multihulls are superior to a monohull

[ford]

so I keep getting told.
My monohull is in a yard with 12 multihulls in various stages of construction, and boy do I get a ragging during lunch and tea breaks,so,I need some clever comebacks.
Anyone? :mad:

[Noah]

In performance sailing, a mono goes down wind faster than a multi. They can't plane worth a damm. Plus running a bit spinnaker can be iffy. Not as much boyancy in the bow.

[Garrett Lowell]

It's all about being sea worthy. I doubt if any of the multihulls could make a safe passage through serious (read: knockdown or capsize for the multis) weather. If they're concerned with speed, tell them to book a flight.

[mmd]

I spent a couple of years in the southern Caribbean designing & building semi-custom 52-ft & 60-ft catamarans for the day-charter trade. From that experience I think that I can safely say that a cat is faster, more comfortable, and more stable than any monohull of similar size I have ever been on, in reasonable conditions. As most of us usually don't do trans-oceanic passages and can pick our weather windows judiciously, they are a wonderful cruising platform. The drawbacks that I perceive are 1.) they take up a lot of room in a marina - sometimes they just won't fit or incur additional wharfage fees due to their beam; 2.) in most designs, they are not good heavy-weather boats; and 3.) because they have such high initial stability they cannot dissapate the energy of a big gust of wind by rolling down and spilling the wind from the sails (a knockdown), they tend to snap masts rather frequently. Three of our boats (out of 26 produced) lost their sticks in the two years I was in the region due to gusts that the crew didn't respond to adequately. They seem to be very popular with the tropical cruising crowd due to their big deck spaces and stability at anchor, but don't seem to be popular for anything other than hard-core racing up here in the chilly north-east of North America. In smaller sizes (30 ft or less), they tend to have rather cramped interiors, but as soon as you reach a size that permits standing headroom in the bridgedeck area, that problem is reversed and they become huge inside. My bottom line? - I already have the design for mine underway for when I can afford to a.) build it, and b.)take the time away from work to sail off into the sunset. But mine will have to be a big 'un, 'cause I wanna go north, not south, so I need a big, WARM, interior!

[Art Read]

Do YOU want to go to sea in any boat that the designer decided that an "escape hatch" on the bottom was a neccesity?

[Bruce Hooke]

Well, I can see some distinct advantages to being at sea in a boat that when disabled is quite likely to remain on the surface. So what if you're upside down at least your on the surface.

I wonder how the relative construction cost adds up. It would seem to me that two or three hulls would be more expensive than one, but maybe not.

[jimstitt]

I think Bud Mcintonsh (sp) said something along the lines of " there is something disconcerting about a boat that is perfectly stable when completely upside down"
I apologise for the misquote if it is one.
Jim

[ken mcclure]

Just tell 'em that you got enough experience and no longer need the "training hulls."

[mmd]

All ye of little catanmaran faith - (with great respect and an even, good-natured bantering tone - don't want to start a flame) Most monohull boats will float quite happily upside-down if the ballast keel parts company with the hull, which is not an infrequest happenstance (remember Tony Bullimore in the Whitbread or "Drum" in a shakedown for the Fastnet?). At least a cat HAS an escape hatch in that circumstance. There is quite a bit of room for debate between the relative merits of form stability versus ballast stability.

And don't start with the anecdotes of pitch-poled racing cats as harbinger of all cat performance - they are, after all, RACING. That's like saying that a Chevy Lumina is an unsafe car because Dale Earnhart died in one at a NASCAR race. IMHO, 99% of cruisers will never sail in conditions that will produce a pitchpole or rollover, same as those in a monohull. In those 1% conditions, I suspect that the survivability of the differing types of craft is about the same. Losing a mast is a much higher possibility in a cat, and in that state the cat has superior livability.

It has been my experience that the most vociferous opponents of multihulls have never been on one. This places their arguments in the same category as your kid bawling that "I've never tasted it because I don't like it!"

As for the necessity or desire for speed, think of it this way: Like the majority of boat owners, you only get to sail on the weekends and vacations. On Saturday you sail for six hours from the marina to find a nice place to anchor overnight, then take six hours to return to the marina on Sunday. If your boat can average six knots, your weekend cruising radius is about forty miles. If you had a cat, your cruising speed would be at least 9 knots (probably more), allowing you a cruising radius of sixty miles, enabling you to select an anchorage in an area about 3000 square miles larger than if you lollygagged about in your ol' monotub.

