasure cruise, there’s the skipper who sweats the details and a crew who doesn’t—nor should they be asked to. If you assume the mantle of captain, you have to accept the responsibility and the realization that your guests shouldn’t (and can’t, really) share the burden. 

Let’s back up a tad. I’ve been scribbling about boats for 50 years now. I’ve written a lot of how-to articles. This column, though, is about how not to. Put another way, it’s about where I fall short as skipper. 

One place where I fall short is failing to appreciate the shore-centric reality of my guests. For instance, we were in Vava’u, Tonga, and sailing to the capital city of Nukualofa, where our San Francisco guest would fly out the next day. This was an adult who had traveled the world on land, graduated from an Ivy League university, and had the smarts to buy Apple stock when Jobs and Woz were still in the garage. 

Everything was fine. It was a perfect sailing day in paradise. Ganesh, our 43-foot ketch, was rail-down and broad-reaching in 24 knots of breeze. The water was gin-clear. The verdant islands slid by like a Winslow Homer watercolor. 

Our guest was utterly beguiled by our lifestyle for more than an hour. Our decks were dry. Everything was going fine until our guest awoke after a nap, looked around, blinked, looked around frantically, and then began to cry aloud. 

I’m not talking about a whimper. I’m talking about a full-on I-don’t-want-to-die scream. “Oh, my God! Where’s land? Point to land! Oh, God! Take me back! Take me back to land right now!”

I was not terribly compassionate. 

“What?” I sneered. “You didn’t realize that islands 40 nautical miles apart had water in between? Or that from the deck of a small vessel, you can’t see too far?”

My wife, Carolyn, ­cautioned, “Berating a blubbering lubber who may have just been mentally scarred forever and consequentially sentenced to therapy for the rest of their natural life isn’t going to help.”

The truth is, I’m sea-centric. I view the world through the keyhole of a sailor, not a rock-hugger. I remember being in a severe Pacific gale with Mexico on my lee. While I desperately attempted to claw off the coast to get sea room, that guest asked me without guile, “Think we can make it into safe harbor before the worst of it?” 

Land is the danger, I thought, not the solution.

I’ve spent decades in the Caribbean. A guest once asked me, while transiting the incredibly deep Puerto Rican trench, if we were going to anchor after dark so that we could get some sleep. 

“How much scope do you think that requires?” I mused. “Thirty-thousand feet times five?”

Having headquartered out of St. John in the US Virgin Islands for two decades, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been asked if the islands go “all the way to the bottom.”

“Nah,” I always say. “They just drift around, which isn’t a problem unless they bump into each other, which is probably what sank Atlantis.” 

Yes, numerous charter guests have brought tiny vials with them to collect samples of “all the different colors of the seawater.”

We’re currently on our fourth circumnavigation. While we have friends who have completed the Big Fat Circle in a quick two years, we usually take five to seven years, while enduring dock lizards who constantly ask us, “How many days does it take to sail around the world?”

What, they’ve never spun a globe? Never compared the speed of a modern jet in relationship to a half-tide rock such as Ganesh?

Yes, dirt-dwellers are set in their ways. The last time we were in Thailand, I was forced to shut off our water-pressure pump because a stubborn guest insisted on run-run-running his shower. The result wasn’t me being mad at him as much as him being mad at me. “Come on, Fatty,” the fellow said. “This is 2020, not the 1600s.” 

Yes, as expected, he was a tad busy sightseeing when we repeatedly ferried out the jugs to refill our 80-gallon tanks. (Occasionally, our 3-gallon-per-hour desalination unit works, but only if we can afford the amperage.)

But speaking of electrical issues, I was between Bermuda and St. Maarten when a guest came into the cockpit with a hair dryer and asked where they could plug it in. 

“Puerto Rico?” I replied. “St. Barts, maybe? Argentina?”

The same answer applies to the question, “Where is the shower’s hot-water valve?” 

Of course, during the first few decades of my offshore career, we used celestial navigation. When asked if I knew our location as we cruised the Caribbean in the 1970s, I could honestly reply: “Sure. South of North America and north of South America.”

Oh, those were good ol’ days. You could tell folks on St. Thomas that you got there by sailing south until the butter melted, then banged a left.

Seriously, I used to clear Sandy Hook and square away to a point well west of Bermuda, then run down my latitude with noon sights (which didn’t require accurate time) and finally turn to port. Just to be sure, I’d switch on a transistor radio. If the AM signal got louder, I was dead-on course.

