Catamaran plans, who have I forgotten ?

Hi all,

Some of you will recall I had a couple of strokes in 2020 which have left me part blind. I can't drive anymore so a trailerable cat makes a lot less sense now. I've been thinking if I move to a moored boat then more payload for fresh water would be nice.

Queensland has a breakpoint at 10m for registration cost and I wouldn't want to go bigger than that anyway. I don't want a full width bridgedeck cabin. I was to put a pod deck/cuddy cabin, sportsdeck sort of thing, seperate enclosed space for a queen bed on the bridgedeck longitudinally. This is a must.

Basically something like a Woods Romany but a bit shorter. Mr Woods doesn't have anything quite right so I'm looking for alternatives. Foam construction.

Mr Waller isn't interested in Foam construction. I have reached out to Mr Kendrick but I suspect he might not be interested. I even emailed Mr Grainger but again not keen. I looked at the Simpson woodwind 10.3 but I'd probably end up having to get someone to engineer the wooden bits like the beams into glass, and reposition the mast forward.

So the question is: Who have I forgotten ? Is there a design out there 32' to 9.9m chined foam probably open deck where I can get the mast far enough forward for a seperate bridgedeck cabin ? An "active" designer should be able to give the details I want.

Thank you for reading.

 

Ed Horstman has stock cats in that size range, foam glass or ply and like the trimarans they feature room inside.

 

Could you perhaps scale up a Woods Gypsy to 10 metres?

Or just scale down a Romany a bit?

 

Thank you for the replies.

EH only has full width bridgedeck cabin boats and I don't think he'd be interested in doing a one off.

Yes scaling up or down is what I'd like to do. Mr Woods isn't keen but I'm thinking of just doing it myself.

The main problem is the beams. The Romany cross beams are on his website. The mast beam isn't. Trouble is I want to build in all glass and now I'm not sure about doing the engineering to design equivalent beams. It's this I need help with more than anything else. I guess I might be able to get a local engineer to do the sums, but someone with boat experience would be best.

It would be Saturn, not Gypsy. Chined flat panel foam sandwich. 12.5% in each direction gives me about 5'9" headroom, 9.9 long. Still trying to do the displacement calculations. Romany would be about -4% and is probably a better starting point, but as I say Mr Woods isn't keen. Romany is slightly narrower on the waterline than Tamar so at 9.9m it would still have a slimmer length to beam ratio. If you stretch Tamar to 9.9m it is still SLIGHTLY fatter than a 9.9 Romany but the difference is at the second decimal place so there isn't much in it. My issue with the Tamar though is how huge the hulls are. 2.2 headroom!! I'm 5'6" so 1.8 headroom is more than enough, 5'9" would be plenty. I guess I could lower the cabin to 1.8...

On his website Mr Woods says Vardo is an enlargement of Saturn. It's numbers are very close to Romany, so maybe the chined Romany hulls are similar to Vardo. Maybe they are all similar...

I know I'm whinging but it's so frustrating being like this.

 

Actually Ed does have a sporty 27 footer without a bridge deck.

Hanneke Boon might talk to you, the Pahi 31 and Tiki 30 come to mind if you like Wharrams.

 

Yes you are correct. Also one of his tris has floats you can use as a cat as I recall. I just don't think he would be interested in getting into a semi custom design.

I don't check the Wharram pages but last I looked they were staying away from anything other than ply and timber ? If you are suggesting I build a Wharram I'm sorry but no way. I have had Wharram plans in the past and don't have a high opinion of them.

Anyway I'll have a look. Thank you for the suggestions.

 

I thought of the Pahi because the prototype was foam glass.

 

Ok. Yes some have been built in foam, but mainly the hull skins. I don't know if any beams have been done in glass and if you have to re-engineer them then you are back to my current situation.

Thank you for the thoughts though.

I have a plan but I need to find someone to do the beams. With that I am sorted...

 

Guzzis3. A little bit different but it meets some of your requirements. I don't know if there are plans available. This featured on Proa file. Proa File | Argo the Modular Pod Cat https://proafile.com/multihull-boats/article/argo-the-modular-pod-cat

 

I think design study as they are titled is the plan answer. Still maybe the suggestion should be to roll your own Guzzi3, you might have more fun and you already have your concept.

 

Thank you for the replies. Just a quick note I am away from home these next few days so am using my Chromebook which doesn't talk to me as well as my home machine so if I miss spelling mistakes etc please be patient with me.

Oldmulti thank you but that looks like a moulded boat. Even if the plans exist I am looking to build in flat panel.

If I could still see properly, and read, I could tackle this myself, but I have to face the fact that some things are now beyond me and I need to call in help.

I'm pretty confident the Saturn hulls will scale up nicely. I'll confirm this hopefully this coming week. I'm pretty confident I can work out the LAR keels with the information I have at home. I'm less confident about under slung rudders but I suspect I can nut that out. The issue is the beams and these are of course critical. I am sure I can find someone to do the sums for me, I just thought there might be a designer I'd forgotten to check.

Roger Simpson did a 10.5 open deck and his stuff is nice but the mast beam looks too far back and as I said it's the same problem re-engineering the timber to glass.

Anyway thank you again for the thoughts.

 

Aft masts don’t try and stuff the bows downwind.
As for beams, I’d just look for a glass build of similar or larger size and copy those.
I’m sure Richard Woods would be happy to take your money for some beam drawings.

 

I need to do some sums than I'll see what he says, but he is on record not liking people growing his boats too much.

The Ray Kendrick Scarab 32 is a possibility. I'd need to reorganise the main hull for an aft cabin but there is space. Displacement is adequate. It should be a really nice boat. I prefer cats but folding to fit a single marina berth is appealing. Centerboard! Good in shallow water..

A cat give roomier deck and better accommodations but teh S32 is good..

 

Guzzi,

Glad to see you're still dreaming of the perfect vessel! Wouldn't scaling Romany down be the best solution as the length only needs to decrease 4% to meet the 10M threshold? That way you only need to do minimal longitudinal scaling and there are no structural implications.

I also, of course, feel obligated to suggest a flat-bottomed plywood gypsy is all the boat you need and has a much better chance of being finished. Yes, the plywood rots and it's not a great value in Oz, but as you know it could outlast us all with care. And yes, gypsy is slower than these other boats, but a finished gypsy on the water is much faster than a half-finished Romany on land. So best to get off the internet, call up your local Joubert distributor, order a unit of plywood and start cutting bulkheads.

 

Regarding Romany, that's what I thought but Mr Woods isn't keen. As I say it still leaves Romany with a narrower waterline beam than Tamar which is much shorter.

I have Saturn plans. Basically the same size as Gypsy and similar payload and time to build. It would have been perfect if I could still drive. Now it makes less sense.

Carrying more water is a luxury, and the payload costs...time money etc. I've thought about this a lot and I think it's the way to go.

No I am not building in ply. I have owned many ply boats. Absolutely hate them. Strip plank row boats are beautiful things. Timber sail boats that live on a mooring really aren't...I'd put up with strip hull bottoms as pawlownia and WRC seem to have less rot problems when properly encapsulated in glass, but I wouldn't put ply anywhere. And I can get foam much cheaper than I can get strip. If I found a cheap source of strip I'd consider that for sure.