Good Cat is considered family friendly. Just happened to crew on Seawind 1000.
Small gathering of Seawinds with 1000, 1160 and 1250 on display.
30 years sailing monohulls and sailing big Cat is wow factor.
Personally I love monos these Cats are for living. Especially 1250 is incredible
volume , must see it believe it. /see www.seawindcats.com/
I heard some marinas don't like Cats...

If you are going to do it, don't buy the boat here, look in Europe or Caribbean. You will then be able to keep the house.

cisco said...

Piros said...

Very seriously thinking about selling the house and buying a 40 to 45 cat and leaving on a 3 year journey.

Why would you sell your real estate?? Why not use your real estate to finance your sailing??

P.S. Take notice of what your womenfolk are saying, be it verbal or just body language.

I hear you Cisco and thanks Trace for input from a womans perspective and trust me I'm right up on the 15 yo Bitch status My kids are pretty adventurous though plus they'll do anything to get out of school. My wife Belinda will be fine as long as we don't run out of wine.

A bit more info ....it's not just the house we are selling it's everything , cars , furniture , stink boats , the only thing I won't sell is what goes on the cat , what doesn't get spent on the cat goes in the bank and what doesn't sell gets thrown or given away nothing goes to storage.

The whole idea is our only overheads will be the Cat , no rates , power bills , bank loans , school fees ect ect.We will be truly free from the machine. I'm 48 still really fit and pumped to go , I'm not going to be sensible about it because if you do that you wait until your 70 and you have to fit a wheel chair ramp on your boat. I want to surf , sail and dive around the world while I still can and enjoy it my immediate family ,not a weekend here and there with the grand kids.

Still plan to some photographic & film work plus do some skipper, deckie work, whatever. Belinda is a professional singer and the kids can sing as well. Just earn enough to keep us afloat and not dig into the money left at home.

Really open to advice on brands of Cats and all ears to arguments for a mono , thanks for the input so far.

We have been looking at buying a sailing cat or mono to live on for 5-10 years. We plan to pick up a boat in Europe in mid 2014 and sail our way back to Oz over the 5-10 year period. We have chartered a couple of cats to see how they sail etc. We had a Lagoon 420 for a week in the Whitsundays and were very disappointed in the lack of sailing or motoring performance. We then chartered a Fountaine Salina 48ft which has plenty of room and good accomodation but still sails well and motored at about 10kn. It has room in the engine rooms for extras which you need for long term travels- desal, genset, dive compressor,extra batteries etc etc etc.

Cats however are expensive to buy and in some places finding a berth can be hard/expensive. The main advantages of a cat, apart from the space, is the stability whilst at anchor and the shallow draft. In rough seas most cats suffer from waves slamming onto the underside of the bridgedeck which if severe can damage the vessel. In rough seas I would prefer to be in a mono rather than a cat. Whilst at anchor I would rather be on a cat.

Most of the production monos available have plenty of cabins but not enough engineering space for extra equipment. We are now looking seriously at the Beneteau Sense 55 ft which seems to have enough cabin area, plenty of engineering space, good fresh water capacity of 970 ltrs and good fuel capacity of 840 ltrs. The Sense also has a more spacious cockpit than comparable monos but not as large as a 40-50ft cat, but still spacious.

I think you will find there are a lots more monos on the market, new or secondhand, than cats. A lot of the secondhand cats, and some monos are ex hire vessels and have had a hard life. Only a small percentage of the vessels on the market are set up for long term cruising so you will probably need to add the cruising gear to the vessel which can add a substantial amount to the cost of the vessel. In thye case of a new Sense 55 the base price in Europe is E330,000 but set up for cruising it is more like E550,000.


The current AUS$ exchange rate strength is on your side for a buy overseas. Hopefully this will continue.Good luck with the search for the right vessel for you and the family.

Did part of a delivery Last February from Sydney to Adelide on a Lagoon 380. I dont know how the 450 goes, but I bailed out in Adelaide mainly due to the ride and speed of that particular boat. average speed was about 6 knots and would reach 7knots with motors running besides the sails up.
When the sea got up in the Bass strait we may have reached 18 knots dropping down wave faces and consistant 40 knots but the boat just rolled around,
I know its great to have a level cabin, but traveling long distance is a real pain to the point of not being any fun. you just dont feel the dynamics of sailing on that lump of plastic. and with the hull groaning away in heavy sea you know its not made for that sort of trip.
It would be great to have the Lagoon where you want to spend most of your time. Otherwise look at a diffrent model of cat or go monohull, Of course not all of it was bad

I know its silly but anything the maker calls lagoon prolly shouldnt go to far out in to open water

do some research m8 found this site maybe of intrest www.atlantic-cruising.com/good-cat-bad-cat/

maybe some sailing holidays with the family a few grand and a couple of weeks on the water together may save a lot of heart ache later on and you get to try out a different boat