[PUP] In praise of paravanes...OR twin hulls?

[Russell Newhall]

Keep in mind all monohulls aren't created equal nor are all cats created
equal.
I've been on both and had great rides on both and had rides that made me not
want to ever set foot on both again.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Georgs Kolesnikovs<mailto:waterworld@rogers.com>
  To: Passagemaking Under Power
List<mailto:passagemaking-under-power@lists.samurai.com>
  Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 9:44 AM
  Subject: Re: [PUP] In praise of paravanes...OR twin hulls?


  Rod, John and others--

  Anecdotes aside, the jury is still very much out on whether power
  catamarans have any real advantage over monohulls for passagemaking
  on the big waters of the world. And the the jury will stay out for
  some time to come, until more than a handful of cats have undertaken
  trans-oceanic passages to give us any kind of empirical data.

  There is no question that power catamarans have many appealing
  characteristics for coastal and inland cruising. In fact, I own a
  small power cat for such cruising myself.

  But for trans-oceanic voyaging--which is the realm of this
  forum--many questions remain unanswered.

  The supposed efficiency of multihulls over monohulls is difficult to
  see when one crunches fuel-burn and passage-time numbers versus
  monohulls.

  The supposed smooth ride is really debatable. Multihulls provide an
  abrupt motion in any kind of contrary seaway. They lurch and they
  twitch. Monohulls can roll but many sailors find the motion gentle
  and predictable.

  A couple I know, who have left tens of thousands of offshore miles in
  their wake, first in sailboats, and most recently in a
  heavy-displacement monohull under 48 feet LOA, wanted a larger,
  faster and more comfortable passagemaker. Here's what they wrote in
  an email:

  "Over the last year or two we had been reading about power
  catamarans.  Their advantages were purported to be more speed, more
  comfort and still capable of long range passages (2,500 NM or more).
  This intrigued us, so we began to look more seriously.  We went
  aboard all the power catamarans at the 2006 Miami Boat Show and did
  not find any production cats that we liked.  We finally found a 56'
  custom built power catamaran designed by a well known catamaran naval
  architect and built in 2002 by a respected boat builder.  We flew . .
  . to look at the boat and chartered it for several hours to do sea
  trials.  The boat was well made of composite and beautifully finished
  and we were excited.  However, the sea trial proved to us that the
  boat was unsuitable for our use for several reasons:  comfort at sea
  was poor, very noisy from slamming into head seas (even small
  headseas), very poor fuel consumption numbers from the Floscan, and
  finally the horrendous difficulty required to remove an engine should
  it need to be rebuilt.  We were really disappointed."

  Shortly thereafter they purchased a larger, faster and more
  comfortable heavy-displacement monohull and are out making long
  passages again.

  --Georgs

  Disclaimer: I'm editor of Circumnavigator, the Nordhavn magazine.
  Before my conversion to power, I owned an offshore racing trimaran.
  I've had the good fortune to cross oceans under sail and under power.
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