We are greatly looking forward to finally meeting you guys in just a couple months!!

And her email is: cindywallach (at) yahoo (dot) com

Can’t wait to meet you guys at NuRVers this year!
.-= Sara´s last blog ..Rock Your Camera =-.

I am not wild about some of the design choices. First, the berths are all in the bridge deck, not in the hulls. They will be higher above the waterline and so subject to more motion than a berth set low in a hull. Also, waves will slap against the underside of the bed while underway and in rough anchorages. I’m not excited about the galley down in a hull instead of up in the bridge deck. At anchor, I am often cooking while we entertain, so I like the galley to be with easy conversation distance of the main salon and the cockpit. There are lots of subjective elements in boat design, it can be a real challenge to find the best configuration for any given person or family.

Here is a link to a catamaran dealer with a great write up on the elements of catamaran design. It is, of course, biased toward the brand he sells, but he makes a lot of valid points.

http://www.bayacht.com/goodbad.htm

http://www.sailwhisper.com
http://www.rutuonline.com

Rutu goes for major automation of systems with lots of push buttons, status displays and custom make circuit boards. The site is only about the boat design and construction, no travel. I don’t know if he ever finished his boat….

Whisper has great detail about actually using the systems underway, getting technical support on remote Pacific Islands, etc. They also include 7 years of logs with details of their lives and travels.

There are tons of other boat blog sites, but I find myself referring to these two for system design ideas and inspiration.

Enjoy!

They have a fabulous catamaran! Do you know what type it is, and what size? The galley in your photos looked positively huge!

Thank you for the awesome comments. It is really great to get so much feedback from someone who has actually spent time living on water.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyjanssens/sets/72157603271972221/

That will be a really fun journey to follow you on…I hope it all falls into place!

Safety should also be a paramount concern. Either one of you should be able to safely operate your boat in even the most extreme conditions. When selecting a rig and designing upgrades, try to make everything possible from the cockpit. Weather prediction and navigation are important aspects of safety. It is very important to learn the old ways and use them as a guide for designing your electronics installation. I am a firm believer in minimal cockpit instrumentation since the person driving the boat should be looking around, not down at a screen. Always have paper charts, a magnetic compass and old school navigation tools on hand since electronics will fail at the most inconvenient times.

Your cruising area will also dictate how many and what spares you will need to carry. If you are going to exotic, remote locales like the many beautiful uninhabited islands in the Bahamas or traveling to third world countries in Caribbean and Latin America, you need to have the knowledge, tools and supplies to solve most of your own problems. Outside the US, it is difficult to get US companies to honor warranties.

Be wary of carrying the latest technology with you. Boats are a very harsh environment with sudden motion, salty air, etc. Things that work just fine on land will break all the time and for no apparent reason. It will be difficult to replace high tech things that fail while traveling outside the US. Stick to old school, proven technologies for crucial things like batteries. AGMs are nice, but golf cart batteries are universally available. We carry an external RAID array in a waterproof box for backups. We break it out in calm conditions and keep it safely stowed the rest of the time.

Keeping the inside of the boat dry is very important to me. Look for an engine installation with dripless shaft seals or saildrive transmissions. Look for deck stepped masts instead of keel stepped masts. A keel stepped mast rests on the boat’s keel and goes up through a hole in the deck. It is a stronger installation, but when it fails, it will most likely rip a big hole on your deck. In addition, the mast acts as a downspout for every drop of water that gets into the mast through fittings, etc. Finally, since the mast moves and flexes as you sail, it is difficult to keep the hole in the deck sealed completely. Either kind of mast can be removed and put into storage if you want to cruise the great loop or other inland waterways with low bridge clearances.

If your primary interest is boondocking and anchoring out, don’t worry about the width of your catamaran. A wider cat (at least 50% of its length) will give you better sailing performance, be safer and much brighter, airier and roomier. You will have to be more choosy about your haulout ports and pay a little extra when you need to be in a marina, but the tradeoffs are worth it. If you want a catamaran, get a catamaran, not a bastardized mono-hull wannabee. Mooring fields are available in most places where you might want to leave the boat (at least on the east coast of the US and through the Caribbean). A catamaran will also be better for entertaining, litter box isolation, bright interior area and outside work/play space. Make sure any cat you buy has all the necessary safety features and is solidly built enough for sailing the places you want to go. A lot of cats are designed for inland waters and will start to have problems when exposed to the stresses of open seas. Cats also require very careful monitoring while under sail. A monohull with too much sail up with heel way over, then round up into the wind and mostly stop. A cat with too much sail up will go faster and faster until it pitchpoles (flips over forward in a spectacular way). Cats are often unsinkable, but they won’t right themselves either. Have plans for dealing with being trapped on an inverted catamaran (better than a sinking monohull, I guess). I still prefer monohulls, but cats definitely have their advantages.

The most decisive factor in the safety of a sailing vessel is the crew. So learn all you can from books and people. Also think about taking some classes. Look for delivery skippers that will take one or both of you along. See if you can grab a crew berth on either a big ocean race or cruising rally. I’ve heard that if you show up on the docks before a big rally, you can often find a boat that needs an extra hand.

–gray

The neck muscle thing is fine in mild conditions; I know an Aussie circumnavigator who has a pad over his galley counter where he leans his forehead for just that reason. But random braces to the overhead underway… eeek. Cervical spine damage!
.-= Steven Roberts´s last blog ..BEHEMOTH Memories =-.

I really love the raised pilothouse design. The windows appear glorious.

As for the neck muscle bracing… That actually makes sense you know…

I’m totally with you on the “no need for multiple heads” thing. We toured a boat in Stuart where the owner was so proud of the FOUR toilets. All I could think was, “Yeah, buddy, you can clean all those. Not me!”
.-= Louise´s last blog ..West Texas solitude =-.

One honesty-impaired broker in Seattle, however, responded to my complaints about insufficient headroom on one boat by saying, “no, mate, that’s a good thing! In a seaway, you can brace with your neck muscles and have both hands free!”

Just one of many absurd bits of fiction from that guy… it’s a jungle out there.

Anyway, great list – I’ll keep my eyes open for you. Here’s mine, the product of a very similar quest:

http://nomadness.com/nomadness-walkthrough

Steve
.-= Steven Roberts´s last blog ..BEHEMOTH Memories =-.

Noah and I thought about boat life when we lived in Bocas del Toro, but e never got to the point of researching as you have. Now that we live so far inland, a boat would be pointless, it’s on the backburner for the moment.

But I do want to mention the woman who first got me interested in boating life. An amazing woman named Valerie who owned a chambres d’hotes called La Matabone outside of Lourges in the South of France. (I include her link bc if you ever have a chance to stay with her, you should. She’s most definitely what I call a true traveler.)

Valerie lived for years with her family on a boat in the South Pacific — I believe New Caledonia — and ran a boat supply store for others boating the area.