Now that I've concluded my rant, I'll try to disarm all the nautical Luddites who are warming up their typing fingers by admitting that with very few exceptions, most multihulls that I've seen are butt-ugly. Fast and comfortable, mind you, but UGLY!!

Bruce - Hull costs are definitely higher, but then internal volume is greater, too, therby requiring less boat to achieve living space. A 35-ft cat has the approx. internal volume of a 50-ft monohull, so the cost balances out if you compare volume rather than length.

[Todd Bradshaw]

mmd,
I think you're right on the money. As Hawkeye Peirce once said "A closed mind is an empty mind". Thirty-five years ago, I was a die-hard open canoeist and most other types of boats seemed like a total waste of money. Since then, I've owned a whole slew of both open and decked canoes, whitewater, flatwater and sea kayaks, inflatable motorboats, river rafts, cats, tri's and mono-hulled sailboats. At one point I went directly from a Starboat, a highly technical racing sailboat to a cruising trimaran, which is a pretty drastic switch. Still, they both had their strengths and weaknesses and I enjoyed them both. The tri was a wonderful boat for daysailing with plenty of room for guests and spreading out. My main complaints were that sometimes a boat that only heels 8 degrees doesn't feel like a sailboat and that most multihulls don't point very high. Coming directly from the Star, that one was very obvious. On the other hand, I can remember some 18-20 knot runs at midnight with the chute up that were a blast and some lazy no-wind afternoons where the tri made a great party and swiming platform. I don't relate very well to motors and boats that make a lot of noise, but I'm certainly glad to have had the chance to use so many types of paddle and sailboats. I learned a lot.

[Ruaridh]

I used to work in the Caribbean charter business and this argument came up all the time - especially in St. Maarten where all the South Africans were very pro-multihull.
I've sailed and delivered them quite a lot - catamarans that is, not South Africans - (only French - built cruising ones mind you) and also attempted to sell them to US clients at Annapolis Boat show, so I don't think I fall into the luddite / 'bawling kid' categories mentioned above.
While I really quite like them, my own chosen boat would still be a monohull.
It's interesting to see that my usual main argument, that they don't point very high, only came up in the previous post. Granted, you can usually make up for it with increased hull speed, but I find that having to go as fast as possible all the time isn't always desirable.
But another point to remember is that because of their low displacement and large size, cats have to be very LIGHT. This means complex engineering design, and I reckon also results in many of the production ones being built very badly (lots of bits of foam stuck together with the minimum amount of resin). I don't know how this relates to home-built / one-offs, but I'd wager its much harder to get it right for an amateur with a multihull.
Also, the arguments regarding weekend cruising are all very valid, BUT....
I think that if a yacht is big enough and appears able to go offshore, then it should really be designed and built accordingly (I know modern production monohulls are guilty of failing this as well). Around the UK anyway, horrendous conditions can arise relatively close to the coast. The fact is that it takes more skill (and probably luck) to handle a large multihull in heavy weather than it does a monohull, as one has to rely on going downwind at ever - increasing speeds. Look what happened to Pete Goss!!.
I know its true to say that 99% of people 99% of the time will never be in these conditions, but I would say that the sailor who believes he will NEVER be caught out by bad weather is living on borrowed time.
As good-naturedly as possible, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!! ;)
And another thing...fish, dolphins and ducks are about the most seaworthy things there are - you don't see many of them with 2 or more bodies, do you...?!
Best regards,
Ruaridh.

[ 05-08-2002, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: Ruaridh ]

[Thaddeus J. Van Gilder]

A friend of Mine, the esteemed auther Thomas Firth Jones, crossed from Bermuda to the US and got caught in a huricane for three days.

Bad enough on its own, but he did it ON A 23 FOOT PLYWOOD CATERMARAN.

that said, he's a better man than me. I want a couple of tons of lead under me, so when I roll, I roll back.

Doesn't that tell you something when Major catermaran manufacturers often include an "escape hatch" on the bottom of their boats?

