reduce catamaran beam

old multi, this must be the modified boat you were thinking of. i looked at 1 on gumtree with the fibreglass tubes. mine has metal saddle clamps attaching the beams to the hulls. it also has rear entry and sliding hatchs to the cabins like a conventional yacht cabin.

 

you have got me thinking , if its a one off maybe i should not alter it.

 

Brendan. The rear entries on the hulls are an advantage, keep them. The cross beams appears to be standard tubes. If you can source a standard 6 meter section of the tube with the same diameter and wall thickness cut it in half and you have a 3 meter wide cat. I would keep the original tubes full length if you want to sell the cat or you find you want more stability etc. The side rigging will have to be shortened or buy 2 new stays. Hopefully you will have a 10 foot wide cat you can trail and sail easily. Hope this helps.

 

good advice. thank you.

 

reduced the beam to 9ft. shortened mast by 1.7 mt. fixed the trailer up. slowly getting there. hope to be ready for a test run when the lockdown is over.

 

Hi Brendan, I like your new boat. Maybe it would benefit from water ballast tanks. The Gougeon 32 is 8.5' wide and has a pretty brilliant system for adding up to 600 lbs to each hull. I have sailed mine upwind in over 40 knots and the ballast makes it pretty easy. It also can add a lot of speed when stability is needed.

 

thanks russell. that is a coincidence, last night i watched the g32 promotional videos and thought the water ballast was a great idea. shouldn't be to hard to do either. the 32 had a lot of terrific features.

 

I was looking for a different one, but this video shows the effectiveness of a bit of water ballast.

 

good video. pretty lumpy start to the race. she certainly handled it well.

 

still plodding along. i ordered burgundy
it turned out kermit green. i like the colour so went with it. 70's boat with a 70's colour.

 

Ready for a trial run but our weather has been bloody awful. Fingers crossed next weekend will be 1st sail.

 

Had my 1st sail on the cat yesterday in 15 kn gusting to 30 and the boat performed beautifully. Even with the beam narrowed to 9 ft it felt solid and still had a good turn of speed.