beachcruising cats vs. beachcruising tris

[slidercat]

I just posted an article on Slider's blog regarding this subject.
It's a long piece, but stated briefly, my claim is that if you want a
multihull microcruiser, a tiny cat makes more sense than a tiny tri--
unless high speed is at the top of your priority list.

If you're interested in the subject matter, please let me know what
you think, here or there.

(http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress)

[paladin]

One is not faster than the other...all things being equeal...and if you mean a long legged cruiser....you need displacement to carry supplies.....been there, done that....in a couple of sizes...

[slidercat]

I have to disagree. All things being more or less equal a tiny cruising tri will be faster than a tiny cruising cat, for at least two reasons.

1) a tiny cruising tri can safely carry more sail for a given displacement, because it will have much greater overall beam-- of course, this is a drawback when trailering. On the other hand, a little cat with more beam can carry more sail-- look at Tornados, for example. But a Tornado ( or any other beach cat) is a poor cruising boat, in my opinion. Too likely to spill all your gear into the ocean, and can't carry much gear anyway.

2) a tiny cruising tri will have less wetted surface for a given displacement, which gives better light air performance-- and we're talking overall average speeds here, which translates to getting there sooner. What's more, as the wind builds up and more of the displacement shifts to the leeward float, the tri's main hull will rise, resulting in a functionally finer hull and less wetted surface.

I definitely agree with your point regarding load-carrying capacity-- and that's one of the reasons I list for preferring a cat to a tri in the smallest sizes. People do go beachcruising in canoes and kayaks, but that's a pretty spartan way to go.

(http://slidercat.com)

[Woxbox]

Well, if it needs to be a contest between the two, some standard must be set. As in: which type is best if displacement is 1,000 pounds and overall length is 20 feet, or some such thing. Otherwise the arguments will get silly.

I would favor a cat, too, because they work better if length is limited for a given displacement. But if length is not an issue, then I'd argue the tri comes out on top. Which raises the old issue, why are we so preoccupied with the length of boats?

[slidercat]

I'd agree if we were discussing performance, but that's not what my blog post was really about. I was attempting to argue some other aspects of the usefulness of tiny multihulls for cruising.

For example, if we limit displacement to 1000 lbs, and length to 20 feet, as you suggest, and do not limit beam or sail area, then probably there isn't going to be a great deal of performance difference between cat and tri. While the tri will still have greater beam and thus more ability to stand up to her canvas, she will not have as fine a main hull as the two hulls of a cat that can divide the displacement between them.

However, I was actually trying to compare a cat like Slider (of which no other examples exist, as far as I know) to the many examples of tris under say, 18 feet in length. I just assumed that the tris in this range would be faster, since most if not all of these are much more performance-oriented than Slider.

It was on other aspects of the boats' suitability as beachcruisers that I made the comparisons.

I can't speak to the general question of length, but I can tell you why I made Slider just under 16 feet, in ascending order of importance:

The state of Florida does not require engineless boats under 16 feet to be registered.

Slider was conceived as something of a Volksboat approach to a minimalist multihull cruiser, and a 16 foot boat can be planked with two sheets of ply.

I wanted a cat that could be pulled behind a compact car, and length is weight, both in the boat and in the trailer.

Most important, I wanted a boat with a fixed beam of 8.5 feet, so that trailing and launching would be as easy as possible. At 16 feet, a sailing beam of 8.5 feet is not ideal, but is adequate. As the boat gets longer, this beam becomes less and less adequate.

[Woxbox]

Ray -- I see your point. On that scale, with two aboard that type of cat makes good sense. Solo, the tri might give more satisfying performance and enable moving with oars. Beach cruising usually implies a boat that doesn't have to have a motor. Have you tried usings oars or paddles to move Slider around?

[slidercat]

We carry two paddles. A couple posts down the blog from the cats vs. tris article, I detail the humiliating results of going out with just one paddle. Not good.

But two people can paddle Slider at 3 knots without enormous effort, at least in calm water. The only times we've had to paddle were against winds blowing directly out of a narrow canal or narrow bayou entrance, but even though a couple of times the winds were stiff, we had no problem moving the boat

Light air performance has been surprisingly good. We haven't actually been becalmed yet, in about a dozen or so outings, though once we weren't going fast enough to beat a strong tidal current. We still had steerageway, though. I think light air ability is pretty important for a beachcruiser, because the most relaxing sails are usually in light air and smooth water. Slider is definitely aimed at relaxing rather than adrenalin fits. I also tried hard to design a handy boat, and Slider tacks like a monohull. In order to get sufficient displacement, I had to give my hulls a fair amount of rocker. This was again a choice against speed and in favor of luxury.

