Multihulls

I went away for the weekend and, when looking for something to read, came across Multihull World Feb/March which had special amateur builder section. By curious coincidence Evan Gatehouse sent in an article that same weekend on his serious rebuild of a Woods catamaran which could be called "the Vancouver chainsaw massacre" =;-D.

The first thing that struck me in Multihull World is the size of the boats presented: between 10 and 14 metres. A couple of smaller boats for weekending and coastal cruising for sure, but the principle goal is sailing around the world or to the tropics. The second thing is that the sailing catamaran remains the number one option. There is the obligatory scare paragraph on the "dangers" of epoxy where one of the builders describes getting a rash after sanding green epoxy unprotected... What can one say? Epoxy is not the problem, lack of protection is, how often will we have to stress this!

One boat that did catch my eye is the Complice 47 (page in French), a trimaran motor sailor. The design is similar to some of Nigel Irens' designs with a double mast added for sailing downwind. 2,200 miles at 8 knots with a 70HP diesel and 15 knots top speed. The Ekolo'kat 33 (full article here) is also of interest because it is light and simple to build. It has 2 x electric motor auxilary power as an option. The plans include DXF files for CNC cutting of the ply.

Tony Grant [kiwi]
February 2006