Jeff wrote:
Some years ago when you started ranting about catamarans, I made a
simple claim that you would have trouble finding any cases of
catamaran capsizes that met the following criteria: It had to be a
modern production cruising cat, not of the "crossbeam" style, or
homemade, or 40 years old; it had to be at least the size of my cat
(36'3") with appropriate beam and cruising rig; it had to be being
used for cruising, not racing or delivery. I even admitted that you
might find a few, but that it would likely be in conditions that would
put any monohull at severe risk, and that generally catamaran capsizes
end up as a story of survival, not loss.

And what have you come up with? You've scoured the web for years and
posted every story you could find, but as predicted the pickings have
been slim indeed. In fact, not a single incident you've reported fit
the criteria.

Yep... and you expected... what, exactly?
Remember who you're talking to


And you completely ignore the fact that every year there are a number
of monohulls that sink or go missing, and that monohulls sink every
day in inland situations, even at the dock.

The most common reason for monohulls to sink at the dock is because of
a failure in the potable water system, and city water pressure floods
them.

.... Also, monohull sailors
are at risk every time they go forward; not so on cats. Almost all
monohulls are at great risk from collisions with logs, containers, and
whales;

Nah, most monohulls are too slow for such things to present much risk.
Might as well worry about icebergs.

Aside from that, it's quite easy to reduce the risk by adding
bulkheads, flotation, a layer of kevlar (or better yet, choose a
kevlar boat to start with), etc etc.


.... multihulls generally survive such episode long enough for
rescue. Incidents such as the loss of "Morning Dew" in Charleston
would be very unlikely in a modern catamaran.

Well, IMHO if that guy had bought a catamaran (unlikely, the reason he
bought 'Morning Dew' is that it was a bargain-basement kludge) he
would have made some major goof-up and wrecked that, too. What he did
was the sailing equivalent of taking a '75 Buick with bald tires out
on the interstate and driving past a series of warning signs then off
a bridge construction site. The saddest part is that he took the kids
with him.


So you can rant about how you'd never sail a cat; that's fine by me.

Me too. Why would anyone want a jackass like "wilbur" to sail the same
kind of boat as themselves? It's notable that he has never raced, nor
sailed any one-design or high performance boat (mono or multi). Which
of course begs the question, has "wilbur" ever sailed *any* boat? Yet
another question, why feed the trolls, Jeff??

Fresh Breezes- Doug King