[PUP] (no subject)

[L. Bruce Jones]

Scott,

I am very surprised at your anti-cat diatribe.

Power cats and sailing cats are very different platforms but they 
have huge advantages over conventional monohulls under many 
circumstances. They are far more efficient and considerably faster, 
not to mention their great layouts and open spaces; and while for 
monohull sailors they have unusual roll characteristics at least they 
don't pitch wildly like the Nordhaven and other "fat" monohulls do - 
nor do they require stabilizers to be comfortable while at sea.

My personal preference is for a long, thin steel monohull with no 
reserve buoyancy forward, a very sharp entry, twin diesels and a 
single screw. I've personally seen fiberglass passagemakers and 
sailboats burn to the waterline and grind themselves into oblivion on 
coral reefs in short order. I'm not quite ready to take my family out 
around the world on a high speed fiberglass cat design but I would do 
so far before I would relegate my passagemaking to a Nordhaven.

When you go to sea in your boat you are going to find that beating to 
weather with your bluff bows and significant reserve buoyancy and fat 
beam is going to make you pay a huge price for your seagoing 
apartment where the designers are cramming as much living space as 
possible in a short space. You'll travel up and down as much as you 
will forward and I hope you and your wife develop cast iron stomachs 
because pitching in your boat with its substantive vertical and 
horizontal acceleration and deceleration will make you sick, and keep 
you sick, an order of magnitude more than the cats you disdain.

I speak from experience. You need to make long ocean passages on 
various designs to reach definitive conclusions. Too many people read 
the hype, buy into it and become converts without any experience in 
alternatives, settling for a conventional production boat they can 
afford. There is nothing wrong with unconventional if you have the 
experience to evaluate it.

Of course, one can make the point that going to sea in anything is 
far worse than not going at all.

All the best...

Bruce
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L. Bruce Jones 		                U.S. SUBMARINES, INC.
President 				POSEIDON UNDERSEA RESORTS LLC
Tel: 208/687-9057                       Fax: 208/441-7478
E-mail: bruce@ussubmarines.com          http://ussubs.com
					http://poseidonresorts.com

"Design, engineering and construction of submarines and submersibles"
         "Developing the world's first sea floor resort."
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