Catamaran on open seas [Archive]

JonathanCole

10-12-2005, 05:33 PM

It totally depends on the boat's design, size, materials, condition and the expertise of the operator. Is it a sailboat or powerboat?

I have been on the open seas in 16+ meter catamarans and they are quite comfortable and relatively spacious. In big storms they might be more risky than monohulls because they can be fliipped with no chance of being righted. I personally don't want to be on open seas in small boats like that. But many people love the exhilaration of being right up against those huge natural forces. So do I, but I'd rather be on a 250 meter ship while doing it:D!

aqua_ambulat

10-12-2005, 06:47 PM

I understand Jonathan
they actually have found this 32m passanger ferry. With max 2 day
fuel capasity and it is build 1992 in norway I think.... Thay are music people
and onboard they want to build a music studio for online working.
This boat will be crusing from Iceland to the USA and south America and where ever the weather suits there clothes. The fueltank arrangement has to
be modified to this usage and I doubt it can be done on this vessel without
doing total recalculation on the stability.
I must get som data on this boat before asking Ques like this, I have a photo somewhere or a link to track it down.
thanks anyway Jonathan.
daniel

cyclops

10-13-2005, 12:10 AM

This has the sound of the Ethan Allen all over again. Count me out.

tspeer

10-13-2005, 12:24 AM

Actually, the catamaran is arguably the most seaworthy of hull forms. The probability of wave-induced capsize depends on the wave size relative to the beam, and the catamaran's wide beam means it is more resistant to this form of capsize than is a monohull of comparable length.

See Barry Deakins' paper on multihull capsize (http://www.rina.org.uk/rfiles/IJSCT/Discuss/deakin.pdf).

For design criteria you might use to pick an appropriate boat for your purpose, see John Shuttleworth's paper on multihull seaworthiness (http://www.john-shuttleworth.com/Articles/NESTalk.html).

JimCooper

10-13-2005, 02:17 AM

Actually, the catamaran is arguably the most seaworthy of hull forms.

With one fatal flaw

FAST FRED

10-13-2005, 06:23 AM

For reading it might be interesting to go to the NASA or NOAA site and review Rogue Waves , which seem to be far more common (75ft high) than previously thought.

Cats CAPSIZE , its just a matter of when.

FAST FRED

ron17571

10-13-2005, 01:24 PM

My neighbor said anything smaller than 600 foot long was to small for him,i have heard storys of navy men having waves come up on deck of destroyers and such,i used to have a subscription to multihull magazine.It had many happy people cruising all over the world who loved their catamaran.And many of these were around forty foot.I admit to never being out on the ocean and wonder about what it would be like in different types of ships.When i was younger i liked the trawler type ship with its deep keel,now i think of the rolling it would do.Must be something to sleep in!Fast fred what kind of ship do u have?and have u been on a catamaran on the ocean?

Raggi_Thor

10-13-2005, 04:22 PM

A 32m Norwegian passenger catamaran...
It's probably built to be fast and not very fuel efficient.
Not an ideal boat for long distance cruising, unless the musicians sell a lot of records :-)

aqua_ambulat

10-13-2005, 05:59 PM

hi there Ragnar
well there is some selling of records but still as you say it probably
won't cover the fuelcost. It is a fast boat two engines and you can
ofcorse run it economically. I took a breef look at some info I got erlier
on this topic here above and what I had some worrys about was the stability
of this kind of a vessels, and I have no experiance of sailing a catamerean
ship beeing a marine engineer myself, and I must confess that I had some
prejudice for multihull ships. But on the cotreary these ships seem to be
quite stable.
daniel
(sorry about my english)

JonathanCole

10-13-2005, 09:57 PM

But on the contrary these ships seem to be
quite stable.

Stable upside down, too. Many monohulls will right themselves if capsized. Also the course you are talking about is partly the North Atlantic. I have been on a 320 meter long ship in the North Atlantic when the waves were towering over the 25 meters of the ship that was above the waterline. 32 meter boat of any kind gets capsized in these waves. But the monohull can be designed to right itself. Not so for the catamaran. Unless........ you install a mast with ballast on the bottom underneath the deck. The mast must be quite strong (carbon fiber?) and have parallel sides. The mast would need to have gear teeth built into the side. Then a hand crank is used to raise the mast on the capsized multihull. Now the ballast that was on the bottom of the mast is raised and by raising the center of gravity the boat capsizes once again and you are upright. You can call the ship the Rube Goldberg:D.

tspeer

10-14-2005, 01:24 AM

Cats CAPSIZE , its just a matter of when.