Easy-peasy, right? Why make it difficult?

In the 1970s, I had a Bulova Accutron wristwatch with a tuning fork. I could walk aboard any vessel with my sextant in one hand and with my HO publications and nautical almanac in the other, and I could guide that vessel anywhere on the planet. If I wanted a big tip at the end, I’d leave sheets of paper around, filled with scribbled equations to “figure out the continental drift,” I’d say mystically. 

Oh, there are lots of little tricks to make life easier offshore. In late December, it can be extremely difficult to beat 2,000 miles against the reinforced trade winds from Florida to the Lesser Antilles. The seas are large. Falling into the troughs is like hitting concrete. And this boat-­jarring crash doesn’t happen one time, but rather a million times. The results are predictable. 

Thus, whenever the bilge of a vessel that I was sailing eastward across the Thorny Path would suddenly fill with water, I’d just dip and taste my finger, and then smile while the rest of the crew tried to find the leak instead of checking out the ill-chocked, split-open white plastic freshwater tank under the V-berth. 

I know, cruel.

Often, of course, I’d just be delivery crew. Once, off Bermuda on a custom Little Harbor 83, the skipper came up to relieve me just before dawn. I noticed that his clothes were inside out. He’d dressed in a dark cabin and hadn’t wanted to turn on a light to disturb his sleeping wife. Knowing that a captain is always right, I quietly informed the crew. It wasn’t until lunch that it slowly dawned on the poor fellow why his entire grinning crew had their clothes on inside out. 

Then there were the liveaboard parents of a girl. They couldn’t refuse her anything, not even a small aquarium, which they wedged into a bookshelf while offshore. Alas, in the Indian Ocean, they got into a gale that pounded their three-masted sailboat. One wave struck them so hard that the aquarium was dislodged above the sleeping mother. She was doused with salt water, sand, small rocks and a couple of flopping fish. She screamed at her husband, “Honey, we’re aground!”

On a similar note, I installed a burglar and bilge alarm on my Endurance 35, Carlotta, when I built her from scratch in Boston in 1971. This fire bell was super-noisy. Carolyn’s sister and her boyfriend flew in from Chicago to visit us in Bequia, and I soon had them offshore in heavy weather. It was rough. The motion of the seas was so violent that the boyfriend chose to sleep on the cabin sole between my wife’s bunk and mine, to prevent him from being thrown around the main cabin.

Somehow, around midnight, Carlotta hit a pothole (an empty space between waves). Our bow plunged, and the force of the crash bounced our bilge alarm on. 

I’d never heard the alarm under battle conditions, and was sure our hull had broken open like an egg after being struck by a rogue wave. I jumped out of my bunk and was horrified to discover in my grogginess that not only were we sinking, but also that the hole in the hull was so freaking big that I was standing on the back of whale.

The boyfriend’s point of view was a tad different. 

“There I was, scared out of my mind offshore, when a loud noise went off—so loud and so terrifying that I couldn’t think straight,” he recalled. “It was pitch-black inside the swaying cabin, and all my rationality had fled. Next thing I knew, 175 pounds jumped on my stomach, whooshing the air completely out of my chest. Before I could manage to suck back in any oxygen, a bare foot jammed down my exposed neck, cutting off my air supply and preventing me from breathing in. As I began to black out and see the approaching white light, my only thought was that I was certainly hearing the last bell, for sure.”

He never visited again. Last we heard, he’d purchased rural property in Indiana and puked each time he saw a picture of a seascape. 

I know, I know. I should have more compassion, right? 

And this isn’t mentioning Joker, our cat, whose favorite thing during night crossings of the Anegada Passage was to catch flying fish on the foredeck and then proudly deposit them (wet, alive and wiggling) onto the chests of our sleeping guests below. 

Oh, the screams as they levitated.

All of which is why Carolyn often slaps her forehead as she informs our guests, grimly, “I’ve made only two mistakes in life: Saying ‘I’ and ‘do’ were both of  ’em.”

The post Fatty Goodlander: Where I Fall Short as Skipper appeared first on Cruising World.

Many boat owners are surprised to learn that shaft bearings, also called cutless bearings, are lubricated with nothing but seawater. Without its regular flow, the bearing and shaft can wear rapidly.

Most conventional bearings and bushings are made from relatively hard substances—some type of metal, from brass to steel—and are oil-lubricated. Shaft bearings, however, are almost exclusively made from rubber that is lubricated with seawater. The design, at least for DuraMax products, incorporates a few features that yield this surprising longevity.  

