Crowther 34 beach marine vacationer

Hi, I'm looking into buying the above catamaran for cruising. Does anyone have any experience with this type of boat. It's designed by a well know designer Lock Crowther but have had no luck tracking down any information on this design.

Any advice would be appreciated. A hyperlink to the original add is below.

http://www.boatsales.com.au/boats-f...SE-AD-2866089/1986-CROWTHER-SAILING-CATAMARAN

Regards
Brent

 

I can't give much information but vague recollection is that used the beamy hulls for the Crowther 10. I think the C10 was originally designed as a capacious but simple boat with quite slim hulls, but the interior space attracted people who overloaded them. Lock therefore designed fatter hulls for Beach Marine so that they could fit under the existing deck mould and rig, but support the more luxurious boats that people were building. I think my mum's boat was the first fat hull launched. I think mum paid for the plug, which was then passed through various hands and was used as the centre hull for some quite good 10m tris.

Beach Marine and Crowther then parted ways (I liked Lock, I know whose side I was on!) and the owner of BM then started (ahem) designing. One of his first designs was the Vacationer, which used the fat C10 hulls as a base. The Vacationers that I recall (two friends had them and I accidentally sailed once with the owner of Bridge Marine on his) had no bridgedeck. I think those original fat C10 hulls were hacked into other shapes for other BM products.

Like many cruising cats (but NOT all) the Vacationers were not as fast as claimed and personally I didn't like the lack of a bridgedeck, but there never seemed to be anything wrong with the basic hull shape that Lock created.... not surprising.

Beach Marine didn't really turn out production boats so there was an enormous variation in their products, many of which were home finished. It's hard for me to give info in particular about them but I don't recall any structural issues with the hulls.

Catsketcher would remember all this better.

 

Hi Brent,

I sailed a 36 from San Diego to Cabo a few years ago. Fast boat. Not sure if they are of the same design, but the 36 was a racing hull. There was little room between the hulls. You had to bend way over to get from hull to hull. My friend is now on his way to Australia from SF. Solo on his 36. Last year he did Hawaii and back to SF. He loves his boat but plans to sell her when he gets to OZ.