Why Having a Catamaran Designed for You is Better than Buying a Production One.

The multihull that an owner has designed and built can not only be a very good boat, it can often be far better than a one from a production factory. 

I probably have a jaundiced view of production multis. I have been involved in several million dollars worth of sold production boats. Though most of these were the little ones, several of the Sunchaser 58s are also included. My total royalty payments received for all these vessels, combined, to this time, is $100, except for MCTech. MCTech was always honest. If the developers will scam me, what do they do to unsuspecting owners on the things nobody can see, like the laminates?

After all these years of increasing professional expertise, learning to optimize hull shapes, make the best materials choices, evolving every trick in superior vessel design, and efficiency; with many production boats, you have to throw that all out.

Those production cat’s requirements seem to be the sum of the urban legends that the yacht salesmen have heard from the stream of visitors at boat shows. That, more than anything I hear of governs design decisions. I have been told that the only design requirement is to look good when stern tied at Miami. The rest of that stuff like bridgedeck clearance or pointing doesn’t matter. The bar has been set very low for what is a reasonable ocean going catamaran. 

Many of the production cats that I know of are not, in my opinion, serious boats like a J boat might be for monohulls. 

The result is no demand for structural, fundamental quality. A boatyard that might have been shooting chopper-gun pickup camper tops last year can be successful at building and selling production catamarans this year. Optimized laminates and reasonable vessel weight are ignored in place of fluffy interiors. It’s sort of a circular rationale. If these heavy, low strength cats are not used offshore in anger, then they don’t suffer any damage. Since they don’t suffer any damage, they appear to be succeeding. The fact that they require huge rigs and engines to move at all, can’t point, will pound to windward, and have terrible rides in bad seas can be ignored.

I don’t know why this can happen with cruising cats when popular monohulls can be so much more serious boats.

The conclusion is to only buy from reputable production builders who use experienced designers, or have your own vessel designed and built, again from an experienced designer. In both cases, it is very important to consult with your favorite designer. If there is no designer to stand behind the design, beware!

One of the most useful reasons to build instead of buy a cruising multi is the quality of the design and how that design fits your lifestyle. There are hundreds of great multihull designs, but only a handful of designs are available as production boats. The chance of finding a vessel that fits your needs is much greater if you design it yourself.

Even a design that meets the needs of an owner quite well can be modified to better meet his particular requirements. An owner may want a revision to have 6'-9" headroom. With a production boat that is impossible if it was not so intended to start with. A custom boat can make it right from the beginning so easily.

A newly designed cat can have a boat with the very latest technical advances, especially if the designer is aggressive about that. In contrast, a production boat will take years from the design being drawn to hull number one going for its first sail. By then it is not a recent work. The accountants will then insist that as many units as possible be taken off of the mold, even if the design is well passed its time. A survey of boat shows finds an armada designs that are years out of date and still being sold.

In my office, like others, we have come across ideas for significant improvements in several areas of both design and building ease, including rudders, wing mast design and impact damage resisting. These advances become part of the drawings as quickly as possible. Improvements like these will not show up on production multis for years.

Many production multis are the result of a market study; and not always one done by multihull sailors. A market study can prove to be death of design excellence for a serious sailor. I have been in a marketing meeting where it was said that people don’t actually sail these things, they just party on them. The features that would make a serious ocean boat often do not stand up to the test of marketing pressure and the imaginary average consumer. Having just worked with a developer on a catamaran intended for production, I could report that it is worse than I speculated when I first wrote this article in 1994. I was told that good sheet and halyard leads were not important, but we had to have a tub in it. I was told not to be concerned about pointing and tacking; everybody else has keels so we will too.

An owner working with a designer can chose and own a serious ocean multihull without the influence of marketing departments and the leveler of conforming to the average consumer, whoever that is.

A custom multi, if it is a recent design, should be both lighter and stronger than a production one of the same size. There are many reasons for that but they include the use of epoxy instead of lower grade production resins with gel coat, often better quality fiber structures with more recent engineering.

I recently read a paper about resins that has a huge impact on this topic. As we know, most production boats are built with inexpensive polyester resins. If you are lucky, they might have used the better vinyl ester resin. It turns out that the proper mixture of catalyst and initiator in polyester and vinyl ester resins is not only critically important but is also a function of temperature. With many formulations, at every change in temperature, the ratio of initiator and catalyst also has to change. If that is not done, the result is a partial cure and low strength, and it can never be remedied. Did Skeeter the laminator really keep track of the temperature and change the formulation on the fly during the day? You think? An owner-builder will probably use the superior resin, epoxy. It doesn’t matter what temperature, the mixture of hardener to resin is the same. If for any reason it’s not quite right at first, a later post-cure will improve the cure. The chances of getting a superior product can be much higher for an owner-builder. As a comparison, the laminates done by the average cat with me involved will usually be about 60,000 psi flexural strength, by hand layup. Some of clients have achieved almost 70,000 psi with vacuum infusion. In comparison, a local production catamaran builder just posted results of 23,850 psi for the same D-790 strength test. 

Many production multis are “packed”. The marketing guys want to stuff as many features as possible into whatever waterline length it is. The result is too often a multi that won’t point and wallows in bad weather. 

A new design has the option of not only choosing a long enough waterline to be safe, but even extending that waterline if desired. The result can be a better sailing multi than could have been gotten from a production vessel.