The outer shell of the bearing is most often made from brass (not bronze), although bearings are available with a nonmetallic shell for use on aluminum and steel vessels.  

The rubber, which is of the especially durable and oil-resistant nitrile variety, is flexible, so the bearing lands deform slightly when the shaft turns. This enables a water wedge to form between the bearing and the shaft, making for extremely low friction and wear. 

Additionally, the soft surface is able to “absorb” grit and dirt until it can be flushed through the valleys between the lands. 

Unlike hard bearings, rubber shaft bearings almost never fail catastrophically. Bearing life varies depending on several factors, but I’ve encountered bearings that were still within tolerances after 1,000 hours of use.

Even still, shaft bearings can fail prematurely if they are starved of their lubricating lifeblood: water. This can occur if a sacrificial anode is installed too close to the leading edge of a strut. For planing power vessels, the general rule is no less than a foot of clearance between anode and bearing. For sailing and displacement craft, 6 inches is plenty.

If the anode loosens and slides aft on the shaft, that can also block water flow.  Barnacles and other marine growth, as well as carelessly applied antifouling paint forward of the bearing, can also impede water flow.

Shaft bearings should be installed with a light press fit. No more than moderate effort should be required to push or pull a bearing into its bore. 

Sealant or epoxy should never be used to secure a bearing into place. If the gap between the bearing shell and the bore is too great, then a larger bearing shell can be turned down on a lathe to achieve the proper fit. Once the bearing is in place, it should be retained with set screws whose tips are pointed. These should “land” in dimples that have an angle that matches the screw tip, and that are drilled into, but not through, the bearing shell. 

While engine-to-shaft alignment is a process that is fairly well-understood in the marine industry, shaft alignment with shaft bearings often represents a bit of a gray area for many boatyards. The prop shaft and transmission output couplings must be centered and parallel, and the shaft must also be parallel with, and be centered in, the shaft bearing.

Getting both of these right represents a delicate balancing act, one that often fails to achieve the goal on the bearing side. If the shaft passes through the shaft bearing in a manner that is not parallel, then “pinching” can occur. This is evident when viewing either end of the bearing. A gap might exist on one side, say at 3 o’clock, while the bearing’s rubber is compressed at 9 o’clock (the gap and compression location will be reversed at the other end of the bearing). Such a scenario leads to accelerated bearing and shaft wear because the shaft is unable to “float” on the water wedges, and because of vibration. Aligning a shaft with a bearing often requires adjustment of the strut or keel bearing carrier.

Finally, shaft bearings can occasionally suffer from swelling. This occurs when a hygroscopic (and thus incorrect) rubber bearing material is used. In extreme cases, it can cause the shaft to be seized by the bearing. 

The proper clearance between shaft and bearings is detailed within the American Boat and Yacht Council’s Standard P-6, Propeller Shafting Systems, for shafts from ¾-inch to 4 inches. 

It is highly advisable to fit new bearings to shafts, and to check the clearance before installing them, because oversize and undersize bearings are not uncommon. 

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting.

The post Shaft Bearing Maintenance Tips appeared first on Cruising World.

Astus 20.5

The lineup of feature-­packed new sailboats at this past fall’s Annapolis Sailboat Show included a couple of sporty multihulls that stood out from the crowd, mostly because of what they went without. Rather than boasting plush ­accommodations and elaborate systems, the Astus 20.5 Sport trimaran and the Xquisite 30 Sportcat didn’t have so much as a padded cockpit cushion between them. No flat-screen TV. No air conditioning. No suite of navigation instruments. No fridge or freezer. No en suite head and shower. Zip. Nada. Nuttin’.

What they did have, ­however, was the promise of fun sailing. And with a sleeping bag, a camp stove and a cooler, either boat would be a fine weekender on which to fly across bays or explore skinny water.

The 19-foot-6-inch Astus is built in France and designed by VPLP, the same naval architects who design Lagoon and Excess catamarans, and racing machines such as Banque Populaire XI, Comanche and Groupama 3. With a price tag of $29,500, the Astus was by far the least-expensive sailboat that Cruising World Boat of the Year judges inspected. The builder, Astus Boats, has proa and trimaran models that range from 14 to 26 feet. 

The 20.5’s center hull and amas are vacuum-infused, and the main hull flares out above the waterline to cut down on spray. The floats to either side are attached with tubes that can be retracted or extended and pinned in place. Collapsed, the boat has a beam of 8 feet, 2 inches, making it easily trailerable. Extended, the tri is just under 15 feet wide and quite stable, even with four of us aboard for a test sail on Chesapeake Bay. 