[norske2]

Definition of TRIMARAN: A monohull with training wheels. smile.gif (this one has been around a long time)

However, people who like monohulls with tons of lead in its belly don't float very long if the hatch blows and swamps the boat...."man the lifeboat"! :cool:

[paladin]

he..he..how do you feel about having your life depend on a boat whose claim to stability is 5 tons of lead pulling you toward the center of the earth?... :D :D :D

and with all that said.....I do feel qualified to answer this one....The righting moment of a catamaran is approx. 45 degrees...if she heels that far it's upside down time.....whereas a trimaran has a righting moment of 90 degrees..at 90 degrees..if the opposing force is removed (wind in sails, centerboard retracts) the craft will right herself. A properly designed tri....with amas designed to dramatically increase bouancy forward as the ama buries will climb out of the water preventing a pitchpole and Jim Brown tri's are the only ones that I have seen that will do this. Also...control is the main problem and a large centerboard in the middle of the boat will provide directional control, Jim's are ones of the few that do this..and a question......of ALL the multihulls out there...have you ever heard of a Brown tri pitchpoling or inverted at sea with a loss of life.........the answer is NO!. I am about 10% short of a circumnavigation in a tri ( a Brown Tri) and I have built and saild two Piver trimarans (Very poor excuse for a multihull) sailed on several cats and built two Jim Brown Tri's. They are well engineered, really beautiful boats when properly constructed to plan and sail very well. The PROBLEM with people is that they try to load a trimaran as if it were a monohull. Tri's were designed and built to be light. Keep it that way and they will perform...and properly...

[Ian McColgin]

I've always owned monohulls but sailed a few cats and tris. I agree that all cruising cats I've seen are butt-ugley. Some tris are quite lovely, especially if the designer is willing to do as the better designers of monohulls do - let the boat's lines follow the water and then fit a reasonable accomodation to that. Most ugly boats are the result to the quest for standing headroom and too many berths.

Truely, given the need to be light, the tri (lets just forget the ugly cats) needs 'better' engineering and given the lighter total displacement the porportional impact of cruising supplies needs to be more carefully planned, but in the end the problems are the same whether mono or tri.

Tris can be made self-rescuing. The cabin furniture is arranged such that the crew can doss down with the bow flooded and the boat floating verticle through the strom. Actually this is safe and comfortable in extreme conditions. When the weather breaks, the crew needs to attach (or inflate) a float at the mast head (assuming the rig survived) and then start pumping her out. With the righting arm of the mast, she'll come up a bit out of verticle and flop right side up.

Even if you can't right her, you can live. There's that wonderful tale of some Australians (I think) who drifted for many months around the South Pacific. After a while of hunger - though they did get the galley stove out onto the inverted deck and recover most of their stores - the rig accumulated some growth and became a moving reef. Lots of fish and weed. The boys began putting back weight and finished their long drift in such good shape that their tale was not believed until some experienced ocean scientists looked at the wreck carefully.

So, mono or tri? Personal call. There's good and bad of each.

[Scott Rosen]

Hulls are like wives. One is all I can handle. For those of you who can keep up with two or three, more power to ya.

[Wild Dingo]

Originally posted by paladinsfo:
and I have built and saild two Piver trimarans (Very poor excuse for a multihull) ...Soo.. Chuck out of curiosity mate... why do you say that? What has Jim done that Piver didnt do?... or perhaps the question should be what didnt Jim do that Piver did do?

Take it easy
Shane

[ 05-08-2002, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Wild Dingo ]

[Ed Harrow]

With retorts like Ken's or Scott's, who needs reason, LOL. When you add the UGLY factor, what's left? Besides it's the journey, not the destination...

[paladin]

Hi Shane.....
Multihulls heel like monohulls, just not as far and cannot spill wind from the sails as easily so the spars and rigging are much heavier...like rigging a Mack truck. The trimarans will normally heel about 7-9 degrees when under normal sail...the amas or outriggers rotate about the main hull and cant or lean underwater, inviting a trip...Piver tris did not account for this and have symettrical "V" hulls. Brown designed the outriggers (Amas) to be assymetrical and when heeled under sail become symetrical with a rising flare at the front of the float, causing the depressed hull to increase in bouancy as it heels and to drive itself upward and out as it gains speed. Ed Horstman accomplishes the same thing by making the hulls symetrical and then mounting them with an outward cant of about 7 degrees. Piver tris also did not have centerboards and had a tendency to "wander".

[Todd Bradshaw]

The jokes about training wheels and the like are all funny and multihull sailors get used to hearing them all the time from our single-hulled sailing friends. We usually get more than even though by just handing the helm off to visiting, experienced monohull sailors. They mush along at five knots, pointed up too high, sheeted in too tight and the first time they try to tack they invariably get stuck in irons for two or three minutes while the boat drifts backwards. Same thing on the second tack and often the third or fourth, depending upon when they finally decide to humble themselves and ask for help and instruction. Right when they're most befuddled, I like to calmly say "don't forget the runners, we wouldn't want to break the boom" and watch them scramble. When they finally do foot off a bit and ease the main out, the boat takes off on a close reach at 12 knots and their eyes get real big. That's usually the end of the multihull jokes.

