I am thinking of buying a crusing catamaran (40+ feet) for some long distance blue water crusing and I have seen a few aluminum cats for sale. I have also read some good things about aluminum hulls in general (strong, tough, light compared to steel, easy to repair, etc.) Does anybody have an opinion about aluminum cats? Are they safe? Can they be repaired in third world countries? Are they light enough to take advantage of a cats speed? If aluminum is good, is steel better? Please help.

Back in the mid 80's before they redid the tax laws and eliminated the General Partnerships, we planned to build a fleet of three cats. I believe they were around 56' and slept about 30 people.
They were designed by Dick Koogle (designer of the Witness Catamarans)of Ft Meyers, FL.
We believed they would be really solid boats and should sail at about 90% of wind speed, and planned on two very light weight diesels of mucho hp to get 15 knots under power.
The plan was to run trips to the Bahamas. Normal boats take two days to get to Nassau, while these could make it overnight.
Alas, the new tax laws made us lose our investors and the boats never made it past the drawing board.

But, we difinitely felt that aluminum would be far superior to glass (too much chance for damage on reefs, docks, etc.) I think steel would be too heavy and would really hurt the performance of a multihull. Multihulls really perform much better with lighter weights.

Good luck,
Rick

I was in the keys and once saw an aluminum catamaran sailboat moored near a hobie rental operation. I swam out to it and the bottom of the hulls were covered in growth....

It seemed to me a good choice of hull material though! Aluminum is, however, a bit more difficult to weld than steel.

I believe that was the one owned by Calvert Sails. They bought it to run day trips and sunset stuff, but you need a lot of walkup traffic to make that fly.., it didn't fly.
The boat sat there unused for quite a while. I believe Calvert sold it, but don't know the details.
You might call him at 305-664-8056
Rick

hi for what its worth i was docked in durban south africa at their international jetty and a 50 t0 60' aluminum catamaran docked next to me, after the initial shock of finding out that they had just covered the mauritius- durban leg in half the time that a monohull would take, i found out that there were quite a few sailing around the world, the only gripe was that they had, was that they had to be really carefull with weight ie equipment and stores, if i remember correctly they were concerned with metal stress etc,but the vessel was very impressive and they had just crossed the indian ocean so im impressed.over and out Ray.