Our first boat was an Albin Vega. When we got our third child, this became a little crowded. Besides, my wife and children were slightly prone to seasickness. And finally, I would like to sail a little faster (who doesn’t?).
A friend suggested the possibility of a catamaran.
At first, this almost seemed an indecent proposal; shouldn’t a seaworthy boat be able to go round 360°? And, as everybody knows, the most stable position of a multihull is floating upside down. Finally, most catamarans look like caravans, instead of sailing vessels. How on earth would it be possible to sail close hauled, of even tack with such a thing?
In short, the idea had to ripen for a while.
During a Singlehanded Race, I was lying besides a cat (very ugly indeed). The space below deck surprised me. The owner told me that he sailed to the UK with it, across the North Sea (“Must ‘ve been light winds?” I thought). On the other hand, it was a very serious sailor, so apparently there were also positive sides to a cat. He also told about several interesting shallow spots at the Wadden Sea, that were out of reach for me, with 1.20 meters draft.
After much reading and talking to various people, I seriously looked into the designs. After a while it turned out that many varieties exist in designs and designers. From real cruising catamarans, with big and high superstructures, to very low ships with only a net between the hulls. In fact, it is the same variety you can find in monohull designs. So, I returned to the question: what do you want?
We concluded on the following demands:
1) seaworthy
2) good sailor, also close-hauled
3) covered bridgedeck, with access to the hulls
4) not too ugly
So basically, we had only two demands: it should be a sailing ship, and we wanted to cross from one hull to the other under a roof. The second demand because of the children (the youngest was barely one year when we bought Glatisant).
These demands led us to the Woods Sagitta.
Very well! It is a real family boat, with plenty of space. She sails fast, you can trim a lot if you like, even beating is OK (though we needed to learn how to tack well!). We only need 75 cm of water, so all parts of the Wadden Sea are within reach. The more I sail her, the less I understand the aversion to multihulls that sometimes seems to exist.
Up to now, 7 Bf was the strongest wind that I sailed in with the Glatisant. This was during the Singlehanded in October 2008, beating at the Wadden Sea. Between Vlieland and Terschelling I ventured shortly onto the North Sea, which felt very safe. Beating to 6-7 Bf mainly meant being very attentive during tacking, and sometimes reacting quickly when we got in irons. For the rest, it was safe and OK.
You can find the story of the Eclipse – which has the same beam and almost the same length as the Sagitta – in very
heavy weather on the website of Richard Woods
(see under ‘Articles’). It doesn’t make you cheerfull, but I felt relieved when the boat finally was found;
floating with the mast upright. So, the lessons learned in the
Fastnetrace of 1979 also apply to catamarans: it is the safest to stay aboard!
You also can find several positive experiences of catamarans in heavy weather in the book “Heavy weather sailing”of Peter Bruce.
More information on stability of catamarans is to be found on the sites of Woods (under ‘Articles’) and of James Wharram.