[Charlie J]

Palidinsfo- Lets not leave Mr Cross out. He also designed assymetrical amas. My Cross 35 would dig in and go to weather well enough to surprise quite a few of the mono hullers. And one time, while loaded with a full cruising load, including two dinghies aboard, we let it all out sailing into Mill Creek on the Wicomico after rounding the light and coming under the lee of those reefs to the north - saw 19 knots on the boat for about 5 miles.

By the way - handling a spinnaker on a Tri is a non-issue. It's so easy it sorta becomes a working sail. No pole to worry with - just tack it down where ever you need to - from main bow out to ama bow, hoist it and sheet it in. And away we go smile.gif

I seriously think the "go to weather" thing is over worked. We could sail to weather as well as or better than any comparable mono hull we sailed with. By comparable, I mean another cruising type boat of the same size or thereabouts. And I KNOW a Searunner 31 will climb up to weather like a witch!!

[Alan D. Hyde]

Englishman Eric Manners' trimarans had asymmetrical amas. Anyone here ever come across one of his boats?

Alan

[Wild Dingo]

Chuck Todd and Charlie... thanks for that info mates... I was wondering as I typed the question how many of our fellow forumites have ever sailed on a multi?... and that information can help clear the air of the digs and gibes...

Some folks get stuck on one sort of design and fail for whatever reason to take a serious look into what the alternatives are like often relying on the comments of others ala the "training wheels" thing... clearly explained whys help get rid of the fog... and open the options and give a clearer picture.

"Ugly"? In reference to a wooden boat design? beauty is on the eye of the beholder... just like Elly or the Coaster are beautiful monos so to are some of the multis out there... not "ugly"... just different.. not everyones gonna like them all or even some but then to each their own...

Ive heard that "butt ugly" comment about some of Beuhlers designs but my guess would be for those who spent the time looking at them dreaming and then getting the plans lofting the lines finding the timbers casting the keel and building them and sailing or living on them they were beautiful... different perspective is all.

I havent seen a ugly wooden boat yet!... never mind "butt ugly"... seen some weird designs some designs I dont think Id like too much but reserve my decision till I can at least get up close and personal with them... Ive been up close with a couple of cats and personally I like them I know personally that Crowthers cats sail brilliantly have one smooth motion under them and the room is immense!... And the Wharrams have acres of deck space... dont know about tris as Ive only been close to one searunner and it disappeared before I could get to have a yarn with the skipper!

But some of them they are woodenboats for all that... so how can they be "butt ugly"???

As with what all people who are into woodenboats say... its about compromise! :cool:

Take it easy
Shane

[paladin]

Shane...Wharram designs are not true catamarans but double canoes...there is a difference... and yes, Norm Cross and Eric Manners did do the assymetrical hull designs....years after the Jim Brown designs proved so successful......and anytime someone wants to seriously race multihulls..call me..... :D :D :D

[Alan D. Hyde]

Chuck, my father has a set of Manners' plans for asymmetrical amas from the early sixties? Are Brown's designs older than that?

Alan

[paladin]

YUP!

[John Gearing]

As I recall, it was Jim Brown and one of his trimarans that set the record for the TransPac race, which stood until Bill Lee (I think it was) and one of his big monohull "Santa Cruz sleds" beat it years later. The funny thing was that Lee was one of Brown's crew on that record-setting run and recalls that it was on that trip where he first discovered that a boat could go fast enough to "surf" ocean waves for long periods of time. The rule they evolved on that trip was "never sail uphill", and for the most part I recall that they didn't. Years later Lee developed his own line of monohulls designed to do that and they and their progeny started winning all the big downwind races out West. Bob C no doubt knows all of this history better than I do--this is just the dregs of my EEG speaking.

Multi's are big--i.e. wide. Back in the 80's when I was looking at buying a tri out in San Francisco I had a hard time finding a yard that would haul one. Most yards had travelifts and simply refused me. Situation may be better now and better in other parts of the country, but probably bears looking into before one leaps.

[Wild Dingo]

Originally posted by paladinsfo:
Shane...Wharram designs are not true catamarans but double canoes...there is a difference... and anytime someone wants to seriously race multihulls..call me..... :D :D :D Yep Chuck I know that... just they are more often than not touted as "catamarrans" so in the spirit of the discussion I added them as another form... maybe I should have used Jones boats as the example?... sigh...

