Friday, April 11, 2008

Surfing for New Catamaran News

In a way I am kind of glad I am not ready to buy a Catamaran just yet. There is so much innovation and change going on, although not fast enough for my tastes. I hope that when I am ready to buy, the cat I desire will be available at a used price and in relatively good shape. I may end up waiting a long time for this to happen. I am sure I won’t wait any longer then I have to. I may instead opt to buy something as new as possible for as less as possible with the idea that I will replace the power plant and generator to support a diesel electric/hybrid concept. I really feel like this will be the best bet and I expect in the next year or two that technologies will improve in this area.

The area I plan on parking my cat will require me to motor for short periods of time here and there to reach to my destinations. While I am not motoring, the solar panels, props and wind generators will replenish the batteries. My ultimate goal is to travel using Mother Nature 99% of the time. This may sound like I am a tree hugger. I am sure I would get along great with them, but I am not so sure about the whole global warming thing. Bottom line is I just don’t want to pay 4 or 5 bucks a gallon to get from point A to point B. Can you blame me? If I can figure out a way to cook, heat water and keep things frozen without using fossil fuels, you can bet I will be looking into it. While moored I do not want to have to run the generator either. But you can bet I will want to shower, watch TV, and run lights all night if needed, maybe even do laundry if I have one on board. Question is, will I have any choice in the matter? Depending on the situation I am sure I will hit a point where the generator will need to kick in. I just want to minimize this as much as possible.

I did a little surfing today to look for some Catamaran news. Not much new though. There is some news about the Voyager 10, however this is two small for my taste. . Apparently the Lagoon 440 is now offering as an option the same hybrid power plant that comes standard on the 420. I am not a fan of Lagoons yet though but it is nice to see this technology taking off. You can read about some recent launchings here. Most are below 40 ft in length. Although I don’t know if I want to go aluminum, it is something I would love to take a look at. The Sirus Racha 1530 Aluminum Catamaran might be something to keep an eye out for. It is considered to be very weight efficient for a 50ft cat. She doesn’t look very pretty without paint, but maybe that is a good thing. Looks mean. Something that pirates might pass up.

1 comment:

Will Jess & Saskia said...

where did you get this picture of the sirus alumnimum catamaran. i ask b/c if you have more i would be very interested to see them. i've actually spoken with the team at Sirus in thailand and have quite a few pictures but not this one so it makes me think there are more out there. thanks, will

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