To be honest, the boat was overloaded, but still, it danced right along in an 8- to 10-knot breeze. Tacking upwind with the main and working jib, our GPS speed was 5.2 knots. With the screecher rolled out on its continuous-line furler set on the boat’s aluminum bowsprit, we saw speeds in the high-7-knot range with occasional bursts of 8 or so.

The local Astus dealer from Red Beard Sailing said that the boat, with its mast stepped on a tabernacle on deck, is fairly simple to rig and get into the water from its trailer. With its centerboard up, the boat draws just 10 inches; down, the draft is about 4 feet. For getting to and from the launch ramp or dock, the Astus can handle up to a 6 hp outboard.

The cabin in the center hull has sitting headroom and enough space to escape the weather, or for a couple of people to sleep. There’s space for a portable toilet under a V-berth. Other than that, accommodations are minimal—and that’s point. The Astus is intended to be a speedy little machine to enjoy on your favorite body of water and then be taken home and stored in the yard.

Astus 20.5 Sport Specifications

Xquisite 30 Sportcat

The Xquisite 30 Sportcat has just about equally spartan creature comforts, though in two slightly more spacious hulls, thanks to a length overall of 30 feet, 4 inches. At first glance, the boat is somewhat reminiscent of the old Stiletto Catamarans, thanks to cowl-like hatches amidships in either hull that open to enough room below for a mattress, a place to stow gear, and a basic electrical system with LED lighting. 

The Sportcat is designed by French naval architect Francois Perus, co-founder of The Yacht Design Collective. The idea, he said, was to build a fast family cruiser.

As with Xquisite’s larger bluewater cruising cats, the Sportcat is not a vessel built to a price point. Its hulls are foam-cored and infused using vinylester resin, with carbon-­fiber reinforcements in high-load areas. Crossbeams are also made with carbon fiber, as are the rotating mast, rudders and bowsprit. The boat we sailed in Annapolis came with mini keels; carbon-fiber and epoxy daggerboards are an option.

Mesh trampolines are used in the cockpit and foredeck to reduce weight, and the composite deck amidships is covered with Flexiteek synthetic decking for traction. Sails on the boat in Annapolis were made by North and included a square-top 3Di Endurance main, jib, and G-Zero gennaker. The boat we sailed was powered by a 6 hp Mercury outboard; an electric motor is an option. Hull No. 1 carried a price tag of $258,000, but according to the Xquisite website, the current price is $285,000.

Xquisite Yachts, whose primary business is building luxury cruising catamarans, chose the sport design primarily as a training platform for its big-boat customers who visit the company’s facility in the Bahamas. Some of its owners are relatively new to the sport, and the Sportcat is intended for them to get an idea of how a multihull feels under sail. But it also is quite capable of pleasing sailors with a desire to go out and rip it up, which is just what the Boat of the Year team did one early morning on Chesapeake Bay. At the outset, the breeze was light, in the 5- to 8-knot range, and we saw speeds of 6 and 7 knots sailing upwind with the working jib. With the gennaker rolled out, we were matching windspeed, no problem.

The boat’s twin rudders are tied together by a carbon pipe, and the boat is steered using a long tiller extension, which lets the helmsman sit outboard on the windward hull, where there’s good visibility of main and headsail telltales. Tacking involves a bouncy dash across the aft trampoline—a fun maneuver once you get the hang of it.

After an hour or more on the water, given the Sportcat’s sparkling performance and the quality of its build and equipment, we judges had no other option but to name it Best Sportboat of 2024.

Xquisite 30 Sportcat Specifications

Mark Pillsbury is a CW editor at large and was a 2024 Boat of the Year judge.

The post Sailboat Review: 2 Sportboats We Love appeared first on Cruising World.

The Windelo 50, which first grabbed our editors’ attention at last year’s Cannes Yachting Festival, is an eco-conscious cruising cat that prioritizes functionality in a comfortable package that’s capable of crossing oceans. Add to that a powerful rig, modest displacement, daggerboards and genuine electric autonomy, and it’s easy to understand why the boat turned heads at its US premiere in Miami this past spring. 

