Hi all. just I thought I'd share this story. A couple of weeks ago my brother in law, his seven year old son, and I sailed up to Mussy for a week of diving and snorkelling. I have a 37ft Cat that I bought a year or so ago to live on but have been too scared of to even go onboard. I've kept it moored up and barely looked at it. Just one of many stupid decisions I made after my wife left. Anyway, my brother in law Al CAN sail and I can't (well, not well anyway) but we sailed up to Musgrave and back , through the great Sandy Straits, without a hitch. It was amazing and I love sailing her now. She's plenty big enough with a masive galley with oven and fridge freezer and all the trimmings. Don't know why she used to freak me out so much. I have an old style Garmin GPS onboard (the type that doesn't have the maps or anything) but I never even used it. I downloaded Navionics software to my HTC Desire (phone) for $13.30 and it was AMAZING! Never missed a beat all the way up and back. Like I said, Great Sandy Straits at NIGHT.....no worries at all. And hit all my diving marks bang on everytime (I kept it in a ziplock plastic bag of course). I was blown away by it. If I decide to keep her, obviously I'll upgrade to a better dedicated GPS but as a stopgap WOW!
Anyway, apart from a few hiccups, we had a ball (especially the kid). I might start taking her out more now that I know how comfortable she is to live on and sail. It wasn't ALL gravy of course. Like our decision to sail out from Kingfisher bay at 9.00pm on a pitch black starless night, in a strong wind warning! :) Because we're geniouses :) There was us and a mate in his 40ft Schionning so we had two boats but it was still scary. The big girl ate it up though, even though I had to rely on my autopilot to hold course coz it was so dark, I had no point of reference and everytime I touched the wheel she'd round up. We were scared all night and then the sun came up and we could actually SEE the size of these swells, and then we were TERRIFIED! Made it to Mussy though and we had our pick of anchorages because no-one else was stupid enough to be out there in that :) Thankfully the wind dropped out and we had a ball. The trip back was also better.
Well this has been rambling and pointless (sorry) I just wanted to get a few thoughts and details down. In that vein, I want to say that I LOVE cats! She's fast and stable and spacious and draws bugger all water and is very easy to sail even singlehanded (furling headsail and boom furling main).
Peter