You’ll enjoy the challenge and spirited fun of sailing a small recreational catamaran sailboat.
These boats are normally designed to launch and land from a beach.
They can rest on their keel and will not heel over like monohull boats might. Their rudders can also be retracted to their keel depth, which aids in protecting the rudders from damage when you run aground on the vessel.
Larger sizes of the catamaran sailboat can be used for long distance and cruising boats.
The 2001 race around the world was won by the sailors of a giant catamaran sailboat.
If you’ve sailed in monohull boats before, you’ll find that many of the principles are similar, but there are some rules that are peculiar to catamarans.
A catamaran sailboat may be more difficult to tack, if it doesn’t have center boards or dagger boards.
Every sailboat has to be able to resist lateral movement, or it won’t be able to be sailed in any direction other than downwind.
This is done by the use of the hull, or the center or dagger boards. A catamaran sailboat may be lighter for its size, and have less momentum to turn when they are head to wind.
Using the jib sail correctly is usually needed in completing a tack while not ending up pointing dead into the wind.
A catamaran sailboat does have a higher speed capability than a monohull of the same size, since their shape has less hydrodynamic drag.
But catamarans turn more slowly than do monohulls, since the spacing of the hull is increased.
A catamaran sailboat is less likely to capsize “beam-wise”, but they do have a tendency to “pitch-pole”, when the downwind bow sinks in the water and the boat trips forward.
When you train for sailing, even if you eventually wish to sail a catamaran sailboat, you may first use monohull boats, since they can be easier to learn on.