Since Hull No. 1 rolled off the factory line in Canet-en-Roussillon, France, in fall 2019, the Windelo naval architecture team of Christophe Barreau and Frédéric Neuman has given this crossover cat a racy, stylish look. The new version is billed as the Windelo 50 Yachting, and it underscores a substantial move upmarket with a sleek, dynamic appearance and solid craftsmanship. Significant upgrades have been made to the decks and superstructure, and the layout is reimagined for greater comfort and flow. 

The aft deck is expanded to create a more comfortable relaxation area with enhanced protection from the elements. The builder uses large molds, which is why the surfaces have a notably smoother finish. A new nonslip surface, with a more attractive diamond-shaped texture, is directly integrated into the mold.

The Windelo 50 is also built with a composite sandwich structure that includes environmentally friendly materials, basalt fiber and PET foam, which reduce the boat’s carbon footprint by nearly 47 percent, according to the builder. The integration of two electric motors, 5,880-watt solar panels and an under-sail hydrogeneration system facilitates zero-emission sailing. The combination also allows daily recharging of the battery bank, providing up to four hours of autonomous ­propulsion using exclusively green energy sources when cruising at 6 knots.

At the base of the mast, the forward cockpit centralizes all boathandling activity, while enabling the skipper to remain near the center of social activity. The cockpit can be fully enclosed, providing protection from the elements. The deck housing creates additional space for relaxation, and the living area can be transformed into a terrace via a winch mechanism and sliding or removable bulkheads, along with sliding glass doors. 

According to the builder, even in light air, the Windelo 50 can sail at true-wind speed, courtesy of the hull-design weight distribution.

The post Sailboat Preview: Windelo 50 Yachting appeared first on Cruising World.

As winds of change continue to sweep through our sailing community, and as more participants enter the world of cruising, a startling question has emerged: Could the traditional monohull actually lose its market dominance to the up-and-coming catamaran? 

For years, the monohull-­versus-cat discussion has ignited passion among sailors worldwide. As we all continue the great debate about which type of boat is better, sales figures offer a hint at what kinds of boats we might see along the docks in the future.

According to market research by the Maryland-based Fact.MR, the global ­catamaran market stood at $1.9 billion in 2023. It is expected to see an annual growth rate of around 5.6 percent during the next 10 years. Interestingly, although sailing catamarans held a share of more than 50 percent globally in 2022, power catamarans are projected to see a noticeable increase compared with sail.

Why the sustained rise in popularity? In my experience, there always seems to be a “wow” moment whenever a monohull sailor sets foot aboard a catamaran for the first time.

Who can blame them? These sporty, twin-hulled vessels have spacious layouts, stability, and impressive speed. Catamarans come with expansive accommodations, making them ideal for extended cruising with family and friends. Their shallow drafts enable better access to skinny water, opening up new horizons for adventurous cruisers. Some proponents go so far as to suggest that catamarans represent the future of sailing.

But there is also reason to pump the brakes on wild-eyed predictions. Even amid this catamaran craze, the venerable monohull refuses to be sidelined. With its time-tested design and seafaring heritage, the monohull remains the stalwart of the sailing world. Monohulls are renowned for their stability and seaworthiness. They excel in challenging conditions. They are a dependable choice for extended offshore journeys. They slice through waves with grace and precision. Many sailors favor monohulls for their responsiveness and feel, making them the preferred option for racing enthusiasts and purists alike.

According to Grand View Research, the monohull segment dominated the overall market with a share of 59 percent in 2023 and will grow at an annual rate of 4.4 percent through 2033. That steady growth suggests that, while multihulls undoubtedly have carved out a significant niche in the sailing market, ­monohulls continue to hold their own. 

Yet, it would be remiss to ignore the challenges that monohulls face in the age of catamarans. As demand for spaciousness and comfort grows, some monohulls might struggle to compete with multihulls. Catamarans’ stability at anchor and under sail has prompted many sailors to make the switch—raising questions about the future of monohull design and innovation. But that’s a conversation for another day. 

The debate about ­catamarans and monohulls extends beyond mere preference. It’s a reflection of the evolving landscape of sailing. Both types of vessels have their strengths and weaknesses, catering to different sailing styles, preferences and priorities. But the question of whether catamarans are killing off traditional monohulls is more nuanced than it might seem. While catamarans have shaken up the sailing scene, monohulls continue to endure, driven by the timeless art of sailing. 

As for me, give me a favorable breeze, a big patch of water and some Bob Marley, and I’ll gladly take the helm, whether it’s one hull or two.

The post Are Cats Killing the Monohull? appeared first on Cruising World.