Do you have even a single study to back that up?

What percentage monohulls remain afloat after being rolled? The study you cite on rogue waves would indicated that every boat will be capsized, not just multihulls.

Have you ever heard of a multihull sinking? I thought not. Monohulls sink on a regular basis - we even had one sink this year in Puget Sound when a not particularly bad squall line came through a racing fleet.

If you'd like to read some genuine information about multihull safety, instead of ignorance and predjudice, check out
http://www.f-boat.com/safety/index.html
http://www.f-boat.com/pdf/F-41SafetyOptions.pdf

yokebutt

10-14-2005, 01:54 AM

I feel compelled to offer a corollary to Freds statement, since monohulls of any size usually have a rather substantial counterweight: Monohulls SINK, it's just a question of when.

Yoke.

JonathanCole

10-14-2005, 02:57 AM

The study you cite on rogue waves would indicated that every boat will be capsized, not just multihulls.

There are storms in the North Atlantic in which every second wave is a rogue wave. Only big ships reliably survive this kind of weather.

That is a really informative article about trimarans, Tom. Catamarans may be more susceptible to breakage because of the span between hulls. Remember we are talking about trans-Atlantic travel in a 32 meter power cat meant to be a ferry boat. Still if it is really solid construction it might make it 980 times out of 1000 attempts. Not bad odds. But I'd still rather take a cruise ship. or an airplane! :)

FAST FRED

10-14-2005, 09:12 AM

"What percentage monohulls remain afloat after being rolled? The study you cite on rogue waves would indicated that every boat will be capsized, not just multihulls. "

Every boat would be overwhelmed by the wave , but not necessarily capsized.

If properly built most monohull offshore cruisers should take a simple knock down or rollover.
Sure the modern lightly rigged redundancy free "cruiser" will lose the rig , but a monohull that floats upright with the ability to set a jury rig is preferable to living in a capsized Cat.

While many multihulls have done an OK job of offshore cruising it is with lots of special effort .

I started with a Hedly Nichol Voyager 45ft custom cold moulded in Belize in the mid 60's.
She suffered as most tris then from having both amas imersed , and rigging
lead all the way outboard.
The result was high wetted area to sail area and no way to run a really large headsail for light airs.

Cats share those flaws , but with many added problems.

First Cats and most multihulls (cruisers) have a very hard time with the tons of gear needed offshore for the --4 men for 60 days --usually needed to cross the larger stretches with a bit of reserve,over 60 or 75 ft , no sweat on loading, but might have bigger crew.

The Multihull Problem of having to set only enough sail set for the Puffs , means that 3/4 of the time the boat is undercanvassed , to assure non capsize.
The lead sleds will be set up for sailing with the lulls , and merly accept the puffs as a bit of heel. This is esp true when on self steering gear , cruising.

Weather a Roge Wave can be avioded by sailing in season is a gamble,
but HEAVY WEATHER can never be avoided completly.

That is the biggest hassle with multihulls , the weight and scantlings are kept down for a bit of performance , and load carring , yet the vessel WILL be swept by the sea in really heavy weather.
Most multihulls are NOT designed for a series of waves breaking over the boat. The hatches , doors,deck structure , and windows are far from strong enough for sea service.

YES those stories of waves 75 ft up on the carrier deck are TRUE, as are the photos of Destroyers beind swept by large waves , for days on end.

The DREAM of poping up over the waves is exactly that , a DREAM not born out by actual offshore sailing.

Cats for costal , tris (or lead sleds) for trans ocean was the motto in the 60's when I got started , and seems the ocean hasn't changed much since then.

Multiihulls are a delight in a rolly anchorage , as they pop up & down rather than roll the decks awash.
And there a delight in fair weather costal cruising , if heat is not required and only a weeks worth of food , water & fuel need burden the boat.
The shallow draft lets them into crowded harbors where lead sleds are gathered outside .

But for offshore the downside is far bigger than any upside , for those that can't breathe water.

