I hear you Gunni. There are not many Cats up on Lake Ontario, marinas are just not equipped to handle them. Every spring I envy the owner of my old Tanzer 22 as I'm washing and waxing Sabre 362.
Older sailors - upsize or downsize?
- Thread starter MightyMike
- Start date
Gunni, I don't see how "Cats & Tri's" could be the future of recreational sailing, where would they all be docked, the darn things are so wide it takes a minimum of (2) slips are required, man talk about adding cost!
I used to host a group of non-sailors on charters to various places in the Caribbean. One year when I was not able to secure a keelboat I accepted a massive Leopard catamaran instead. It was an overwhelming hit with the landlubbers, and quite frankly it was nice having a dock on the stern for our shoreside dinghy trips. But my crew of sailors damn near mutinied on me when talk turned to doing it again. I'm ambivalent, a bad day sailing is still sailing and I like managing big equipment that can kill me. But the thought of maintaining these beasts without a support crew puts them off my list.
I'm seeing them more and more tied up on the tee-dock hogging up the fairways. I was asked to raft with one this spring and the toe rail was 5 foot higher than mine. That freeboard has got to be a factor in the ability to point.
There was a very good article in the recent issue of Practical Sailor about cats vs keelboats. We enjoyed our 10 days on a 47' Leopard in the BVI's last year. 8 crew onboard. Very hard to hoist the main alone though!
Gunni makes a good point in that fiberglass isn't free of maintenance. Acres of it are acres of work or expense.
Being a former 356 owner I can attest that it is a very worthy boat for cruising for a couple. It isn't a sports car but it also isn't like sailing a house. It was far easier to sail than several smaller boats I've owned.
Being a former 356 owner I can attest that it is a very worthy boat for cruising for a couple. It isn't a sports car but it also isn't like sailing a house. It was far easier to sail than several smaller boats I've owned.
Back on topic. The PO of my boat, a Hunter 29.5 modified it for a single handed older sailor. He retrofitted a furling main, everything run back to the cockpit, traveler on the cabin top. Unfortunately cancer got him before he could really enjoy the boat but I benefited from his foresight. I just pasted the big 70 and plan to go into my 80's with this boat. My experience with cruising on the Florida West coast has been you do a lot of motoring on the ICW. I look at the boat as my sailing trawler.
For us senior sailors, it's tough to beat sailing a larger, fully equipped boat with lines led aft, autohelm, furler. lazy jacks. inboard etc. If anything, it's the maintenance that is the concern.
Those great big cats, with their wide decks (taking up two slips) and patio like features remind me of the RV's taking up space in the Walmart parking lots.
They are for some people.
When I stopped at the dock to fuel my new to me boat, a lady jumped off her GrandBanks power cruiser. Came up to me and said that they had a sailboat, but traded it in on the cabin cruiser. She thought there next step would be an RV.
I thought, with a tear, giving up the water would be a terrible thing.
They are for some people.
When I stopped at the dock to fuel my new to me boat, a lady jumped off her GrandBanks power cruiser. Came up to me and said that they had a sailboat, but traded it in on the cabin cruiser. She thought there next step would be an RV.
I thought, with a tear, giving up the water would be a terrible thing.
As the sad old saying goes:
Sailboat
Motorboat
Motorhome
Rest Home....................
Sailboat
Motorboat
Motorhome
Rest Home....................
And the other old adage: you don't quit sailing because you get old, you get old because you quit sailing.