Catching a Dream

Dream Catcher enters our lives!

About a year ago, we purchased "the boat", a 2009 Leopard 40, that we plan on using to exit our current reality. Purchasing the boat was really a 4 year process that began in 2008 when we first set up this blog and made the decision to go. We really had no idea as to what kind of boat to sail away on. I've owned several 30-40' monohulls and I love the feel of a monohull as it heels to the wind and it surges through the water. So, we started out pretty biased towards a monohull.

The Perfect Boat

It's definitely going to be a different decision for different people. There is no such thing as one perfect boat, there are just many boats perfect for different people. For us, the decision evolved based on our research over the years.

Monohull versus Multihull

We read books, went to boat shows, talked to cruisers and immersed ourselves in the debate. I remember going to Newport Boat Show and talking to a guy showing his Lagoon 380. His small family lived on it and he described what it was like. It sounded great, so it gave us an incentive to charter a cat in the BVIs a year later. We had a fantastic trip and we were pretty sold on the concept at that point, even though we felt it was like driving a bus, rather than the integrated feeling of wind and waves on a monohull. We decided we needed to try more cats and see if we could find one with a decent sailing experience.

Meanwhile, I also started monitoring the price of 38-42' cats that were 4-5 years old. The goal was to collect a large enough database over time so that I could understand a "good deal" when I saw one. We had a rough budget to plan around, of course we wound up violating it, so good luck with "budgeting" your boat.

I think the decision to go with the cat was founded on the following rationale:

1. Safety: fundamentally, monohulls sink and cats generally don't. There is plenty of debate about this, I've just decided that for us, we'd be better on an upside down floating cat rather than alone in the ocean with our boat deep beneath us. There's another aspect of safety that is probably even more compelling - getting worn out and doing something stupid. It seems a lot of the boating disasters I've read about involve bad decisions when people are worn out from lack of sleep or were hurt from an unexpected jolt while trying to navigate a cabin tilted 25 degrees. I have to believe that a cat in a storm is a far superior place to weather a nasty blow. I guess we'll test that theory at some point.
2. Anchorage: most cruising is 90% on the hook and a cat is a far superior platform. Better visibility, more space, less rocking, less draft to get to the best places. I just think it's a hands-down win for the cat in this area.
3. Redundancy: there are practically two of everything which increases safety and certainly makes it much easier to deal with problems. Sure, you have two of everything to go wrong and/or maintain, but I'd much rather have the backup option than not have it. Having two engines is also a big plus maneuvering. 
4. Sailing: really can't come to any conclusion so far. I definitely prefer the feel of the monohull, but if your goal is to sail downwind, a cat can be a pretty fast way to do it. Of course, not if you load it up too much (we seem likely to do).
5. Dinghy: you might think this is an odd category, but you really do use your dinghy a lot when cruising, so it's important to have a good dinghy and a safe place to store it at night. The setup on a cat for a dinghy is just really ideal. It is super simple to stow it and launch it. You can get a decent sized RIB and not worry about where the heck is it going to stow. You can solve these problems on a monohull too, but the cat is just perfectly setup for dealing with it.

Everyone will have their different criteria, but it wasn't too difficult to settle on the cat for us. The next problem was which make of cat and how old.