'No heeling' sailboat

Aside from all of the above,the pure rush of feeling when a boat first leans from the breeze,starts to move thru the water with purpose,thats why I go sailing.

 

Well said.

A.

 

no heeling? get a cat.

Back in the day (early eighties) when we were cruising the Bahamas in our monohull we became friends for a time with the crew running the Spronk 75' Ppalu. (Sure they're all new people now) That was one hell of a stable platform even under sail. Sorry, if I had to do it all over again I'd have a Cat. Heck, I motor to windward anyway. No purist here.

 

Multis or monos... my personal feeling is that multis are aesthetically "all over the place", and don't look nice. I'd allow an exception for proas and some narrow cats.
But that's me. No question, speed is great, and a so-so multi is faster than any safe mono cruiser most of the time.
Any pleasure sailing (which is nearly all sailing) seems to mix two primary and fundamental opposites---- the journey and the arrival. Like linking the verb and the noun, one implies the other. At one point, the journey is desired more than the arrival, and later, the reverse generally happens.
That point varies a lot from one person to the next, and the arrival for some is a bouy ahead or a boat to beat.
I happen to see the whole physical journey as the means to arrive, and I'm not apt to get heavily involved in what fast is supposed to be. Yet it is second nature to keep the boat moving along efficiently (puposefully is a good word).
More a meditative state or an immediate sense of the boat as an extension of my purpose and my senses.
I use oars instead of a motor, but then my boat is small enough (15 ft gaffer).
I get maybe five kts out of her.
Yet I can fully appreciate that others like to experiment, or to make really good time.
Comparing types often has little to do with empirical wisdom, and more to do with how people see the world from a boat. There is only subjective comparison, except for matters of condition and sailing ability. The reason people go to sea in boats doesn't have one answer, except maybe one common response: To challenge oneself.
If this is the most common response, then a slower boat, or a smaller one, or a simpler one, multi ot mono, without GPS, radar, SSB, microwaves, etc., etc., is inherently more challenging than a more convenient boat in the same conditions.
For a very few, designing an entirely new rig and trying to get the best out of it is the challenge.
Face it. Almost nobody is out there because their car broke down, or they couldn't get a flight. In rational terms, if you don't like being challenged out there, there's hardly a reason to be there at all.

alan

 

I enjoy the sort of "elemental" feel you get being in a sailing boat, like flying a glider as opposed to a power aircraft or my open sportscar as opposed to a tin top. You can be doing something even if your becalmed, the view is nearly always good, you feel the little vespers of breeze, the sails rustle a bit then your moving again.
Cats (to my eyes) somehow look less like a boat then a monohull, having said that they (cats) interest me as I've never been sailing on one of any significant size and they look sort of futeristic to me.
I like the idea of the power cats, same as a sailing one but without sailing, I think they would be great for all the space they provide.

Mychael

 

To run out of the crowds...?
Cheers!