FAST FRED

aqua_ambulat

10-14-2005, 03:04 PM

I actually agree with Fred. This whole idea of cross atlantic sailing on a
passanger catamaran seem to be one bad idea. I know the north atlantic ocean myselfe, we get some bad dogass weather up here, so the most of the walking you do onboard is manly on walls. And like Fred said the structure is not build for braking waves (brot) The portholes are partially square and are covering much erea. But I have to convince my people about this and have you ever tried to describe or convince a landlobber about what it is like to
cross an open sea in heavy weather. Most of them think they can just jump
into the sea if things get tough... you know what I mean !!!!
daniel

marshmat

10-15-2005, 12:27 AM

If it's built as an inshore passenger ferry, it won't fare too well in the North Atlantic, whether it has 1, 2, 3 or 7 hulls. And there are monos, cats and tris that can cross, and have crossed, oceans safely. It is a matter of running a boat that is designed to take the conditions in which it is run.

Whatever refits you do to this boat, have a qualified naval architect and an engineer analyze the vessel before and after the proposed changes. See if you still like what you see after you have the stability report and the structural report.

KCook

10-15-2005, 02:30 AM

I would venture that experience/skill in seamanship should be a factor. A novice to the steep seas would be less likely to get in trouble with a monohull than a multihull. Which doesn't make the multihull a bad boat, just not as forgiving a boat for fools.

Kelly Cook

FAST FRED

10-15-2005, 05:42 AM

"just not as forgiving a boat for fools."

Usually the autopilot or self steering gear is at the helm for cruisers offshore passagemaking.

Yes, it usually does a better job of steering than most crews,

but to hope its IQ is high enough to prevent a capsize?

Bring your Prayer book!

FAST FRED

cyclops

10-15-2005, 09:52 PM

Back to which will survive a capsize. In the small sizes, under 20'. How many sailing twin hulls HAVE to be towed to shore before they can be righted? Almost everyone at our reservoir has helped them everytime. The monos are never helped unless the person is weak or banged up. Fact of life.

KCook

10-15-2005, 10:17 PM

Huh?!?! I thought this thread was about a "32m passanger ferry". Which I would assume is a power boat, not sailboat.

Kelly

aqua_ambulat

10-16-2005, 10:41 AM

You are right KCook it is about a 32m passanger ferry. A near shore
vessel a catamaran with a passanger facility made by Tetrapak
sweden. I had to find out and ask you people about if this ship can be
modified for a transatlantic crusing and I think I have been convinsed
that this is a bad idea.
daniel

JimCooper

10-21-2005, 04:19 AM

What percentage monohulls remain afloat after being rolled? The study you cite on rogue waves would indicated that every boat will be capsized, not just multihulls.

Have you ever heard of a multihull sinking?

I thought not.
Monohulls sink on a regular basis - we even had one sink this year in Puget Sound when a not particularly bad squall line came through a racing fleet.

Mr Speer
You should come to Scotland or Norway with your multihull and try the North sea.

I know that multihulls have been broken-up by heavy weather including one aluminium passenger ferry , a few sailing ones that have been upside down for a period with several deaths from hyperthermia within the inverted hull. I have found several accounts in the shipping news.

3 years back I looked inside one 45 foot sailing twin hull that had been inverted for a couple of days off the Norwegian coast. The hull was lifted onto a rig service barge but it was so damaged nothing was salvagable. The crew took to the liferaft after an hour and were rescued , the craft was lifted out 2 days later. It may as well have sunk for all the use it was to the people aboard.

Seems people dont appreciate how terrible it is to be in one of these when it is upside down and half full of water. The water sloshes about inside with great force and soaks everything, the furniture gets broken off the hull and it all floats around inside along with the engine oil, diesel fuel and anything else in tanks (or stomachs and bowels). Nowhere inside is safe. If the water is cold then it is a lethal scene.

That an inverted multihull makes an effective and safe platform in heavy weather is a marketing myth that should be dispelled.

Many monohulls even after being abandoned with open hatches and with the bilges awash with seawater are recovered after the storm with little damage to the essentials .

Seems the fatal flaw has to have warm calm water a good fast efficient rescue service and a fully insured boat, or you could just buy a monohull.

jam007

10-21-2005, 07:31 AM

JimCooper. Your argument seems to be that a multihull is as bad as an monohull if wrecked. So why should I rather have a mono?

sharpii2

10-21-2005, 08:49 AM

It sems that whenevery anyone talks about multi's in general or cats in particular, they are talking about present day descendants from '50's and '60's speed machines that were first perfected by Rudy Choy and Arthur Piver. Actually, its somewhat unfair to mention Arthur in this. His 'loadstar' was not designed primarily for speed (hence the better rep for tri's). Later boats, however were. It seems that the entire developement of multi's over the last 30 to 40 years has been almost exclusively for speed.

