Catamaran Statistics and Admiral Yachts Info

I have updated stats on the Catamaran Statistics chart that is always located at the bottom of this blog. I was looking for stats on the Admiral Yachts Catamarans and came up empty. They have a nice website, but the stats are missing. They do have links to their specifications, but I couldn’t find length, width, sail area etc information. I searched the internet and no luck. It appears the 40 footer is new as I could only find info on the older 38 model. I apologize in advance if some of the links are not working correctly. Web sites seem to change often.

I did find their day sailor option interesting. If you don’t plan to live on your boat and you are worried that day sailing with a bunch of strangers that will trash your boat, then this might be the way to go. It is very accommodating, yet rugged. I suspect a lot of weight was cut down with this configuration so it may be a great performer. I just wish I had the specs to do the math with.

The prices are very reasonable. Just not sure about quality or what you are missing for the price, but it is very intriguing. It is apparent that some of the fluff and elegant wood grain accommodations are missing, but for some, this is ok. Less maintenance this way.

My Catamaran research has been limited lately due to increases in trips and family life. I just added a blog to my CatManDaves Adventure page regarding my recent trip to Lake McSwain. There is a video that includes fishing, and wildlife viewing of a Bobcat, deer, coyote and other creatures.

I have not stopped dreaming though. The plan is still on. It just takes time. I need to win the lottery. That would speed things up.

CatManDave's Adventures

I have created a separate blog so that I can stay on topic here on my Catamaran Dreams site. I figure those that are interested in Catamarans may not care about anything other then Catamarans and Sailing. If however you still want to read about my adventures that are not sailing related please checkout my other site here. http://catmandave.blogspot.com/

Although I don't have much here yet you might enjoy the post titled "Trophy Room". I plan to add more trophies to this as I find time.

If you want you can subscribe to my blogs. Scroll down the left or right hand side and subscribe to receive emails notifications when new posts are submitted.

Don't forget about the Catamaran Stats at the bottom of the page. I plan to update that soon with new links and stats.

You will also find some useful links that I think are pertinant to each blog. These are not advertisers. Look for the "Useful Links" section. I will be adding more soon.

Overnight Sailboat Adventure in Monterey Ca

My wife and I spent an eventful overnight trip in Monterey Ca for our 4 year anniversary. Aside from a sleepless night aboard a 30 foot sailboat it was a fun trip. We witnessed a couple Deer wandering the streets, a seal that was ringing the dinner bell in hopes for a free meal, I did some free diving, went shopping and we stayed overnight in a 30 foot sailboat.

My wife is aware of my fascination with sailboats and decided to schedule an overnight stay on a sailboat. She was unable to find a catamaran so she settled for a 30 foot monohull. I thought it would be interesting too so I encouraged her to make the reservation even though I knew very little about what to expect. Unfortunately neither of us knew exactly what we were in store for. Had we known, we wouldn’t have done it, at least not on this boat under the circumstances of which I will explain.

Knowing Monterey I expected to hear some seals making noise, and maybe a fog horn and some other harbor noises, but I didn’t expect to be kept awake most of the night. As you enter the main cabin area there was at 1st a subtle odor, but after 15 minutes of it I felt a little nauseous. Perhaps it was the combination of the sway of the boat and the really bad 4 pack of Woodbridge Chardonnay that my wife picked out. The bathroom required a man to arch his back, or sit down to go to the bathroom. The smell in the bathroom was worse then the fuel smell in the main cabin. The Candle provided just didn’t do the trick.

You could barely stand up in the aft cabin and I had to sit and spin to get into bed. I almost knocked my wife out in the process. I realize some of this is par for the course in a small older sailboat, but for 99.00 a night we expected a lot more. Check in was at 8:30PM and checkout was at 10AM. We were out before 8AM since there was no coffee pot. There was no TV or music. You weren’t allowed to use the shower. The place appeared to be lived in and was in disarray. The seat and bed cushions looked as if it has never been replaced or cleaned. A sheet was covering the bed and another sheet was there to sleep under, topped with an unzipped sleeping bag. I was either too cold or too hot all night.

We slept in the aft berth. My left ear was a few inches from the Starboard hull. Just outside of the hull there was three bumpers. There was a fairly significant surge in the harbor and the noise put out by the squeaking bumpers was almost unbearable. If they could turn the craft around it may have been an improvement. Needless to say we didn’t sleep well.

