# Older small catamarans?



## Terbo (Jan 16, 2019)

Hi all,

I'm an aspiring yachtsman and thought I'd finally come out of the shadows and start asking real folks real questions.

So, to make it short, I'm looking to get myself a catamaran that I'll be able to outfit to take around the great loop, sail offshore, and maybe eventually a crossing or two.

I'm poor in capital, but rich in skills and plan to use that to my advantage as fully as possible.

All that being said, what are some older model 28-32ft fiberglass catamarans that I could look into? When did they even start making this kind of boat?

Thanks in advance!


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## RegisteredUser (Aug 16, 2010)

Maybe look at Heavenly Twins and some of the Prouts


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

The stresses on a cat are much different than on a monohull. The mast step and the attachment of the hulls to the wing section should be examined very closely (I would suggest by a specialist cat surveyor) after your cursory exam.
However, I don't quite understand why you would want a cat for the great loop. I should think it an impractical boat for that, with the extra beam, minimal upwind sailing capabilities and extra docking fees that the beamier vessel would incur. I also think, but am not certain, that the smaller cats would burn considerably more fuel than a comparable mono, on a trip that may require as much as 75% under power.


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## Arcb (Aug 13, 2016)

capta said:


> However, I don't quite understand why you would want a cat for the great loop. I should think it an impractical boat for that, with the extra beam, minimal upwind sailing capabilities and extra docking fees that the beamier vessel would incur.


Draft is a big reason looping sailors often prefer cats. A lot of the old canals are depth controlled to 60 inches.

The extra maneuverability of a cat doesnt hurt either. On my section of the loop you might be looking at 10, 15 locks a day. With landing on the grey line, then maneuvering into the lock, you could easily be looking at 20-30 tie ups a day. Not ideal set up for a heavy single screw mono.

The big item though, is the draft.


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

Arcb said:


> Draft is a big reason looping sailors often prefer cats. A lot of the old canals are depth controlled to 60 inches.
> 
> The extra maneuverability of a cat doesnt hurt either. On my section of the loop you might be looking at 10, 15 locks a day. With landing on the grey line, then maneuvering into the lock, you could easily be looking at 20-30 tie ups a day. Not ideal set up for a heavy single screw mono.
> 
> The big item though, is the draft.


OK, I understand that. I did my circumnavigation of the eastern section of the US on an 80-foot motorsailer with a 9.5' draft, so we obviously travel in different waters. lol


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## Arcb (Aug 13, 2016)

Here is a good link describing specifics for the Great Loop. A lot of the limitations come from the Canadian Heritage Canals and the canal between Lake Michigan and the Mississipi. It is possible to skip the Canadian Heritage canals by traveling open water on the Great Lakes, but the canal to the Mississipi is pretty essential to the loop.

Maximum recomended draft 60 inches (less is better, I have been aground on lock grey lines back when I had a 56" draft).

Maximum beam 23 feet.

Maximum bridge clearance 19' (I have to drop the mast on my 21 footer for several bridges).
Minimum fuel range Gas: 450 miles, Diesel 376 miles. If you skip the lower mississipi fuel range 250 miles.

Your Great Loop boat requirements and restrictions


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

Arcb said:


> Maximum recomended draft 60 inches (less is better, I have been aground on lock grey lines back when I had a 56" draft).


Back when I did it, we had no trouble getting from Chicago to the Mississippi with a 9.5 foot draft, but the air draft was the same (17') and we had to drop both masts.
Doing the mighty Miss was no problem depth wise as we rode a 13 foot higher than the normal water level, but there was a lot of garbage in the water from this that made navigating hazardous to our props.
Sadly, I was very disappointed that the 30 foot high levees lining the Mississippi, everywhere except St Louis, made seeing anything beyond them impossible. I had expected, in my ignorance of river systems, to see America's heartland as we lazily drifted south on the river. Huck Finn I was not!


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## Arcb (Aug 13, 2016)

I seem to remember from a previous thread that you skipped the NYS Canals and went up the St Lawrence as well?

That also would be a good trip, but it is probably 2500-3000 miles further than using the NYS canals from New York to Great Lakes and the Trent Severn Canal.

There is definitely more than one way to skin this cat. That's one of the things that is so appealing about the great loop. There are so many different ways of doing it.

https://www.waterwayguide.com/lates...your-Great-Loop-route-Atlantic-to-Great-Lakes


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## Terbo (Jan 16, 2019)

Thanks for the input, everyone!
I know that the beam will be a little bit of a headache on the loop, but the trade-off comes with the facilitation of storing tools and machines and ideally a couple of mopeds. And if you had an 80ft mono, your beam couldn't have been much narrower than the 24-26ft I see on most of the small cats I see, could it?

Eventually, I'm envisioning one hull for living and the other for a workshop of sorts.

The minimal draft will be beneficial as well as having less heel in a work area.


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

Arcb said:


> I seem to remember from a previous thread that you skipped the NYS Canals and went up the St Lawrence as well?
> 
> That also would be a good trip, but it is probably 2500-3000 miles further than using the NYS canals from New York to Great Lakes and the Trent Severn Canal.
> 
> ...


It really wasn't a pleasure cruise, just a pleasure to get paid to do it. It was a corporate yacht and we ran 24/7 from Lauderdale to Toronto. No GPS but I believe we had LORAN and definitely RADAR, which we really needed as we had pea soup fog from Nova Scotia to Kingston, Ontario. Couldn't even see the lock tenders as they called down instructions to us. I suppose they could see our masts up there?
Rather than heading out into the North Atlantic from the St Lawrence in October, I got my boss to let us do the Huck Finn thing. New Orleans and the Gulf ICW from there to Apalachicola were a real gas.


