wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 16, 9:24 pm, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:
Yes, cruising catamarans have something extra. As a simple Google and
YouTube search using capsize and catamaran will reveal, the something
extra is the remarkable ease with which catamarans turn turtle.

With this in mind, any potential catamaran buyer must ask himself if
the
paltry advantages of a catamaran - things such as small heel angles,
slightly faster speeds downwind, more elbow room below (but not load
carrying capacity), shallow draft and largish cockpit - outweigh the
fact that sooner or later the whole shebang is going to end up
upside-down and swamped. Don't even think about what happens if you
get
trapped under the thing and drown. Just think about upside-down. In
other words, everything is ruined.

Why put up with a boat that has a designed-in flaw of being more
stable
upside-down than rightside-up? Is the trade-off between a platform
that
doesn't heel quite as much and an upside-down platform worth it? Only
you can answer that question. It depends upon how much you love your
life and the lives of your loved ones.

I wonder when the Coast Guard is going to get some balls and declare
any
and all cruising catamaran ocean voyages "manifestly unsafe voyages"
and put a stop to them?

Wilbur Hubbard

Sir I think you are confusing racing cats and lightweight hobby cats
with cruising cats, Cruising cats again and again have proven to be
more stable than a monohull and I am a fan of the monohull. The
appears to be more space in a cruising cat but this is an illusion as
it is just more cramped spaces and more of them, but if you need to
know the truth on cats go to http://www.tennantdesign.co.nz/ Malcolm
is one of the world's leading marine architects on catamarans. then
you can speak with authority, check out the technical details and the
record of CRUISING CATS .
David Law


Thanks but the bottom line is the stability curve. That says it all as
far as I'm concerned. Cruising cats have stability curves similar to
racing cats at the top of the curve where it says, "oh oh, turn turtle
because there's no going back." Since they are heavier, the bottom of
the curve looks a little better but that's spurious information because
it's at the top where the problem arises. Anybody who claims cruising
cats have an impeccable record are not familiar with the facts. People
have died when their cruising cats have turned turtle. People will
continue to die. The various manufacturers have an aggressive plan to
cover up any incidents of capsize. They'd rather people weren't aware of
the fact that they are selling a dangerous product. A product of dubious
worth when it comes to ocean voyaging where sometimes one just cannot
avoid a survival storm.


Wilbur Hubbard