It was a stunning, sensational, even quintessential December morning off Jost Van Dyke in the always alluring British Virgin Islands. Back home in New England, I’d just learned, the season’s first nasty nor’easter had kicked in—a preview of winter’s coming attractions. But there I was in shorts, and barefoot, warm and happy. I had a hot cup of coffee in my hand, and someone was thoughtfully streaming one of my favorite recording artists, Tom Petty, whose “A Higher Place” was the perfect soundtrack on the inviting forward trampoline of the Moorings catamaran. 

A good 15 to 25 knots of staunch, easterly trade winds—the so-called Christmas trades—were in full voice. With my hair whipping in the breeze, it occurred to me that it was an absolutely stellar day to reef down, strap up, and go for a cracking-good sail.  

But there would be no sailing for me on this day, or on any of the ensuing ones during our quick charter trip through the BVI. No, the twin-hulled vessel on which I was perched was­—gasp!— a Moorings 464PC power cat. 

Suddenly, I came to the sobering realization that, at least ­temporarily, I was likely in the midst of abandoning my very roots and selling my sailing soul. And I was having a decidedly difficult time coming to terms with it.

I’ve always fancied myself an all-around waterman. I got my scuba diving card decades ago, and I really enjoy open-ocean swimming. My current personal armada includes three kayaks, two surfboards, a good rowboat, and two sailboats: a daysailing Pearson Ensign and a full-fledged Pearson 365 cruising boat. Note what isn’t there, and never has been: a powerboat. Alas, I’ve spent my entire career advocating for and endorsing the sanctity of sail. 

Well, all that said, a guy has to make a buck. I’d been hired to host a pair of Moorings videos for the company’s two new power cats, the 464 and the 403PC. So, this was a press junket of sorts, giving me an opportunity to become familiar with the boats. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t a little unsettled by the experience. Then again, I was in the BVI. It was time to buck up, old boy, and get on with it. 

Virgin Gorda is a pretty good place to do just that. After we dropped the mooring in Jost and made our way up the windswept, whitecapped Sir Francis Drake Channel, I had my first revelation regarding my current situation: No, we weren’t sailing. But neither were any of the sailboats darting hither and yon, all of which were proceeding under power, just like us. It was too darn breezy. 

We tied up at the Bitter End Yacht Club, and it was truly great to see the iconic island destination slowly coming back to life after getting flattened a few years back by Hurricane Irma. The highlight of our overnight stay was the next morning’s sweaty hike up the hill behind the resort, followed by a refreshing dip and a couple of eye-opening bloody marys at the convenient bar right alongside the beach. My trepidation about my situation was slowly beginning to wane. As it did on the next leg of our journey. 

Thanks to a tip from a local, we exited Virgin Gorda through an extremely narrow, very shallow cut between Anguilla Point and Mosquito Island, something we never would’ve gotten away with on a keelboat. Advantage, power cat. From there, we were bound for one of my favorite islands in all of the Caribbean: low-lying Anegada, the outlying isle encircled by coral reefs some 10 miles north of Virgin Gorda. I’d not visited the place in my previous pair of trips to the BVI simply because of a time crunch. You really need to invest three days for an Anegada visit—a day over, a day there and a day back—which is often a bridge too far when trying to cram all sorts of activities into a weeklong sailboat charter.

You know where I’m going with this. The power catamaran solved this dilemma posthaste. With the throttles down at 3,100 rpm, we flew to Anegada at a tidy 16-plus knots. Once there, our photographer proclaimed that he was enjoying our steed for a reason that never would’ve occurred to me: It’s much easier to catch a drone without a mast.

Our quick trip over meant we had plenty of time to do all the things one wishes to do in Anegada. Rent a car. Hit Loblolly Beach for a snorkel and lunch. Search for the pink flamingos. Patronize a couple of beach bars. Your basic perfect day. 

Back on the boat, hanging off the mooring lines after yet another wonderful swim, I could glance back with a view through the twin hulls to catch the sunset framed between them. Pretty cool. And once darkness settled in, the underwater lights off our transom proved to be a tarpon magnet. We sipped our drinks with the super-cool water-world show just a few tantalizing feet away. We’d basically brought our own aquarium with us. 

With our abbreviated trip coming to its conclusion, we had one more stop, at the Bight on Norman Island. Ironically, by this time, the breeze had temporarily frittered away, and guess what? In these calm conditions, the sailboats still weren’t sailing. 

