Power Cat vs. comparable monohull yacht

Well, that space goes two different ways. The outdoor deckspace and usable space is huge for the length of the boat. Very very good and I can see it be an amazing day boat in a lot of places.

The inside space, while there is a good amount of it is piss poor in my opinion. The two foward staterooms are narrow (the door to the staterooms are 16" wide for example), the galley is narrow, there are steps everywhere, boat equipment is hidden everywhere throughout the boat since you don't have a normal Motoryacht engine room, the master stateroom has no headroom above the mattress like 3', in the master head you can stand and the walkway next to the bed, but you have to climb steps and sort of launch yourself into the bed.....then crawl across and 15' over to the other side to take a shower.....you have a ton of space inside, but at the expense of comfort or easiness to a degree........It is not a boat for ederly or not physically fit people, by any means......for example....to go from the salon door into any stateroom.....you go down two steps to a landing, then turn then 3 steps down to another landing.......this takes you into either stateroom......to get from the side-deck to the salon.....you have 3 steps.......there are steps EVERYWHERE, it's like getting a workout all day long and if you haven't missed a step or stubbed your toe at least once a day, you didn't get out of bed....... Now, on a larger one it might not be as bad......

Maybe I have missed it, but how much on-the-water cruising experience do you have with your wife, where, and on what kind of boats?

At this point in your experience, I would recommend chartering several yachts and yacht types you may be considering for a week each in some of those destinations to get an idea of what cruising style you like and what type of yacht would suit your needs.......Buying a yacht and discovering 3 months later that it's not the style of yacht that would best suit your needs would not be a very good experience.......and you're probably overlooking certain criteria that is crucial in a yacht with your cruising plans.....such as freezer space, galley functionability, longterm comfort.

Pelagic, I'd also recommend you both go together and crew: do some deliveries, that allow you to see what its really like spending weeks together aboard. Its not the same as a day, or a week. Lots of vessels move between FL and the Bahamas and points north before hurricane season, and then move back south after hurricane season.

See if you actually like it. The vast majority of people do not.

If you really do like it, then these seasonal locations far from the owner's home is a great location to buy from an owner who poured a lot of money into a dream that they discover too late just is not for them.

Good for you two...go for it! I think this is very appropriate at this point.

Once upon a time I worried about whether my savings would not better be invested in a house than in a sail*boat. Then I read certain magical words by Arthur Ransome, acquired the sailboat, and have lived happily ever after. The words are these, from Racundra’s First Cruise:

“Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition.

The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place…. When it comes, the desire to build a boat is one of those that cannot be resisted. It begins as a little cloud on a serene horizon. It ends by covering the whole sky, so that you can think of nothing else. You must build to regain your freedom.”

Precisely so

…excerpted from the preface of the book, ‘The Proper Yacht’

Capt J,
I'd like to compliment you on a fair and impartial assestment of that Lagoon powercat . Too be sure we are talking the same vessel, it was the newer model with the larger flybridge...is that correct?
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-catamaran-discussion/4084-new-lagoon-44-power-cat.html

I come back in a day or so and offer a few more of my observations, and maybe ask your opinions.


Meanwhile I did get a bit of a chuckle from this obvious typo error:

Thought maybe you had boarded a rocket ship

The 43' Lagoon I ran from Texas to here a year or two ago was a 2003 with the shorter flybridge. The 44' that I just took to Mexico and did the assessment on was a 2006 and had the flybridge that extended all of the way aft to where the swim platform starts.

At 2800 rpms, we got into a good amount of current and a following sea of 2-3 then 2-4 on the stbd 1/4, and the boat would go from 16.5-17.5 knots and fall off of plane so to speak for like 30 seconds as far down as 11.5 knots at times before it would speed back up. At 2900 we cruised at 18-19 and it would briefly fall off plane or slow down to somewhere in the 14 knot range and 5 seconds later speed back up......the extra 100 rpms allowed it to maintain a much higher average speed. And, yeah I wanted to maintain a certain speed during the day so I could both empty the drums by nightfall and get into Cancun before noon the following day (350NM away) to try to beat a front coming down as well as have a chance for immigrations come to the boat that day considering it was a Sunday in Mexico.

For those spending money rather than illiciting internet thoughts, a yacht is an investment decision normally (but not always) given due care and consideration. When contemplating an investment above a million $$, resale in terms of both return on original investment and the time required to sell the vessel seems to place expensive cat yachts at a disadvantage.

When doing vessel inspections and tours, I tend to do the engine room and systems layouts first. On the cats I have seen, limited ER and systems space would be a deterrent for proper maintenance.

Cruising Caribbean/Central America

Earlier in this subject thread I made a reference to a blog of a 65 foot powercat "Domino" that has cruised up from South America, up the East Coast of the USA, and now down to Central America headed for the Panama canal.
Expenses of Cruising

DOMINO 20


I just happened across this interesting blog from some folks who have spent some time in that area as well. You might have a look thru their blog...an excerpt:

"Benno and I, Marlene, have had a wonderful time this past year on Diesel Duck.
Twelve months ago we arrived at the San Blas Islands of Panama where we got lost for half a year among the 360 islands. The last report you got from us was in March of this year from this paradise. Amazingly, the days, weeks and months flew by while we explored the little palm covered islets, swam, snorkeled, fished, photographed, partied with cruising friends and bought Molas from the Kuna Indians.

Sheryl and Paul Shard, Canadian friends of ours, visited us to film another episode for “Distant Shores” which is available on DVD and being aired on National Television. In the spring, I made a trip home to Canada to see our family and since the flight was from Panama City, it gave us another opportunity for some shopping in this great city. Because the San Blas slands have very little to offer in terms of groceries, “stocking up” really meant if you didn’t have it onboard, you had to do without it.