[Dan St Gean]

After doing the www.texas200.com (http://www.texas200.com) cruise on an old stock Hobie 18, the thought of a slightly drier ride and a boat with more capacity springs to mind. Your Slider is one such example, and I'm glad you built it. I guess there really are a limited number of sailors out camp cruising compared to kayaks for example, but the number of multihull sailors drops the number even further. There are some guys that regularly sail their reefable beachcats out to Catalina. One such equipt boat is for sale right now. I'd like to go with what you describe, but base it on a bigger platform as the registration costs aren't too burdensome. Something like Mike Lenemann's Beachcat 22 seems especially nice for the family daysailor and cruiser for a pair. It's nice to be able to camp aboard and ashore with the same gear too. Having a big deck and comfortable seating is really nice too. Speed is expecially nice too as I don't really want to emulate the PDR guys who were on the water for 10-12 hours a day. We usually spent about 4 hours to cover the same distance. They were fun sailing hours, but the constant wetnesses of an overloaded, low slung beachcat going 10-12 knots will make your hands scream after a couple hours. I was envisioning a boat light enough to use beachwheels to get up sandy beaches, big enough to haul 1,000 lbs of stuff around without dragging her transom, dry enough to stand being out for longer periods of time, easy storage and trailerability, super fast setup time (just raise the mast), and reefable. I think all that could be done on the cheap beginning with a beat P 19 or Tornado and adding some freeboard. Mike's rendering are kinda interesting as they have all these traits. http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/themultimarineforum/photos/view/bd28?b=8

How about something like that for a family daysailor and a campcruiser. It's not the usual WBF stuff, but it sure is cool.

Dan

[slidercat]

Dan, I know a guy who was favorably impressed with Slider, but who wanted a bigger faster boat. He ordered plans from Selway-Fisher for Hawk, an 18' cat with a much bigger rig, 10 foot beam, and seating within the hulls. He tells me the plans are somewhat rudimentary and don't detail any particular seating arrangement, but it might be a way to go. He's trying to come up with a way to have that big beam without greatly increasing the launch time, but that's a tough nut to crack.

I think my next design will be even smaller than Slider-- a cartop cat. A huge segment of the build-it-yourself market can be found right here on this forum-- guys who want a wooden boat that's not just a boat, but a work of art. They want beauty as well as utility, and there don't seem to be many designers trying to draw tiny beautiful multihulls-- the only one I can think of offhand is Gary Dierking. Anyway, it would be fun to take a crack at being the Iain Oughtred of multihull designers, wouldn't it?


(http://slidercat.com)

[Dan St Gean]

Dan, I know a guy who was favorably impressed with Slider, but who wanted a bigger faster boat. They want beauty as well as utility, and there don't seem to be many designers trying to draw tiny beautiful multihulls-- the only one I can think of offhand is Gary Dierking. Anyway, it would be fun to take a crack at being the Iain Oughtred of multihull designers, wouldn't it?


(http://slidercat.com)

I think Dierking is the king of cool outriggers. Bringing some Oughtred sensability to multihull design would be fun as well. They don't all have to look racy, nor have SA/D's of 40. Glued lap, strip, and some other traditional design elements could look really cool on a cat.

I built Dierking's Ulua at 21' because it's versatile and beautiful. Mine is in his book as a tri, but currently rigged as a single outrigger with a different set of beams. I also have his plans for Tamanu. Cool boats! I also like cats, and I would love to have a cruiser at 21-22'. I thought about making a second Ulua on the same moulds, but the 18" freeboard is a bit short. I could raise it to 24" and deck the boat, but then it's not a Ulua or a Hawaiian outrigger canoe. Qualities I want include being easily reefable, having a hard deck, comfortable seating, huge tent on deck when shore looks unappealing, etc. You know the drill. The additional length is for finer hulls that can still take the weight I'm looking to carry (4 adults plus lunch or 2 plus cruising gear). Think about 1000# at the upper end without dragging the transoms. With a canoe stern like Tamanu's I suppose the draggy stern issue goes away, but it does limit where the deck goes. I'd like to add my two horse Merc to the mix as paddling a bigger double canoe is best done for short distances or with larger crews. I could cut the decks off of a P19 or similar and add freeboard while either reducing sail (from the foot too to give some headroom under the boom) or add an easily reefed rig to control speed and add safety.

That said, the H 18 worked well for the Texas 200. We were first to get to the sites most days or nearly so on elapsed sailing time. The sailing was fun if a bit wetter than I would want to be for any sustained period of time. The boat carried the weight, but not well. The reefing was accomplished by roller furling jib and a serious twist in the head of the sail. We carried all camping equipment needed for the five day event + food and water.

