* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 4/10/2007 6:46 AM:

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..

It appears that Wilbur is carrying on the great tradition of nautical
ignorance that Capt Neal pioneered. As anyone familiar with
documentation understands, catamarans are actually rated very high by
the formula. My boat, for example, is rated at 22 Gross Tons, even
though her actual displacement is only 4.5 tons.


Somebody figured it wrong. Since tonnage, for documentation purposes,
only measures internal volume of a hull (or hulls) exclusive of engine
space, which is further based on cubic feet available to haul cargo,
there is no way two skinny little catamaran hulls at 36 feet LOA can
encompass 22GT cargo volume. And, if you read up on calculating
documentation tonnage, you will also note the volume of any structure
above the gunnels (your main salon and pilot house) can't be included. I
know you aren't bright enough to calculate your own tonnage so you must
have had somebody do it for you. My advice - - get your money back from
that ignorant rip-off artist . . .

I just sent in the builder's forms. Its really easy, even you could
have done it. Except, your boat isn't big enough. Sorry.

And as always, you're misinformed about the measurement of multihulls.
When the connecting hull is enclosed, then the entire beam can
get included in the "volume" as the boat is essentially considered a
monohull.

As the form says:
"For the purposes of Simplified measurement, twin hull and tri-hull
vessels are defined as only those with no buoyant volume in the
structure that connects the hulls together. In other words, the
cross-structure, bridging, platform or “trampoline” connecting the
hulls has no measurable depth or buoyancy as shown in the
illustrations in Section II, Items 8 and 9 of this form. Cathedral
hull forms and other similar configurations with no distinct
separation of hulls are not considered multi-hulls in this context."

If my boat had no enclosed central volume, and were considered
strictly as a multihull, it would still measure 12 gross tons, almost
triple its displacement.

Also, engine space does not affect the "gross tonnage" but it does
reduce the "net tonnage."