At the end of May Diesel Duck spent a month at the Shelter Bay Marina in Colon, Panama, where we took delivery of a new 5 KW Northern Lights 3 cyl. 1800 rpm diesel generator which Benno installed and hooked up while we were at the dock. The old 4.2 KW Norpro diesel generator with a 1 cyl. 3600 rpm Farymann was worn out after 4500 hrs. of reliable service. On June 6th, the great news reached us that we had become grandparents for the second time. Annaliese Lili joined her sister Heidi Elise and we are thrilled to have two cute, beautiful, healthy and smart granddaughters.

Summertime meant hurricane season and both of us longed to be in some cooler and drier climate for a while, out of the hurricane area. In no time at all, (you readers of our blog know that when Diesel Duck is on the move, she moves!) we were up in the Chesapeake Bay with stops in Cayman Island, Key West and up the coast part wise the ICW and sometimes outside. In Annapolis we found a great, free of charge, mooring at the Weems Creek. Although by being there we had traded the great clean waters of the Atlantic for the brownish rivers, the charming town, great shopping opportunities for all our hearts desires and nice summer temperatures made up for it. And of course the fine people we met there and became friends with were all worth it. However, being all the way up north didn’t get us away from the hurricanes after all. “Irene” made it up to where we were, but thank God, we only had some strong gusts during the night and only suffered “No Internet Connection” for a week afterwards because of downed powerlines.

After the Annapolis boat show in October, Diesel Duck headed south again, taking advantage of all the good weather windows, which afforded us to hang around some anchorages ahead of time. We participated in the annual get together of the Seven Seas Cruising Association in Melbourne, Fl and afterwards headed for Ft. Lauderdale, one of our favorite cities, because so many marine oriented companies are located there and as all boaters know, there is always a need to buy more stuff!

For the last month of this year we decided to head over to the Bahamas to hang around clear water, do more swimming and snorkeling and spending Christmas and New Year here. My parents will be visiting us in January in Ft. Lauderdale, so Diesel Duck will be heading back to host them. Our cruising destinations for next year will include again the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

At the time of this writing, Diesel Duck is spending a leisure time here under anchor in front of Chub Cay Club in the Berry Islands, Bahamas and waiting for the Christmas and New Year in crystal clear water. Beside this we helped a fellow Canadian sailor to get his boat off the rocky shore on the 20. Dec. The mooring he was on from the presently closed Berry Island Club broke during night in strong winds and he ended up on shore with his sailboat. The Berry Island Club was closed in May, when the DEA got wind of that the cook there was fishing square groupers. You could read up on this on our blog below.

Diesel Ducks Blogs

Tara Vana now in Caribbean

This might be an interesting charter for you...along with another good friendly couple?

It does have a sailing rig, but it has good power (could be power only),...and a nice fishing arrangement, diving area. I think it is operating out of the east end of St Thomas. Used to be very well known charter vessel in Bora Bora.

Tara Vana charters

Sea sickness.
Fumes and smells.
Fear of damaging (or sinking) the boat.
Physical pain from frequent maintenance activities (cramped systems spaces).
Expenses far outstripping available cash flow.
Too expensive for the amount of fun experienced.
Homesickness. Just too different, too far from family, friends, familiarity.
Noise, vibration, harshness. It gets annoying fast.

Oddly enough, most advertising and magazines (redundant) encourage people to end up with boats that exhibit these characteristics: Fat ends, hard chines, high center of gravity, big screen TVs, lack of fresh air ventilation, and limited visibility of the horizon all greatly contribute to seasickness; Diesels, most marine heads, lots of enclosed spaces, poor ventilation, extensive woodwork, and carpets all contribute to fumes and smells; Big high boats with lots of windage, lots of mass, high HP engines with silly idle speeds make for terrifying episodes of maneuvering in wind and tide and limited space; etc.

Almost everything in almost every boat is what is NOT enjoyable.

I applaud your goals, they are very much what I'm planning to do. But I'm going custom, because I've owned boats for over 45 years, I've covered over 80K miles on powerboats, and over 80K miles on sailboats. So I know what I want, and more importantly, how little we want.

I like Kelly Archer. He has been involved in all the recent Dashew builds. Here is his boat: http://www.kellyarcher.co.nz/boats/rippleweb1.pdf

He was one of many custom builders who recommended that I don't start building until I can't find anything else to leave out. That's what he does for his personal boats, such as Ripple. Simplify and minimize those systems!

So what does this 100 ft yacht with an 8' beam look like? I don't think you'll find many on the market
Is that a single engine model in that 8' beam?

Brian, I just plugged those dimensions into several regression models. As you know, the regression models really don't need much information about the shape beyond the dimensional (LWL, displ, ...) and non-dimensional (Cp, Fv, ...) numbers.

However, there have been hundreds or thousands of boats built to similar dimensions, just not recently. The vast majority were built before petroleum and high horsepower engines became pervasive, e.g., before WW2.

Here is a 63 foot Lake Union yacht from 1930, not too far from proposed, but of course heavier because built of wood. More to come...

... Here is another, its "only" 40' long, and it does have training wheels, but it actually exceeds the regression models for performance.

Piquent by Herreshoff also exceeds the regression models, 45 feet long, 8,000 lbs, twin gas engines, 15 nmpg at 15 knots.

Turbina

About the right dimensions, but far heavier (steel and steam turbine). Many similar vessels around this time (late 19th century) chiefly as torpedo boats and commuters (some torpedo boats started out as commuters or toys for the rich).