Maybe I should have said... "and a catamaran without a bridgedeck gives masses of flat deck space"?... oh well ;) :cool:

Take it easy
Shane

[ 05-09-2002, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Wild Dingo ]

[Charlie J]

John- it was a Brown design Jim wasn't aboard. The boat you are thinking of was John Marples' Searunner 37 named "Bachanal". Bill Lee was tactician aboard. This was in 1972 by the way.

[paladin]

Damn Charlie...you done got some good reference material or your older than me...he he..
In a couple of those races a couple of us single handed our multihulls and ran unofficially (multihulls weren't legal) and beat the crewed monohulls by a couple of days...lotsa fun

and then Williwaw wuz built just as "normal" multihulls were getting some acceptance and drove everyone underground again...a sailing hydrafoil trimaran.......really neat...

and Frank Wurz..37 searunner...Mark and Bonnie Hassel and lotsa others building multihulls at Alviso Sough in those days...late 60's on...and years later run into those same folks at different places around the world...the earth is getting to commercialized to disappear any more.....my first 31 Searunner ended up as Jim Browns "Scrimshaw".......

[Charlie J]

Palidinsfo- I'm 61, but probably I have good reference material. I got that out of "Case for the Cruising Trimaran"

Also, been reading Multihulls for a lotta years. Just quit my subscription cause all they cover now is the "Room-a-Rans" now being sold as Cats.

Met Jim years ago at a meeting of the Experinmental Yacht Assn in St Pete, and met his son Steve in Florida while building my tri. He was cruising on a 31'r

[ahp]

Please tolerate a few comments from one of little experiance. My only experiance with cats is a 16 foot Hobie which my wife and I raced for a number of years. It was a lot of fun.

I remember reading a book a few years ago. I can't remember the name of the author or title. He and his wife lived aboard, raised their kids, and cruised the Pacific. When they ran low on money, they would go into some port for a while, he would find a job in construction, and she in an office.

They owned a number of boats over the years, including one cat. They didn't like it. The reason was one that hasn't been mentioned here. He claimed cats are uncomfortable at sea over a long passage. They have too much initial stabilty and they tend to bang you around in a seaway, which gets very tiring. Not sea kindly.

So what kind of sailing are you planing?

[Cedarhill Boatworks]

I gotta go with the earlier post, one hull, one wife.....

[John Gearing]

Charlie J--thanks for correcting my old memories! I couldn't remember whether I had read the story in Jim Brown's book, or heard it first-hand from John Marples at a meeting of the Bay Area Multihull Society. John is a great guy. When I told him I might build a Searunner or Constant Camber design one day he was very enthusiastic and suggested I get myself up to WB School where he was teaching Constant Camber methods that summer. I didn't get to go, but my high opinion of him remains.

Paladinsfo--I was kicking around Alviso Slough in the mid-80's and people were still building boats on the hard there. A team of young guys were just finishing up a big Marples 44-foot tri and it looked great. By then though the slough was suffering greatly from siltation (maybe in the late 60's also?)--to the point that even at high tide some boats were still in the mud. I imagine that with the Internet bubble, all that area is paved over and built up by now. But I did enjoy that seafood restaurant there in Alviso! Hmm....if you were there in the late 60's....I s'pose you might have been a LMSC guy or Moffet NAS?

[ 05-10-2002, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: John Gearing ]

[paladin]

.....Berkeley........

[Wild Dingo]

Dont tell me we got a couple of far out funky man long haired drop out 60s hippys here??? :D :D

Take it easy
Shane

[paladin]

IT is Mr. Hippie, SIR! to you Shane.....the real thing...not one of those pseudo things that began springing up............

[ford]

one advantage a mono has over the multi's, is that at the end of her life the lead ballast is worth something, an investment of sorts as the price of lead goes up. A 40' multi came into the yard last week and she was trashed and stuffed into a bin.
A fitting end I thought. :D

[formerlyknownasprince]

Ahhh multihulls - I've still got the Olympic class Tornado catamaran that I bought in the late 70's. For a wet-bum boat it's unbeatable. We used to blast past the Manly ferries on Sydney Harbour - and they do 18 knots.

My wife used to race with me but eventually gave up due to the beating her body was taking. She used to go to work on a Monday covered in bruises. Honestly, it was the boat that did it - I've never been known to hit a crew member.

I've also got a catamaran speedboat - currently used as the work boat / tender for my 50' cruiser which I'm rebuilding on the water. It's carrying capacity is huge. I even bent the tow hitch one day it was so full of timber, etc. Show me a 13' monohull that can take a scarfed up 4' x 12' sheet of deck ply, or a 44 gallon drum full of diesel and be driven straight on to the trailer under power.......

Ian