I too would not like to take sides on this debate but I wonder, if
multi's are safer than monos because they won't sink, where is the crew
of the lost cat?

It seems there was a shred of line tied to a sail drive. So someone,
presumably, survived the flip. But then what? Dead is dead.

Now, they might have been dead faster in a mono, I don't know.

Multi or mono either one is a risk, I guess the question is, which one
is the greater risk.

I went to the Annapolis boat show this fall and saw a bunch of big cats
with sliding glass doors across their cabins and no bridge deck. So, it
made me think, how hard is it for that massive expanse of glass to give
up the ghost. And there is nothing to stop downflooding into the cabin.
And they had these escape hatches in the hulls.

On the other had there are many pilot house monos with huge expanses of
glass. A friend of mine was on a boat lost in the Atlantic this fall.
They had a hull mounted port that punched out and were consequently
taking on water. Not sure if that was a fatal flaw.

I have seen Montisiers (sp?)"Joshua" described as more submarine than
sailboat, with a glass turret for inside sailing.

Maybe the comparison is not mono or multi but "sea hardened" (to coin a
phrase?) or not.

Just some thoughts.


Capt. JG wrote:
"Don W" wrote in message
.. .

Jonathan Ganz wrote:

Multihulls don't sink from a capsizing. On the other hand, monos will
sink if enough water gets below. It's disingenuous to claim that I
said monos always sink when they capsize. How many multis have you
heard than have sunk? Perhaps far fewer than monos. Either that or
you're not in touch with the real world.
Not taking sides in the multi vs mono debate although I do own two mono's
at the moment.

I did read a while back about a ~45' Cat that was abandoned due to
structural failure during a storm in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm thinking
that this type of structural failure is probably far more common than
outright sinking for multihulls, but I could be wrong about that.

A friend was one of three crew on a ~60' Cat on a passage from Belize to
Florida several years back. They hit a storm in the gulf and suffered
enough damage that the insurance company totaled it. They made it into
port, but the boat was toast. The skipper was a professional who had
sailed the same boat all over the world for more than ten years with many
Atlantic crossings etc. I had a hard time understanding what kind of
damage you could suffer that would cause an insurance company to total a
$1.5 million boat. He said that among other things, the mast was punched
through the top of the salon, and the "structure" of the boat was damaged
beyond economical repair.

It doesn't do much good to have two hulls which float if they are no
longer attached to each other

Don W.



Well, I guess they made it into port, so it must not have sunk... I
currently own a mono... Sabre 30, and the only multi I've owned was a
Windrider 16. I used to occasionally take it off Crissy Field (San
Francisco) and would regularly get it complete filled with water. Rode low,
but wouldn't sink. I'm pretty sure that if I filled my Sabre with water, it
would sink.