The harbor was chock-full of vacationing mariners, but thanks to our big twin diesels, we were there in time to pick up one of the last moorings. I’m not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was beginning to see the advantages of this power-cat situation. If anyone ever asked my advice about a BVI charter for a first-timer, here’s what I’d say: If you’re a sailor, unequivocally, you must book a good sailboat for your adventure. There’s too much nautical history and lore not to sample the archipelago’s joys and challenges as the first explorers did, under glorious sail. But if you’re on your second or third or fourth visit? Hmm. Those power cats are pretty convenient.

Still, I was seriously conflicted about writing a magazine story espousing the benefits of power cruising. Our photographer was sympathetic and said, “You could title it ‘Low Sodium: The Retractions of a Salty Man.’” Even for me, that sounded pretty pretentious. Then he broke it down into something simpler to understand: “Look, man, you were afloat.”

And that struck a chord. His simple statement has really been the common denominator of my entire existence. I’ve always been an equal-opportunity lover of the water, whatever the conveyance, from my own eclectic fleet to a bloody pool toy. Whatever gets you out there, gets you out there. There’s no wrong way to do it. 

And that was that. I had reached the happy and consolable conclusion that I hadn’t really been power-cat cruising, not at all. No, mon, as they say in the islands. I’d been floating.

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

Power-Cat Ownership The Moorings’ Way

As of this writing, The Moorings has a pair of power catamarans available in its yacht-management program at Tortola. Both were built in South Africa by Robertson & Caine, which also produces the Leopard line of sail and power cats. The Moorings 403PC is powered by a pair of 320 hp Yanmar diesels and has a cruising speed of 15 knots. The Moorings 464 is also powered with a pair of twin Yanmars and is laid out in a four-head, four-stateroom configuration.

Franck Bauguil, Moorings’ vice president of yacht ownership and product development, says that it’s a great program for mariners who charter multiple times each year. “If you’re going to go only once a year, or every other year, just charter a boat, don’t buy it,” he says. However, if you go three or four times a year, on trips that can cost up to $25,000 apiece, the Moorings package is well worth considering.

“The program has been around for a long time,” he says. “So it’s well-known among sailors, but not as much with powerboaters. Our fleet of boats is all privately owned, but we take care of operations and management. You buy the boat, you own it and name it; it’s very much a regular purchase. But with that purchase comes a management agreement where we maintain the boat on behalf of the owner and charter it to a third party when they’re not using it.”

As with any boat purchase, owners can lay down the cash or go the finance route. For the latter, what’s the cost? The numbers as of this past fall showed that most owners put down 20 to 25 percent of the cost of the yacht, which, in the case of The Moorings’ 403PC, was about $1 million, with a down payment just shy of $200,000. At 8.25 percent interest on a 20-year loan, the monthly payment of about $6,700 was offset by the guaranteed income of just under $7,500 per month. Management contracts generally run five or six years, after which the owner can keep the boat, trade it in, or have The Moorings’ brokerage operation place it for sale.

For personal usage, owners receive 84 points per year, with the cost of trips equating to two points per day. Of those 84 points, 42 can be used to reserve trips in advance, and 42 can be employed on short notice. Generally, this breaks down to four to six weeks per year of in-season trips, or up to 12 weeks per year of cruising in the off-season. —HM

The post Selling My Soul? A Lifelong Sailor Dabbles in Diesel appeared first on Cruising World.

According to Kurt Jerman, head of West Coast Multihulls, the questions come hard and fast at a boat show anytime a ­lifelong monohuller is ­considering a move to the multihull side. 

• Is multihull cruising really all that different from the monohull experience? 
• In what ways? 
• What are the key differences between catamarans and trimarans? 
• Could a multihull flip over? Then what? 

With the great debate between monohulls and multihulls having drawn on for decades, we sat down with Jerman to get some honest ­answers to questions he ­typically fields from the “cat curious” crowd.    

CW: You often hear about the comfort factor of the multihull platform. What’s the root of that appeal?  

KJ: The most noticeable thing about sailing a catamaran or trimaran versus a traditional monohull is the lack of heeling. Even when powered up, a cat or tri will rarely heel more than 5 to 10 degrees before it’s time to reef. Gone are the days of bracing yourself in the cockpit and living your life underway at 20 or more degrees of angle. In my opinion, it’s a much more relaxing and convenient way to sail. No question about that. There are a few exceptions when it comes to the newer breed of large performance cruising cats (which can heel 10-plus degrees), but these are still fairly fresh to the cruising market.  

What can multihull owners expect in terms of speed and sailing performance?