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## Minnesail (Feb 19, 2013)

capta said:


> Sadly, I was very disappointed that the 30 foot high levees lining the Mississippi, everywhere except St Louis, made seeing anything beyond them impossible. I had expected, in my ignorance of river systems, to see America's heartland as we lazily drifted south on the river. Huck Finn I was not!


I had the same disappointment, but from the other side of the levee. Once on a long road trip we decided to follow the Great River Road north, thinking we'd have grand views of the river during the long drive. Nope, you almost never saw the river.


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## Barquito (Dec 5, 2007)

I think you will find a catamaran will be more expensive than a monohull. There are two of a lot of things (engines, for example). You may be paying a much higher cost for a slip (you may be wide enough that you are paying for two slips. Most cats don't take well to loading up a bunch of things, such as tools. But, regardless of these issues, you may find a catamaran fits your needs.


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## RegisteredUser (Aug 16, 2010)

Still, there are some interesting cities and old forts/history along that river.
Also, lots of old time poverty.
At one time i was going to canoe it...another time i was gonna pontoon it....then none of that ever happened...:grin
In some places you can still ride the levees


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

capta said:


> Sadly, I was very disappointed that the 30 foot high levees lining the Mississippi, everywhere except St Louis, made seeing anything beyond them impossible. I had expected, in my ignorance of river systems, to see America's heartland as we lazily drifted south on the river. Huck Finn I was not!


It was on my definite to do list for decades... until I did some land travel through there in the 1990s and saw the bund walls.

A bit of a bugger when mythology is hit by reality.

A bit like the Wild West. I was in Tombstone Arizona... a 300 year history but only 1 shootout. I wuz gunna buy some pearl-handles and do meself some gun play :crying


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> It was on my definite to do list for decades... until I did some land travel through there in the 1990s and saw the bund walls.
> 
> A bit of a bugger when mythology is hit by reality.
> 
> A bit like the Wild West. I was in Tombstone Arizona... a 300 year history but only 1 shootout. I wuz gunna buy some pearl-handles and do meself some gun play :crying


Too right!
You can't imagine my surprise to learn that the Pilgrims didn't land at Plymouth Rock, that in fact that rock was placed there some 100 years after the Pilgrims had found that place, which wasn't even their first landfall, by months!
This stuff was in our text books in school and we all took it as gospel. Talk about brainwashing and propaganda from your own government!


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## Terbo (Jan 16, 2019)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> It was on my definite to do list for decades... until I did some land travel through there in the 1990s and saw the bund walls.
> 
> A bit of a bugger when mythology is hit by reality.
> 
> A bit like the Wild West. I was in Tombstone Arizona... a 300 year history but only 1 shootout. I wuz gunna buy some pearl-handles and do meself some gun play /forums/images/SailNet_Toucan/smilies/tango_face_crying.png


Didn't expect this thread to end up in Arizona 😂.


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## Arcb (Aug 13, 2016)

Terbo said:


> All that being said, what are some older model 28-32ft fiberglass catamarans that I could look into? When did they even start making this kind of boat?


In the 60's as far as I know. You could look for an Iroquois 30. British boats. I looked at one a few years back, it was the Mark 2 model. Asking price was in the low $20k range. Only 13.5 ft beam, so it would fit in a modern mono slip.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

Sorry 😊


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## outbound (Dec 3, 2012)

FYI - I live in Plymouth when on land. Yes they landed here but after landing at First Encounter Beach (have a close friend who lives there). Much of the original rock was cut off for use as thresholds and other building projects through the centuries so locals call it Plymouth Pebble. It wasn’t protected with any enclosure until recently so after building use stopped parts were further chipped off as souvenirs. Still, at one time it was a significant boulder and definitely not moved there by the Pilgrims. They struggled to stay alive and wouldn’t waste the energy to do that.


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

outbound said:


> FYI - definitely not moved there by the Pilgrims. They struggled to stay alive and wouldn't waste the energy to do that.


I never implied that the original Pilgrims had anything to do with the rock, just that it arrived in Plymouth some 100 years after the history books claimed they "landed" there.
If this is not correct, then blame the eBay source my daughter and I referenced the winter day we toured Cape Cod. However, as far as we could tell, it was correct about everything else, which is more than I can say for numerous generations of American textbooks.
And don't get me started on the midnight ride of Paul Revere.....


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## outbound (Dec 3, 2012)

Well the towns historical society is really into this stuff. They agree with you many of the history books have many things wrong but not this thing from sources reviewed.


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

outbound said:


> Well the towns historical society is really into this stuff. They agree with you many of the history books have many things wrong but not this thing from sources reviewed.


OK then, just more misinformation.


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## outbound (Dec 3, 2012)

It’s kind of fun that through the ages the history which we consider fixed in time is so changed by which government is in power, changes in societal mores and current culture. I love reading naval history and even that varies greatly by author.


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## Solandri (Sep 7, 2012)

capta said:


> I never implied that the original Pilgrims had anything to do with the rock, just that it arrived in Plymouth some 100 years after the history books claimed they "landed" there.


If I remember the description given in the tourist exhibit there when I visited, the "100 years" thing is because about a hundred years after the Pilgrims arrived, an elderly man whose father was one of the original passengers aboard the Mayflower claimed that when he was a kid, his dad once told him that that was the rock where the ship first made landfall. I don't think there's ever been any corroborating evidence for this; certainly no other eyewitness accounts. But "Plymouth Rock" has become so ingrained in American folklore that they said what the heck, designated it as The Plymouth Rock, and built a fence around it to preserve it for future generations to see. It's anyone's guess whether it's actually historical, or just a random rock that a father made up a fanciful tale about to wow his child during a walk down the beach.


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