Capt. Rob wrote:
I find it interesting that this ultimately pragmatic thread has not
touched on the actual sailing experience itself. I've sailed two cats,
a Gemini and PDQ 36. In both cases my wife and I were bored to tears.
The PDQ was fast off the wind and there was some novelty in that for a
few minutes, but it didn't last. The heeling and motion of a monohul is
part of the romance of sailing for many of us. It feels right, even if

I agree - the feel of a boat heeled over and the romance of
spilling your drinks can't be beat. My cat sails like
driving a bus most of the time.

But when we hit 15 knots there were a lot of big smiles
aboard. Biggest smile was the woman driving, who had
only ever been on a sailboat once before.

The turning point for me and my wife:

We were anchored at Isla Providencia, a small island in the
Carib. that belongs to Columbia. It's about 100 miles east
of the Nicaraugan coast. Long way from anywhere. We were
sitting out a norther on our monohull. The swell was
wrapping around the headland and was on the beam. The wind
was strong enough that we didn't want to bridle the boat to
face the swells as this would increase the windage. All the
monos in the anchorage were rolling their guts out. One
furthest out was rolling +/- 30 degrees. We wer feeling
seasick at anchor!

There was a single cat in the anchorage. The folks aboard
were having a picnic lunch in the cockpit. Their 2 year old
was having a swing under the davits on their home made
swing. THEIR boat just bobbed up and down and they smiled
as we rowed to shore to escape the rolling aboard...

Evan Gatehouse