Refining the boat chioce would be a personal thing, but for me would include:

1. more length--more carrying capacity
2. more hull width--same reason
3. greater freeboard--dryer ride
4. hard deck to camp on at Camp 1 rather than slog through the mud--but the site was awesome once there!
5. slab reefing. Roller furling the jib results in weather helm. Duh. Just when you need a neutral helm with wind and waves up, you get to pull even harder!
6. Bigger hatches. We stuck stuff through the 5" ports and lashed stuff to the front crossbar. Low and secure is better. Easily accessed is better still.
7. more comfortable seating. Camp seats for 4+ hours a day is not as fun as it looks zooming by at 10 knots. Getting my heels below my butt even a little would make a huge improvement as would using a cushion with a bit more give--and one that is attached to the boat. I lost both camp chairs that week.
8. A bimini might be cool literally as well, but long pants, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, and sunscreen worked for me.


Dan

[wtarzia]

I don't hear much about the Tremelino trimaran. On paper it looks very interesting: about 23 feet long as I recall, with two single-berth cabins and a central cockpit, with the amas off some kind of Hobie, which evidently you can find guaranteed. Has anyone owned/sailed a Tremelino? How does it go? Is the big reason against that set-up time, making it in essence a trailer-sailer from Hell? (I designed my outrigger canoe at 7 feet beam so it would store on my trailer and in my garage, and the lost stability was easily compensated for by the fast set up at the ramp -- about 20 minutes for a cat-ketch lugsail rig if no distractions. The first two times I stored it semi assembled to get both hulls squarely on the trailer, and the 45 set up time passed that mystical boundary from doable to miserable). --Wade

[slidercat]

Refining the boat chioce would be a personal thing, but for me would include:

1. more length--more carrying capacity
2. more hull width--same reason
3. greater freeboard--dryer ride
4. hard deck to camp on at Camp 1 rather than slog through the mud--but the site was awesome once there!
5. slab reefing. Roller furling the jib results in weather helm. Duh. Just when you need a neutral helm with wind and waves up, you get to pull even harder!
6. Bigger hatches. We stuck stuff through the 5" ports and lashed stuff to the front crossbar. Low and secure is better. Easily accessed is better still.
7. more comfortable seating. Camp seats for 4+ hours a day is not as fun as it looks zooming by at 10 knots. Getting my heels below my butt even a little would make a huge improvement as would using a cushion with a bit more give--and one that is attached to the boat. I lost both camp chairs that week.
8. A bimini might be cool literally as well, but long pants, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, and sunscreen worked for me.


Dan


Hey, Dan-- not to be flogging a dead equine, but you can get a lot of what you list in Slider. There's enough displacement for two to cruise, dry decks, high freeboard, lots of dry storage, incredibly comfortable seats, hard deck, etc. The only thing missing is high boat speed, which you could get with a bigger boat and greater beam. Or really, if you're willing to accept the risks, a bigger rig on Slider, but I prefer the peace of mind I get with a modest rig. Unlike a beach cat, Slider can't be righted by her crew-- because of the greater buoyancy of her hulls-- and all that other stuff you want in a cruising boat.

The main reason Slider is only 16' long is that a cat that small can get away with a fixed beam of 8.5 feet. If you push the concept to a greater length, you probably get into some sort of sliding or demountable beam system, which greatly increases time at the ramp. See Wade's remarks in the next post.

[Dan St Gean]

I don't hear much about the Tremelino trimaran. On paper it looks very interesting: about 23 feet long as I recall, with two single-berth cabins and a central cockpit, with the amas off some kind of Hobie, which evidently you can find guaranteed. Has anyone owned/sailed a Tremelino? How does it go? Is the big reason against that set-up time, making it in essence a trailer-sailer from Hell? (I designed my outrigger canoe at 7 feet beam so it would store on my trailer and in my garage, and the lost stability was easily compensated for by the fast set up at the ramp -- about 20 minutes for a cat-ketch lugsail rig if no distractions. The first two times I stored it semi assembled to get both hulls squarely on the trailer, and the 45 set up time passed that mystical boundary from doable to miserable). --Wade

I love the idea of a great trimaran, but the challenge of setting up most tri's from a trailer is longer than I want to spend. My experience is from setting up my Ulua as a tri from a canoe and kayak trailer. It's about an hour. Sitting on a flatbed or a cat trailer mostly rigged it might be 15 minutes. That sounds better, but the width is 14'. As a single outrigger it would be less than 8'. That would be lots better in my opinion but lacking the weight capacity I'm looking for.

Some of these 8'6" cats like Slider and the one lower on this list are kinda like what I'm thinking about. I like the load carrying capacity of the cat vs. the tri or single outrigger for my next project. I'm thinking of a pair of Tamanu hulls in cat configuation or Mike Leneman's Beachcat 22 idea. I may have to rob my Hobie 18 for parts for this one.

Dan