Cruising catamarans will typically be 25 percent to 30 percent faster than a cruising monohull of the same length. You basically reach near-­racing monohull speeds, but with all the creature comforts that come with a cat. Trimarans are an entirely different deal because they trend more toward the performance end of the spectrum, and can regularly double the sailing speed of monohulls on nearly any point of sail.

Keep in mind that catamarans and trimarans are, however, much more sensitive to loading. Performance will suffer more on a cat that is loaded for cruising than on a comparable monohull. Keeping the boat light can be difficult, but it is critical if fast passages are your goal. Reefing also becomes more important. 

Sailing catamarans and, to a lesser extent, trimarans too, require vigilance when it comes to reefing. Because they don’t heel much, almost all additional wind force is converted to load on the rig. That’s where the speed comes from. But since the pressure on the sails quadruples as the windspeed doubles, crews must keep an eye on the weather and make sure to reef in good time to keep the boat safe and sailing flat. In fact, a properly reefed cat or tri will sail faster too, in freshening breezes. All manufacturers supply written guidelines denoting apparent-wind speeds that require additional reefing.  

What about safety? And are multihulls really unsinkable, or is that a myth? 

There are many aspects to safety where catamarans and trimarans shine. Often overlooked is the safety margin introduced with level sailing. It is much easier to keep crew aboard in rough weather when the boat stays level and is pitching less. Also, large cockpit spaces keep crew better protected and situated well away from the lifelines. 

The speed of a multihull is another safety factor. With decent weather information, it’s relatively easy to sail around severe weather systems before they can bear down on you. Should something go horribly awry and the boat gets flipped—which is highly rare and requires extreme circumstances—the lack of ballast and additional positive flotation means that nearly every catamaran and trimaran produced in the past few decades will remain on the surface of the water, right side up or not, until a rescue can be made. Nearly all cruising cats and tris have a substantial amount of reserve buoyancy, in the form of closed-cell foam, stashed in the nooks and crannies of the boat. Because of this, most of these boats could literally be cut into pieces, and all of those pieces would still float. 

How do multihulls handle under power and in close quarters?  

Cruising catamarans and trimarans, with their easily driven hull forms and light weight, enjoy excellent fuel efficiency when compared with monohulls, and track very straight. Cats almost always have twin engines, set many feet apart, which allows for tremendous control in tight situations. In fact, the boat can be spun in place or crabbed sideways without any way on. Try that on a monohull. 

Prop walk is minimal or nonexistent as well, and the redundancy of a second engine is appreciated should a mechanical issue arise ­underway. Nearly all trimarans have just one engine, so the differences there are slight.  

How much gain can boaters expect in usable living space?  

Typically, a catamaran will have the volume below equivalent to a monohull 10-plus feet larger. When combined with added cockpit space, possibly a flybridge, and more than doubling the deck space, it becomes a whole different ballgame. It’s important to note that you not only gain a tremendous amount of space, but nearly all of that space is very livable and comfortable as well, whether at anchor or underway. 

However, trimarans don’t show an increase in interior volume, and in fact tend to be smaller below than monohulls of the same size. This is mitigated some by the additional stowage in the amas and added net space, but the narrower, performance-oriented main hull tends to be less than palatial. 

How can multihulls get away with such shallow drafts? 

Because a multihull’s stability comes from the beam and extra hulls—form stability—there is no need for ballast or a substantial keel. This reduces overall weight and, importantly, draft as well. It is common for a 40-plus-foot cruising cat to have a draft less than 4 feet, allowing sailors to explore shallow areas where monohullers fear to tread. Belize, the Bahamas, the Great Barrier Reef? No problem. Gunkholing around Mexico and the Chesapeake is easier too. 

If you have some quick underwater maintenance to do, such as replacing prop-shaft seals, zincs or a through-hull, most cats can be dried out at low tide on a flat area of sand or solid ground, resting happily on their stubby little keels. You can also nose right up to that perfect beach if the weather allows. 

Trimarans typically have no keels at all, and instead rely on a centerboard to prevent leeway, making them perfect for beaching. Boom-tent camping, anyone?

What if it flips?  

While a scenario like this is theoretically possible and has happened in very rare, heavy-weather situations when any vessel would be in distress, it takes very high winds, too much sail (see reefing, above), and large breaking waves to flip a modern cruising cat or trimaran.

Multihull sailors might find it reassuring to know that their cat or tri will remain on the surface, as a big life raft and highly visible spotting target.

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