The consequence of this are airplane like structures that not only sit on top of the water rather than in it but are also extremely limited in payload capcity as well. A further consequence of this are structures so light that wind getting under their connecting decks can lift them clean off the water, like hydroplanes, and flip them at will.

It seems that most of the multi capsizes I've heard of have been racing machines that were not only pushed well past prudence but were so extreme in design (like some mono's I know of) that they were arguiably inherently unsafe as well.

I think that it is usefull to remember that the original multi's were built by stone age people and were, like the original mono's, relatively heavy work boats. They tended to have modest sail areas for their size and almost never had solid 'wing decks' (at least ones that looked like wings). The heaviest Cat I know of was the 'Rehu Moana' or something like that. It's D/L was in the order of over 300. Needless to say, it was no speedster. It was, as it was intended to be, a floating home capable of going offshore in 'reasonably horrible weather' I think it even rounded the 'horn'.

I think a modern cat designed to those principles would be as likely to be capsized by a rogue wave as a simularily heavy mono would be to be sunk by it. The sea's power to destroy man made objects is pracically unlimited. I think that it is relatively easy to design a multi that can carry your stuff...as long as it is not expected to go much past 'hull speed'.

Bob

D'ARTOIS

10-23-2005, 09:10 AM

The multihull is a ship of the southern hemisphere, the Pacific to be precise. I have noticed that speedsailers ( circumnavigation recordsetters) truly hate the Indian Ocean, and never show themselves up the North-Atlantic. Neither are they any useful in ice.
Rest me to say, although I have a tiny bit of experience in sailing cat's, they make me feel highly uncomfortable, as I cannot swim and the sheer horror that I have to sit on an inverted hull, if capsized by an unexpected blast.
Also that in heavy traffic lanes I can't go anywhere as they have very little pointing to windward capacities.
The catamaran ferry between the UK en Holland cannot go out in conditions with waves over 13' or 4 mtrs.
On the other hand, there are a number of people like the Dutch Henk de Velde who are capable to cope with those handicaps as I see them and still try to brake another ones's record.
We are plastered with all those recordsetting attempts that needs to be sponsored otherwise no ship and no record, so that the multihull scene is another scene than the monohull scene, separated by their own races.

A multihull is faster, definately - but only under certain circumstances. Take those away and you will see that their perfomance will drop back substantially. Upwind they are next to useless. Well, a boat that cannot go upwind is in our environment a useless boat. Therefore you won't find them in the Northern waters.

Let's organise a new kind of race, where only the strogest ships will survive.

Let's say from San Francisco or Los Angeles to Plymouth, UK via the Denmark Strait.
Let's see what the multihulls can do.

jam007

10-23-2005, 10:58 AM

Well, a boat that cannot go upwind is in our environment a useless boat. Therefore you won't find them in the Northern waters.

Hm...
These guys must have missed these important facts:
Round Island race (http://www.f-boat.com/pages/news/f33islandrace.html)
:p

Anders M
F-25A trimaran owner in Sweden, northen hemispere, and never beaten upwind (or downwind) during this summer by a mono...

D'ARTOIS

10-23-2005, 11:31 AM

Hardy serious......

Stephen Ditmore

10-23-2005, 01:09 PM

In the late 80s (I think) an Alden Boothbay 57 and Walter Green's racing catamatan were in the same storm. The pilothouse windows of the Boothbay were stove in and she sank. I think one of the two female survivors has written a book about it. Walter Green's cat (or trimaran, I'm not certain) flipped, and Walter had to be rescued from the overturned vessel. At first Walter swore off offshore multihulls, but after considering the fate of the Boothbay, Walter decided the missing element was the ability to self-right the multihull. Walter's next boat was a catamaran with one cored hull and one solid skin hull. The latter could be flooded and sunk, then blown bouyant again to right the vessel.

