Seeking advice to find Power Catamaran plans

[Bronn]

Hello all,

First time poster, great site and lots of incredible info.

I have restored 3 boats up to date ranging from 10' to the latest...an old 1972 18ft bowrider. For the longest time i have wanted to build my own boat and know what i want to build. In lieu of that, i am seeking help to find plans i can purchase to build upon for a power catamaran.

The type / size is as follows:

- Roughly 22' to 26' power catamaran with no wider then a 9' beam
- Planing hulls
- Prefering one single outboard motor design (affording two outboards is a little much nowadays)
- Modern type design but comfortable for around 8 people. Including laying out areas / towable for waterskiiing / small cabin area with kitchen, head and sleeping area / seating areas. Basically an all around performance cat.
- It needs to be trailerable which is why i don't want wider then a 9' design.
- Figuring on top speeds to be around 40 to 50 mph (40 plus knots)
- Construction type to be preffering single layer fiberglass which i can make a mold for both hulls / foam core and fiberglass for cabin and deck for lightness. Possibly laminated wood for deck and cabin.

Thats mainly what i am looking to do. The hull design and weight distribution is most important for me as the deck and cabin area i am going to custom design anyway...long as i have the weight / distribution right.

Any help would be appreciated and or advice.

My thanks,
Bronn

[AuxiliaryComms]

Best I could find is the Wildcat from Glen-L

https://www.boatdesigns.com/products.asp?dept=900

Edited to add look around though, they do have some others including a center console if you don't want the cabin.

[specmar]

Here is a small CAT that I designed a few years ago for very shallow draft. OB motor was on center line. Hull construction is welded aluminum. Boat was not constructed. Possibly this can give you some ideas.
Specmar, Inc

[northerncat]

as far as i mknow this is the only set of plans and i have searched for 3 yrs that i can find that would do what you want, there was an article in the australian boatbuilder magazine that covered the construction of this boat but the guy lengthened it out to 6.5 m i believe with the designers permission
http://www.duckflatwoodenboats.com/mainpages/kPlans.php#Miscellaneous
it looks pretty cool and can be built with either 1 motor or 2 in mind
its the isles java cat
sean

[northerncat]

http://i35.tinypic.com/s6kjk6.jpg

[northerncat]

http://i33.tinypic.com/4kimtv.jpg

http://i36.tinypic.com/1he236.jpg

its on my list to build but like i said before its taken me three years to track down the only decent set of plans i could find, i believe that yoiu can build it out of alloy or ply and can change the chine angle if you wish too
sean

[Bronn]

Thank you all very much for your input.

All those designs are close. I have found some more but none exactly what i am looking for. Especially the single layer hull or 1" foam sandwich hulls. Wonder how much designers can change to their wood plans.

The quest goes on =)

[northerncat]

anything you can build out of wood can be built out of foam its just more expensive so a lot of people would ask why for such a small boat with negligible weight, the above cat is 22ft long and weighs 650kg's from memory
sean

[Bronn]

I'm not biased towards wood one bit. Actually a carpenter by trade hehe.

The reason to my madness (and please let me know if im wrong) is actually related to motors.

I have it in my mind that if i build a boat that is planned for wood and a certain engine size to match that design for a certain speed area......then i build out of sandwich foam / fiberglass to save a bunch of weight....then i can get the same performance with smaller engines.

Basically i would spend more on the building materials...but less on the engines themselves. And being a cat, i would most likely need 2 engines.

Who knows, maybe my thinking is way way off....if it is please advise me and then off i go towards a wood boat.

My thanks.

[AuxiliaryComms]

I'm not really experienced in this at all so I could be way off, but I would say if you are already comfortable working with wood stick with it.

My reasoning being by going to fiberglass you may save a few bucks on the engines but you may also end up with a boat that isn't as well put together (I don't know for certain, that's up to your abilities).

[Bronn]

Well have been doing a lot of research.

It seems common opinion is that a fiberglass core construction is actually heavier then plywood / fiberglass construction.

Anyone able to verify this? If this is true, my Thread is answered and im building in wood hehe.

[northerncat]

i do see your point about the motors but the above cat has been powered effectively by 1 60 hp big foot merc with four people on board kitted up for fishing, i have done a fair bit of research on this as i believe that a fishing trip should be cheap fun and safe and for my money that means a catabout 6m, once i get the 40 ft cat(hopefully only another month to go) out of the way its the next thing on my to do list, as for the weight question i have heard that depending on your selection of ply the savings are between 10-20 percent weight but your time to construct is in the region of 50% more time for foam i would pick bs 1088 bb gaboon ply
sean
sean

[northerncat]

http://www.lizardyachts.com.au/designs/lizard_7-2.html

this of course is your other alternative, there is a write up on these in the power multihull magazine2 40hp gives 23knots and 18 knots cruise for a fuel burn of 10l an hour
sean