An Interesting Small Cat

Here are a few pics of a interesting small catamaran that showed up in Bimini, Bahamas this summer. I was at anchor there, and saw him sail in, so I waved him over. I was amazed to find out that he had sailed from Andros Island, the night before (80+miles). It had blown 15-20knts that night, but he made it without a hitch!! This little inflatable cat was only 14ft, yet he and his dog had been cruising for 2 months on it!!! This is really a minimalist boat, but really seaworthy, and sailed very well. The whole thing was simple and elegant in design. The fellow who owned it, built it himself, really did a nice job of integrating all the parts of a cat into a simple package. It even went well to weather. He left and crossed the Gulfstream 2 days later, and made it back to the US in one piece......

 

I don't think he ought to have taken a dog out to sea on such a small boat.

 

Brilliant! Innovative simple and cheap – a man (and a dog) after my own heart!

 

I'm guessing he's floating on PVC outer skins with urethane inner bladders. If he is really, really careful about where he goes and when he goes, he will probably get three good years out of that boat in direct, steady sunlight before stuff starts to happen. The choice of Leighfield valves is a good one in that he can get replacement parts all over the planet.

If he's really smart, the floats will have many separate chambers so that any single puncture will not take him into the desperation zone from a tiny piercing by fish hook, nasty bite, coral, rock or oyster shell, etc.

I wish the dude a lot of luck.

Me, I would have gone with a multi-tube setup for each hull system and then, each tube would have had several independent, inflatable chambers for some measure of security. Not too much more in the money category and a whole lot more in the peace of mind slot.

 

I believe the tubes had 3 chambers in each, so a puncture would not be dealdly! I know he crossed the Tounge-of-the ocean area of Andros island in 20-25knts of wind, and it gets ROUGH there, so I guess the little cat is seaworthy. As for the dog, he was quite happy on this boat, and only wanted to go ashore to use the head, the he went right back to his basket on the cat!