D'ARTOIS

10-23-2005, 02:06 PM

An old fisherman's ruling say that a boat that is impermeable cannot sink. A yacht with stoved-in windows is an example of that saying; proved by the cat that capsized.
Neither both of them good examples of what a ship should be.
I am not perjudiced, I know that many cat's and tri's are going around the world; I find a tri - specifically the larger ones - itriguing machines. I believe you have to grow up with them to understand their mechanism. In the late seventies I was highly inspired and intrigued by the designs of Lock Crowther ( Kraken & Spindrift-cat), probably one of the men of the first hour to advocate the advantages of the multihull next to Arthur Piver was before him; did I have had the chance to fight off my wife's allergy to everything that floats at that moment, I would have been now most probably the multihull's most ferocious protagonist.
Nontheless, it is as it is.
You are not going with a cat or a tri through the Bering Strait.
They are the creatures of the southern hemisphere, where the winds are in their favour.

jam007

10-23-2005, 02:22 PM

Funny you should mention Bering Strait....:) (Intentional?)
One mainiac has taken a small trimaran accross the Bering Strait:

"We are happy to arrive in Provideniya!" says Mike. "You could never imagine what we have been through. The meteo was favorable when we left but it suddenly changed and we were caught between two weather systems, cyclone and anticyclone. We experienced winds of (at a guess) around 50 to 60 knots. My 24ft Corsair trimaran was battered around like a cork on the wild ocean. Amazing how it held up! Great little boat! There were times when we thought we would never make it! I never imagined I would be so happy to land on Russian territory."

See Polar Challenges (http://www.antarctica.org/UK/Expe/Expes_Arctiques/2003/Horn_Mike/pag/horn_suivi3.htm)

Any more non-multi areas? :)

Anders M

D'ARTOIS

10-23-2005, 02:48 PM

What do you want to believe us? Go to the web and read it thoroughly; a trimaran becoming a mono when the wings are folded - ;)

cyclops

10-23-2005, 08:41 PM

If 2 or 3 hull boats are so great . Why is it no commerical fisherman use them in the Alaska Crab fishing season??

Deering

10-24-2005, 12:58 AM

sharpii2

10-24-2005, 08:25 AM

Because they don't have the load-carrying capability that a commercial crabber needs.

Note that a lot of those boats aren't designed to survive a roll-over either, despite what you might have seen in A Perfect Storm.

Good point. Two of them capsized in one day. And the conditions, by Alaskan standards, weren't rough at all.

As for multi capsizes, It seems to me that they are caused for the most part by audatious design, poor handling, and just plain bad luck. When mono's are subject to these same kinds of conditions, they usually suffer the same kind of fate.

A multi has a huge bank of initial stability. A 'bank' that should be jealously hoarded. Sensible owners, sailors, and designers understand this fact. Read some Thomas firth Jones (who rode out Hurricane Blanche in a small, 1 ton cat) and you will see what responsible multi design and handling is all about.

It's interesting to note that the same storm he rode out sank a 30 ft mono.
To his credit, Tom did not say that that was because his boat was better. But only that his boat was luckier. The mono fell off a huge wave (which cracked the hull/keel joint, causing a fatal leak) and his boat didn't.

Bob

D'ARTOIS

10-24-2005, 01:05 PM

A boat that is impermeable to water cannot sink, mono, bi or tri.....

Stephen Ditmore

10-24-2005, 01:16 PM

I think I'm with Sharpii2 on this. The Titanic was supposed to be impenetrable to water. We can always improve in that area, but we have to design with Muphy's Law in mind.

I wouldn't argue that all multihulls are seaworthy.... but some are.

masrapido

10-25-2005, 09:28 AM

Reading this thread I can see that 99% of participants have never been on a wave bigger than 2 metres, nor have ever seen a serious storm in the middle of an ocean. This debate is pointless because every boat will sink under the right wave. I was on a 200 metres empty cargo ship, waves were mere 8 metres high, and I thought we'll never get out alive. And that was in Mediterranean.

How many of you will be that stupid to go into the Nord Atlantic for the fun of it? Ok, a fair few. Those who are led by their testosterones and adrenalins. You will likely meet your final destiny there no matter which boat you are on. If you do come out alive, the boat will be total writeoff anyway. Unless you go in the "calm" period, which is short and irregular, and just as bastard as the bad period.

Smart people will go sailing for pleasure. The pleasure is not in Nord Atlantic. Pleasure is in coastal sailing. Sailing with family and friends in safety. Smart avanturists will take trade winds to cross Atlantic safely or pick the time to navigate Pacific.

And for all that a well designed catamaran is way better than any slow, cramped, claustrofobic and obese monohull.

D'ARTOIS

10-25-2005, 10:12 AM

I agree with you that it is pointless to discuss the pro's and con's of Mono's and Multi's.
You like them or you like them not. Here in Holland, they are very expensive and triple the price of what I pay for a good pre-owned (mono) boat. I am not including the amateur made boats (cat's) that are often (not always) cheaply on the market.

