"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
Really? I've heard of a couple in the last 20 years ... can you point to
any?
This is an odd issue, because people often claim cats flip, sink, or go
missing,
but then are never able to provide examples. There are, of course, a few,
but
very few compared to monohulls

there are thousands of mono's to every two huller out there.

There *IS* a reason for that. In fact, many sound reasons for that.

Once again, jax displays his total ignorance. In this country, there are
200,000 boats registered as "auxiliary sailboats." This includes many (probably
a majority) that are under 30 feet, so the number of sailboats that could be
compared to a cruising cat is probably well under 100,000. However, one
catamaran builder alone has built almost 1000 boats, and that number is likely
doubled by the other builders. This by itself is enough to prove that Jax is
off by at least a factor of forty. But looking to Europe we find that Prout
built about 5000 cats. Does that mean that there are 10,000,000 aux sailboats
in England? rather doubtful. Similar numbers have been built by the large
manufacturers in France, and now South Africa is building in large numbers.

Its pretty clear that the number of cats is growing. While I'm not sure the
number is 5% yet, it is getting close. Boston was never considered a catamaran
center, but every marina has at least some - the number is about 3% of the
sailboats. In my marina the number is over 10%!