James,

It may take a lot of force to roll a multihull, but I know of at least one
large one that my sailing friend saw flip over during a Mackinac race here on
Lake Michigan.
As I mentioned in another posting, there is not much warning that a multihull is
going
to roll over. The first sign is the windward hull lifting out of the water, and
by that
time it may be too late to take corrective action.

Sherwin D.

James wrote:

I wouldn't dispute that a monohull should right it's self after a roll and
be survivable. I think it takes a whole lot more to roll a cat of similar
length than it does a monohull though. After all a 40' sailing cat is
usually between 30' and 40' wide as well.

"sherwindu" wrote in message
...
Not too long ago, there was some lengthy discussion about the safety of
monohulls
vs. multihulls. What I heard was a lot of hype about monohulls going to
the
bottom
when the roll over. Well, here is a recent story of Ken Barnes 360 degree
roll
off
the coast of Chile where his monohull did not sink. In fact, when he was
eventually
picked up, his boat was still floating high in the water. True, he lost
both
masts, but
he was in a position to either call for help, or jury rig some sails to
try and
reach port.
I think if this had happened to a multihull, he would still be out there
upside
down,
and maybe by some miracle he would have been able to get his EPIRB going
and
kept from freezing to death. So much for the myth that monohulls go to
the
bottom
when they roll.

Sherwin D.