In the cramped country of Tulipstan, there is simply no room for those boats, cat's and tri's; it is already difficult to find place for a mono. I am not discussing the small ones.

I have expierenced two Levante's in the Med. and although I was not amused, I haven't felt threatened, but maybe the force of the gale was not ferocious enough but in any case I understand what you mean. In the Med, when it blows, it blows.

A friend of mine, in his Pilot-Botter, a pre war II build sailing vessel, not yacht converted, expierienced one of the worst gales of the last 20 years, and one of his passengers dared to ask at the top of the gale, whilst the fridge broke open and the goodies were rocketed through the messroom, when the gale was beginning.

Only people covering long distances are subject to storms and for many sailing is what you describe, coastal, family and fun. When it blows they stay in the save environment of the Marina.

Once, on a beautiful day, mid August, I left the beach south of the IJmuiden sealocks, and all in a sudden the sky darkened and in 15 minutes time we had a full force 9 blowing.
The pressure on the main was so strong that I couldn't set a reef. The autopilot could not cope and for the same reason I could not set another and smaller jib.
I heard the boat literally crying out of sheer pain, but I had no oher choice than to continue.
After an hour or so, the wind shifted and lulled. Finit de la comédie, as we say.
And I think that many sailors from the Nordic countries have similar expieriences. Look at the north of Scotland, do you think that is a leisure piece of water? But where else can you go?

Midsummer in the Irish Sea, do you think ha it doesn't blow there? But where can you go if you live there?

What about our Australian and NZ friends, they have also the nasty'st piece of water on their frontdoor. But you have to live with it as long as you want to go places.

cyclops

10-25-2005, 10:34 AM

Finally! Some of the non-insane people are speaking the absolute truth. The few wannabees who think all of boat design should be diverted to their ever increasing suicidal desire to go faster each day with complete safety. They are afraid of death and want to be protected from it while yelling, " Nah nahny bo bo, you can't hurt me! "

CT 249

10-25-2005, 08:05 PM

Yep, Cyclops, it's much better to wrap yourself in cotton wool, sit in front of the TV and eat cheeseburgers, and then die at 60 from a heart attack. Or die at 25 in a car accident.

Masrapido, you say that even the calm period in the North Atlantic is as bad as winter and therefore "You will likely meet your final destiny there no matter which boat you are on. If you do come out alive, the boat will be total writeoff".

If this is the case, please explain why the vast majority even of those who race singlehanded across the North Atlantic survive. Any point you make is destroyed by the fact that deaths are few. And I've inspected the boats as they finished the singlehanded Transat and they are NOT total writeoffs. Nor are our boats after the Sydney-Hobart (which the Whitbread Round the World crews wrote may have been the hardest part of the entire circumnavigation).

This is not to say that endangering yourself on purpose is smart - but it's not a simple choice between suicide and sanity.

masrapido

10-27-2005, 03:47 AM

ct 249, one would have thought you should understand english, being from Australia. Since obviously you don't, here's a refresher: I did not say that. You are misquoting me by turning around the order of what I wrote. Which shows us which group you belong to, and confirm what I actually did write. Typical australian ignorance and arrogance.

Do I need to even mention 1998? And those waves I consider as a good luck if you must end up in a storm. Long, albeit high, but with a fairly slow speed (not the wind speed, don't upset me before you even start writing the reply, ok?). No one should have died, but all that did obviously miscalculated their meagre knowledge about the sea. As for the Nord Atlantic, which of the regattas there are in the winter period? Rolex is in May-June, "calm" period. And racers are prepared for what is ahead way better than you and I because they know they are going to push their luck hard, even though it is the "calm" period. Whatsya point? Go there in the winter, and you'll come with your tail as the only thing between your legs. If you come back...I liked the "vast majority" confession, however. Ponder over it a bit. If they die, what are my or your chances? I certainly have no intention blowing my life away in a senseless act of rebellion to fast food. I do not eat it and for me that is the best rebellion against it. TV sucks in Chile, so no one is watching it as much as you people anyway.

North Atlantic is way more dangerous than Tasman. Med is far more dangerous, when boiling, than Tasman. I'd go to Tasman before the two above (I shall avoid all of them at all costs however.)

And please do not misquote me again. Not nice. :mad: