Cats Again
 

Speed potential this time. A lot of the talk about how cats are faster
than monos seems like hyperbole. However, here are some intersting
stats from the 2005 ARC. In the rally, 18% of cats finished the course
in less than 8 days, versus 5 % of monos. 29% of cats finished in
between 8 and 9 days, compared to 8% for monos. And 12% of cats
finished between 9 and 10 days versus 16% for monos. So, 59% of the
cats that entered finished in less than 10 days against 29% of monos.
These are not corrected for engine usage, because in the cruising world
what matters is how long it takes to get there, whether you motor or
sail. Anyway, there isnt much difference on that score; there also
wasnt much difference in LOA. Interesting and seems to point out that
cats do make faster passages.

Cats Again
 

"Quint" wrote in message
oups.com...
Speed potential this time. A lot of the talk about how cats are faster
than monos seems like hyperbole. However, here are some intersting
stats from the 2005 ARC. In the rally, 18% of cats finished the course
in less than 8 days, versus 5 % of monos. 29% of cats finished in
between 8 and 9 days, compared to 8% for monos. And 12% of cats
finished between 9 and 10 days versus 16% for monos. So, 59% of the
cats that entered finished in less than 10 days against 29% of monos.
These are not corrected for engine usage, because in the cruising world
what matters is how long it takes to get there, whether you motor or
sail. Anyway, there isnt much difference on that score; there also
wasnt much difference in LOA. Interesting and seems to point out that
cats do make faster passages.

There's a huge amount of hyperbole about the speed of cats. Most of these
speed claims are nothing more than claims and have nothing to do with
reality. I've found that cats are typically about the same as similarly
sized monos close to the wind. Off the wind, they're significantly faster.
Thus, a particular journey on a cat covers a longer course than a mono, but
you get there a bit faster, and probably you get there in better shape,
since you're not so fatigued by the heel over a long period.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Cats Again
 

Yea, but the ARC course - transAtlantic - consistently show the cats
getting across faster than the monos. So there is something to the
hype.

Cats Again
 

Quint wrote:
Yea, but the ARC course - transAtlantic - consistently show the cats
getting across faster than the monos. So there is something to the
hype.

I'm not sure why you would be skeptical. Certainly there is some
hyperbole to some cat claims, but if you listen to monohull sailors,
half of them claim to do 2 knots over hull speed all day long.

The bottom line is that cats do not devote 40% of their displacement
to a hunk of lead they drag through the water, and their length to
beam ratio (per hull) is about 10 to 1, so they do not create large
waves. These two factors mean that if there is wind, a cat should be
much faster than a monohull. It also means that under power they are
also fast and fuel efficient.

There are several situations that can slow them down: Upwind sailing
suffers on many, though if this is a concern, you can get a cat with
daggerboards. The large wetted surface means that some cats don't do
as well in light air. Again, if this is a concern, you probably don't
want a cat with a small, conservative rig.

And, of course, if you overload a cat it can slow down to the speed of
a monohull. As near as I can tell, even though we've added a lot of
crap to ours, we're still faster than cruising monohulls up about 45
feet. In a breeze we'll do 9+ knots all day, and even in 10 knots
we'll do 5 or 6.

Cats Again
 

I agree with Jeff here. One thing to keep in mind is that cats tend to
be much more on the cruising side of the racer/cruiser spectrum than
monos because there is no real club racing market for them. Most cats
that are actually out here cruising are derived from charter boats that
are slow to begin with and are made slower by adding live aboard stores
and systems. By contrast, much of the monohull fleet is derived from
club racers or at least heavily influenced by them. This suggests that
there is more room for improvement in the multi fleet than in the mono
fleet. In the 60 foot classes where multi's race against mono's with
canting keels and rigs and movable ballast, the multi's tend to average
about 30% faster over the same courses. I think if the cruising multi
fleet were as influenced by racing as the cruising mono fleet is we'd
see pretty much the same 30% advantage.

I'm not sure how important fast is though. The only times I've ever
felt an adavantage to going fast was when racing to get from one
anchorage to another in daylight. Offshore no cruising boats that I
know of are fast enough to avoid bad weather. There is a lot of
marketing hype, particularly from those selling motorsailers to
multi-millionairs, about how being able to maintian very high average
speeds makes passages safer... Maybe, but I think most of it is BS,
and if you hate passages, why the heck are you out voyaging?

-- Tom.

Cats Again
 

I agree with Jeff here. One thing to keep in mind is that cats tend to
be much more on the cruising side of the racer/cruiser spectrum than
monos because there is no real club racing market for them. Most cats
that are actually out here cruising are derived from charter boats that
are slow to begin with and are made slower by adding live aboard stores
and systems. By contrast, much of the monohull fleet is derived from
club racers or at least heavily influenced by them. This suggests that
there is more room for improvement in the multi fleet than in the mono
fleet. In the 60 foot classes where multi's race against mono's with
canting keels and rigs and movable ballast, the multi's tend to average
about 30% faster over the same courses. I think if the cruising multi
fleet were as influenced by racing as the cruising mono fleet is we'd
see pretty much the same 30% advantage.

I'm not sure how important fast is though. The only times I've ever
felt an adavantage to going fast was when racing to get from one
anchorage to another in daylight. Offshore no cruising boats that I
know of are fast enough to avoid bad weather. There is a lot of
marketing hype, particularly from those selling motorsailers to
multi-millionairs, about how being able to maintian very high average
speeds makes passages safer... Maybe, but I think most of it is BS,
and if you hate passages, why the heck are you out voyaging?

-- Tom.

Cats Again
 

I agree with Jeff here. One thing to keep in mind is that cats tend to
be much more on the cruising side of the racer/cruiser spectrum than
monos because there is no real club racing market for them. Most cats
that are actually out here cruising are derived from charter boats that
are slow to begin with and are made slower by adding live aboard stores
and systems. By contrast, much of the monohull fleet is derived from
club racers or at least heavily influenced by them. This suggests that
there is more room for improvement in the multi fleet than in the mono
fleet. In the 60 foot classes where multi's race against mono's with
canting keels and rigs and movable ballast, the multi's tend to average
about 30% faster over the same courses. I think if the cruising multi
fleet were as influenced by racing as the cruising mono fleet is we'd
see pretty much the same 30% advantage.

I'm not sure how important fast is though. The only times I've ever
felt an adavantage to going fast was when racing to get from one
anchorage to another in daylight. Offshore no cruising boats that I
know of are fast enough to avoid bad weather. There is a lot of
marketing hype, particularly from those selling motorsailers to
multi-millionairs, about how being able to maintian very high average
speeds makes passages safer... Maybe, but I think most of it is BS,
and if you hate passages, why the heck are you out voyaging?

-- Tom.

Cats Again
 

I love cats.

Lots of fun in warm weather/water!

But I always use the right tool for the right job.

Cats Again
 

Bob wrote:
I love cats.

Lots of fun in warm weather/water!

But I always use the right tool for the right job.

I like cats. They taste like chicken.

Cats Again
 

Do I like cats?
Yes I do.
Broiled, boiled, or in a stew.

Cats Again
 

Depends again, as always on the boat. The lagoons are some of the most
popular charter boats and tend to have a charter layout (large births
fore and aft for carrying lots of passengers, wide hulls to carry the
extra provisions for 4 couples). The polars for the lagoon at a beam
reach are at 8 knots of TWS, 5 kts speed; at 10 knts of TWS it goes 6.5
kts; at 14 knots of wind it goes 8 knts. Specs for the St francis
which has much more narrow and faster hulls are at 8 knts TWS it should
go 6.5 knots; at 12 TWS it should go 8.5 knts. This is without a
spinnaker. I have a St Francis 44 and found the specs fairly accurate.
My boat can break 10 knots in about 15 knots of wind and in trade
winds does about 12 knts.

Another transatlantic race, the cape to rio race showed the St francis
comes in with about the same speed as the FARR 40. Considering the St
Francis is hauling around 4 heads, 4 births, and isn't a pure racer
like the FARR, that's pretty good.

Personally, having two engines, with two props, two independent fuel
tanks, etc is more important to me than pure speed. Although
typically I have passed almost every monohull even close to my size,
but again thats not important. And I've got to admit when the wind
dies completely I can motor past a valiant or bristol costing 4 times
as much money as my boat at 10 knots going 30% faster than them, and
under sail I can beat them every time. But it's not important to look
back at their faces and smile. It's really not.

Especially when they are heeled over with their crew being bruised on
the rail and they can see my son playing in a wading pool in the
cockpit. No, it's not important at all.

Cheers!!

Cats Again
 

It's horses for courses here. The Farr 40 will crush your St. Francis
or my Atlantic 42 in a windward - leeward race with full crew. Also,
the cutting edge of the cruising mono fleet has gotten very much faster
in the last decade. And, when you're looking at long passages the fact
that most cruising mono's of our length carry three times as much fuel
as we do means that they motor faster and more often than we and that
levels the long term speeds a lot. Too, I'd guess you're not sailing
against racing monohulls 'cause you will not be passing them. I
wouldn't bet a dollar against a hundred that I could beat a well sailed
melges 24 on any given day, but I would against a St. Francis...

On the other hand, my non-sailing girl friend and I have surfed this
boat to about 20 knots under white sails with full cruising kit while
in the remote sw pacific and felt pretty in control. We typically reef
when we start seeing high teens and that's farily common. We had one
passage where we did 200 miles or more point to point every day from
0300z to 0300z for over 1100 miles. All this in a boat that we have
lived on full time for five years, much of that in the third world.
And, while I get a kick out of all of that, it doesn't mean a thing.
As a recovering racer it's taken me a while to learn this (there was
one passage early in my cruising career where I averaged 11 sail
changes a day), but there's no glory and no pratical adavantage to
cruising "fast" on most passages. Cruisers spend pratically all of
their time at anchor and cats are ideal for that. If I really wanted
to go fast I'd get an old Newick tri and keep it light. In the dollars
for knots race they are unbeatable, but I like to be comfortable at sea
and at anchor and at those things my cat does very well indeed.

-- Tom.

Cats Again
 

The atlantic 42 is a beautiful boat! I loved the lines. I remember
in Georgetown, Exuma being on an Atlantic 42 in a storm and she was
rock stable. Much faster than ours, ours is definitely a cruiser, 4
heads, 4 births, large freezer, refrigerator, etc. The gunboat 48
takes some of her queues from the Atlantic in many respects. We were
trying to find a Shuttleworth 44 when shopping for a boat as we've
sailed and raced shuttleworths and loved the handling, but couldn't
find anything at the time.

And that's why I put in the actual polars of the boats. Many faster
boats out there, the polars allow a somewhat objective point of view
for a couple different types of cruising catamarans and can be compared
easily to other makes and models.

Cheers

Cats Again
 

Hey, I like the St Francis range, too! The 44 is WAY more boat than
the Atlantic 42. I'd guess you have more than twice the volume that we
have and it sounds like shes a pretty trick sailer as well.

Anyway, the polars are nice but in the absence of racing or certified
ratings they tend to be quite optimistic. FWIW, the Farr marketing
guys' vpp says the Farr 40 at 90 degrees true does 5.3 in 4 knots true
(YIKES!), 7.1 in 6, 7.95 in 8, 8.6 in 10 and tops out at 11.3 in 30
knots true all with white sails only. Based on those we're faster than
a tricked out Farr 40 when jib reaching in winds over 16 and have
nearly twice the top end speed but are much much slower in winds under
8... Let's not even look at the upwind VMGs. Of course, if you put
the same two tons of cruising gear on the Farr 40 that we carry and
take away all the crew things will look much different. The ARC data
certainly seems to suggest that anyway. I'm sticking with my original
assessment: all else being equal multi's are about 30% faster than
monos, but the multi fleet is very much more geared towards the charter
market than the mono fleet so average differences accross the cruising
fleets currently on the water tend to be small.

-- Tom

Cats Again