My wife found the overnight sailboat offering on the Monterey Bay Sailing website. Here is the link to the overnight offering. http://www.montereysailing.com/overnight.html Although I am sure the day sailing is fine the 99.00 we spent was a rip off.

Here is a quote from the Monterey Cruises page “Boat Overnights are romantic and the sleep that falls over you as our vessel gently rocks in her berth is the most restful you will ever have and less expensive than most hotels”. This statement could not be further from the truth. My goal here is not to bash someone’s business, but I feel others should be warned. If you are interested in spending a night in Monterey on a boat don’t do it through the Monterey Bay Sailing company.


Boat Name: Pegasus
Boat Manufacturer: Celestial
Length: 30ft

Catana 431 and Fishing Report

There was a recent article on the Catana 431 in the Boat U,S. magazine. There was a few interesting points that were made. The 1st thing they mentioned is that the number and size of multihull’s on display increase with each passing boat show season and that the popularity is growing. Although this is not news to me it is good to hear it. Something of concern that was mentioned was that the wire sizes and systems may not be suited to U.S. hookups. This will be a concern whenever purchasing a boat manufactured outside of the US. They also mentioned that the Catana was considerably more expensive then similarly sized multihull’s which again is not surprising to me but I thought it should be mentioned.

I was recently informed of a local radio program on KFBK 1530AM that covers hunting, fishing and camping in Northern California. The best part about it, is that it is recorded so you can listen to it anytime you want. It lasts 3 hours and there are no commercials for the most part. I have found it to be informative so far and look forward to listening to it every Monday while working or Saturday if I plan to fish on Sunday. I am listening to last Saturdays show and they have talked about Stripers, Bass, Chad, Sturgeon and Salmon fishing. They have discussed the influx of seals, and mountain lions and recommended some equipment. They even give out advice on where to fish and how to fish it. If you fish in from the Bay area up to the Sacramento area this should be a good program for you.

I am going Striper fishing again this Friday while the fishing is still good. I have several spots that should hold fish so we should be able to find a school. Once we find them I want to try to catch one or more on a fly. My dad tied up a couple fly’s that rattle that I think would work well. I plan to do some free diving as well in Monterey on Saturday, so I hope to have some good pics and video for the blog soon. I am going to talk to the local dive shop to find out about regulations on Spear fishing. .It might be too early yet, but the Halibut move into the shallows soon so if all goes well we will have some halibut in the freezer soon. Speaking of Sport fishing regulations here is a great way to find the regulations for the California coastline. http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/fishing_map.asp

I am starting to wonder if I should maintain more then one blog so that I can keep things on topic. Although my ultimate goal is still to buy a Catamaran, readers might find my site more useful if it stayed on target. I could have another blog that covers my angling adventures. Any thoughts?

Thoughts on Used Catamarans and US Dollar Update

Been thinking more seriously about narrowing down the list of cats that I might want to purchase sometime in the future. Outremer certainly comes to mind. There is a good article comparing two of the Outremer 42’s. One uses diesel and the other uses diesel electric propulsion. Check it out here. There is some promising information surrounding electric propulsion. Although there are still ups and downs, I have to remember that my boat will be power hungry. This is another reason to go with an electric cat.

Another cat I would love to own although I am guessing it will be out of my price range is a Gunboat. Just to see what is new I went to there website. There are a couple links to some interesting Gunboat blogs and additional news found here. They have announced the new Gunboat 66 although not much info on it yet.

I would love to own a cat 50 feet or more but I suspect I will at some point have to do a reality check and drop that goal. A 41 foot Maine Cat might be a better option for me. It would be substantially less money and still be a good performing and functional cat which are two of my top priorities. This would free up much more money for upgrades and ongoing maintenance.

Here is an update on the US dollar to EURO that I have been watching. Things are starting to show improvement for the US Dollar. To recap, I started on 2-14-2008. In my sample I made the assumption that someone might buy a Catamaran at 500k EURO and converted that into US Dollars using http://www.xe.com/ as a translator and kept track over time. Below is the data I have gathered so far. As you can see as of April things are beginning to trend downward.