Mostly ! How do you define luxury on a boat ? Here are some of our criteria :
Are cats more luxurious than monohulls ?
Depends on your criteria - many monohulls have beautiful interiors and our Rival 41 was entirely
hand-made and hand-fitted. But if you want additional space for lounging and sleeping then a cat
is almost always more comfortable. We're not going to discuss comfort and performance in a seaway - we're looking at luxury living - and being on anchor or in a berth occupies far more of a cruiser's time than being at sea.
That's not to say that having double berths which don't need lee-cloths doesn't help when you're at sea. The steadier platform of a cat and the ease with which you can move about on level floors without steep deep companionways is also a benefit. But I thought we'd discuss here what we like about our catamaran - a Solaris Sunrise 36 - which leaves us in the lap of luxury.
That's not to say that condo cats aren't often significantly more luxurious than their smaller counterparts - but more modern boats are built down to a price and weight so some condo cats look as though they've been fitted with an MFI kitchen. But budget and sailing area have led us to believe that condo cats aren't for us - at least not yet ! If catamaran sailing proves to be truly addictive there is always the possibility of selling the house and heading off. If that sounds mad when we were in this for down-sizing, perhaps it shows how a move from a mono to a cat can be quite liberating.
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Headroom and space
Pretty obvious - there's nothing like trying to get your wet-weather gear on when you can't stand up. Similarly the luxury of lounging in a large saloon or cockpit with your feet up is also a no-brainer. So let's move on.
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Several Rooms With a View
Having a deck saloon and berths which also allow you a view are 2 of the areas of luxury which we enjoy the most. Call us nosy but it is great to see the wild life, the traffic on the river and sights such as the
Kingswear Castle paddle steamer without having to go outside.
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Electricity - mostly free and always vital
In the days when we kept our Sadler 29 on a swinging mooring, someone who had a marina berth
asked how we managed for electricity. At the time we were really surprised and said "Well we hardly use any !" We had an oil lamp, hand-pumped water, no hot water apart from the kettle, a cool box instead of a fridge and we cooled our wine by wrapping the bottles in tea-towels wetted with sea water. Sounds very Heath Robinson now, doesn't it ?
These days we run laptops, LED electric lights, a diesel heater, pumped hot and cold water and we like our booze properly chilled. The fridge is a necessity for food and we sometimes run a freezer too for convenience. So keeping our house batteries topped up is a very high priority. This isn't the place for a lengthy discussion of battery types - suffice it that we have opted for lead carbon AGM batteries which effectively stand between lithium batteries and AGM.
Charging those batteries is worth talking about. If you want to spend lots of time on your boat, as we do, then solar panels are the cheapest and most effective option. Broadly your other options are wind/water generation (nothing like as cost-effective in our experience), running your engines, or a generator. Having a cat with a large coachroof has allowed us to site 4 solar panels there. In late spring/summer/early autumn we normally keep our batteries topped up from solar panels alone - even in cloudy weather. As a backup we have 2 engines/alternators and we carry a small "suitcase" petrol generator (1Kw).
Apart from the freedom this gives us, it also saves the cost of marina berths. There's virtually no requirement to visit a marina - at least for electricity. So not only luxury but FREE luxury !
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Connectivity, Charging and an On-Board Server
Whether its mobile phone coverage or 4G Internet coverage, decent connectivity is vital for most people who want to spend significant periods on their boat. Where you choose to cruise affects availability but we find having on-board WiFi saves us pining for fibre internet at home - even though the speeds are not as good. Whether we're working from the boat, ordering online or keep in touch we find it essential. So our electrical self-sufficiency helps once again. We run a Raspberry Pi - a single-board low-consumption computer which acts not only as a WiFi server (to access the 4G networks via a single external antenna for better performance) but fulfills many other roles from navigation to instrument monitoring and reporting.
If you need to work seriously from your boat or can justify the expense, the
Starlink Satellite system is very popular with the boating fraternity, especially offshore away from 4G signal. Before dedicated monohullers start to spit, connectivity is as easy to achieve on a mono as a cat - although the electrical self-sufficiency is generally more difficult as there are fewer places to mount solar panels.
No boat is complete without a plethora of places to charge your electronics - older boats tend to have 12V cigarette lighter sockets, which can take a USB adapter, but there's nothing more frustrating that having insufficient sockets or too little in the batteries to charge that laptop.
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A Good Galley
Rule No. One - there is never enough worktop or cupboard space in a galley - regardless of whether you've got a mono or a cat. But generally we found cats had rather more usable space. On the out-board side, our Solaris Sunrise 36 has a long narrow countertop, a separate 4-burner hob plus an eye-level oven/grill. Twin sinks with hot and cold pressurised water are on the inboard side with ample room for a drainer tray, cutlery drainer, cleaning stuff etc. The refrigerator is front-opening - convenient although it uses more power than a top-opening fridge. We also have room elsewhere for a small free-standing fridge/freezer when we need one. Cupboard space on the cat is a little limited because the cupboards aren't as deep - but that does save crawling around on your knees for the tin or saucepan which has decided to hide at the back !
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Water - Do I Need a Watermaker ?
Having enough water for drinking, showering etc is very important. However in Europe we find that there are plenty of places to obtain water free of charge and without going into a marina. You do need decent sized tanks but most cruising boats do. Sometimes it will mean taking jerry cans to a tap, which can be a pain. But with the expanse of deck on a cat you could also consider setting up a water collection system.
I was astonished to watch a YouTube video of a British couple with their first cruising boat saying that the first new purchase they had been advised to make was a watermaker. Having cruised around the UK for several decades we've never found the need and, unless you're going somewhere seriously warm or going offshore, this is NOT what I would spend serious money on as a first priority. There are a zillion other priorities ! Try what you've got before spending a serious amount of money on one, would be our take on watermakers.
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Creature Comforts and Treats
Things not mentioned so far - a spacious heads/shower, storage for clothes, wet-weather gear, food, booze, extras
such as books (if you're not a tablet or electronic navigation fan) and a television. Our boat has loads of space for all of that - plus dog food, dog bedding, dog harnesses, dog lifejackets ....
So if it weren't January with the 10th named storm this season due I'd be off to the boat. Enjoy !
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