[PCW] State of the market: power catamarans (was CS-42 power cat)

[Candy Chapman and Gary Bell]

The following is posted by an unpaid PDQ 34 advocate/owner/crackpot -- me.

Thank you Rod for the insightful posting.  I refuse to snipe about a 
couple of details, and I like your overall analysis a lot.  I don't 
share quite all your style judgments, but heartily endorse your disdain 
for the boxy, slab sided look that is so often seen, even in today's new 
designs.  To me they too closely resemble home built plywood boats.   
However, just cast a glance over the waters today and you will see a 
dazzling variety of boats, each the apple of their owner's eye, and each 
as entitled to enjoy the waterways as the next.  Different boats for 
different folks, one might say. 

I see the slow market acceptance of power catamarans in general and the 
PDQ styled slender hulled low power catamarans in particular as more 
driven by the public resistance to innovation in a field where folks 
lust for an image far more than they want this or that feature.   
Generally we all pick our automobiles, homes, boats (even spouses!) 
chiefly by their 'curb appeal.' (Geeze, I better be careful about using 
that term with spouses!!!).  Ahem!  We originally select our car, house 
or boat in a purely subjective way, by imagining ourselves in/on/aboard, 
whatever.   Later, after our hearts have chosen what we want, our minds 
cut in and rationalize our choice to our friends with features -- how 
fast, thrifty, nifty, big or small our choice is.  

 I liked your 'killer app' idea particularly, although I am uncertain 
that the analogy with power cats is quite perfect.  Lotus was entirely 
new, nothing like it had ever existed (in the public eye at least, I 
know about Visi-Calc etc.), and it was easily seen by the public that 
the software (and the PC it rode in on) could do amazing work that they 
in particular wanted to do.  It singularly powered the PC from geek toy 
to everyday tool.  Power catamarans, especially the planing hull sort 
appear to the general public as a refinement of boats they already know, 
offering incremental improvements at the cost of major appearance 
changes.  An image penalty, if you like.   Heck, my boat looks like a 
wedding cake on a sled (although Barbie and I seldom appear on the 
flybridge in bridal gown and tux).

I love your VW beetle analogy!  Just as so many early VW beetle owners 
you mentioned became disciples and partisans about their cars, we first 
114 PDQ owners find the PDQ to be wonderfully innovative in terms of 
sensible accommodations, fine fuel economy, etc. etc..  Just like the 
beetle, I see it as the first, and so far the only production boat with 
a great constellation of desirable features -- the rich combination of 
both speed and fuel economy; with fine handling and extreme roll 
resistance; with unprecedented deck and interior space; with great 
visibility from either helm and wonderfully bright interior and 
accommodations better than a monohull ten feet longer.  They don't need 
bow or stern thrusters.  They don't need fin stabilizers, paravanes or 
flopper-stoppers.  They don't need giant thirsty engines to get a fine 
turn of speed or giant fuel tanks to get decent range.  Heck, the side 
decks on a PDQ are over 24" wide; a fine fit for one paraplegic owner's 
wheelchair when he singlehanded his new boat from Whitby to the Bahamas 
and back.  Take that CS-42!  Ha!  Somebody stop me!  OK, I love my boat, 
but I do see it so far as the unique slender hull power cat in the under 
fifty foot range.  Actually I can't think of any strictly planing boats 
over fifty feet, except the cigarette sort I suppose).  

I'm keen to hear that I'm wrong about that -- that other makers have 
stepped in with a light, slender hulled (as opposed to a planing hull 
with a 'smallish' tunnel), modestly powered cat.   The VW beetle was 
from the beginning loaded with desirable features that ran entirely 
opposite to the norm (small, low cost, good fuel economy, absent from 
the entirely new style every year bit, rather the wonderfully productive 
evolution of fixes and upgrades, etc.), but it took a long time for the 
growing number of them seen on the road to dim the general public's 
anxiety about considering such an innovative car.  Perhaps the PDQ will 
share that fate, where a slowly growing gang of proud, noisy owners at 
the beginning eventually get enough boats out on the water to be seen 
everyday that the style eventually becomes a solid institution in place 
of being an curious exception and they eventually wear down the 
resistance of the buying public to shift their traditional images of 
what a desirable boat -- or car might be. 

Today, most folks think very highly of the beetle style, and will regale 
you with stories of their beloved beetle.  Look at the popularity of the 
retro styled 'new beetle' car, mostly among drivers who are way too 
young to have ever owned the old ones.  Might power catamarans be on a 
similar trajectory in popularity and acceptance?   Seems so to me, based 
on chats with folks who tour my boat and say:  "Gee, this is swell, and 
I love this, this and that about your boat, but I really want a pilot 
house trawler (with none of those mentioned features)."  Consider the 
current popularity of boats labeled as trawler.  That began in the 
sixties, when 'yacht' meant Chris Craft, with the very first Grand Banks 
and has very slowly built up to huge popularity and market acceptance of 
boats that more or less share a common image which in turn bears only a 
fleeting resemblance to any boat that ever trawled a fishnet. 

Style trumps substance every time.   Be patient, our time will come (if 
we can but survive long enough). 

Finally, the real reason I'm posting this is in hopes of finding images 
and information about two of the new designs you mentioned:

...Lagoon dealers' meeting fully 3 or 4 years ago for a 38' (or was it 39') power cat...

...Schionning-designed Coastal Cat 34 ...

I did get Google results on:

...Roger Hill's BearCat 46...

...The Destiny 42 (from Jennings Yachts...

As Henry Gibson said on Laugh In:  "Verrrrry Interesting."  Not my particular cup of tea, and still short of my gold standard for power catamarans in several respects, but to the extent that they resemble the image and style of currently popular monohulls, they could do well in today's market.  Whatever floats yer boat.

Ducking for cover....
Gary Bell