Solaris Sunrise Catamaran 36

The criteria for a new boat were unchanged :

• sails and gear which were easier to handle
• a comfortable boat - and, in an ideal world, a deck saloon had always appealed
• a boat which took less strength to manhandle and was easy to manoeuvre under engine
• a boat which was enjoyable to sail and or motor
• as many creature comforts as were affordable and achievable

but now we were looking to compare size, costs, performance, accommodation ... and, of course, what toys the boat might come with.

Space and Accommodation
Total usable space - This is one area where catamarans beat the socks of most monohulls of comparable length. The larger newer cats can have stunning beam. So, for example, a Lagoon 40 - actually only 1.5 ft/0.5 longer than a Prout Elite has roughly 25% more space because of the larger beam. However, even an older cat with less than 1:2 beam:length ratio still provides much more space than a mono with a pointy bow and possibly a pointy stern too. Its hard to calculate but our Rival 41 with a maximum beam of 12.5 feet probably provided 40% less space than our Solaris Sunrise 36 catamaran. Here are a few examples of dimensions :

At this point you'll be thinking we're salesmen for Lagoon or dedicated followers of condo-cats. That's not true - though the more YouTube videos you see of these cats in warm blue waters the more you could be convinced. Further down we'll look at some of the downsides in a cooler climate, more restricted waters ... and that's before you look at the price tag.

Make/Model	Len ft	Beam ft	Total	Notes
Rival 41 mono	41.00	12.50	512.50	Assumes max. beam for full length which is NOT true ! Maybe c. 300sq ft.
Prout Elite 37	37.00	16.25	601.25
Lagoon 40	38.60	22.10	853.06
Lagoon 50	48.50	26.50	1,285.75

A 50ft/15m cat can provide 25ft/8m beam. Just look at the Leopards, the Lagoons and so on. And because catamarans carry their beam fore and aft, unlike the slim beauty of a Rival 41 or a Sadler 29, the longer the boat the greater the space. Its also true that the later catamarans tend to be beamier than many older cats. So the square footage of a 50ft condo cat might be 1300 sq feet /120 sq m. - 2.5 times the space of 37 ft cat such as a Prout Elite.
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Usable Accommodation - Again, the space in a cat largely translates into usable space - unlike the fine ends of a monohull. Even though it is unwise to load the extremities (bow and stern) with unnecessary weight for performance reasons, spaces such as the huge foredeck lockers on a cat can tidy away all your fenders and boat-hooks and such like.

The layout of catamarans which, with rare exceptions (e.g. Wharram) come with deck saloons, lounging space, larger galleys than most monohulls, larger berths, including double berths, large heads and so on is very appealing.

Budget, Mooring and the Condo Cats
If we wanted to retain the house for the winter, possibly renting it out as a holiday let, then our budget would not stretch to a true condo cat - the 40 to 50 footers with massive beam. These offer an astonishing amount of comfort but many seem to globe-trot remaining mainly at anchor. Finding a berth or even a mooring for a boat of that size might prove tricky. You could also ask how much space do 2 people and a large dog need - even if you have occasional guests ? There are disadvantages to size - in cost, choice and work as we found when we moved from the Sadler 29 to the Rival 41.

So we decided to look at cruising catamarans primarily in the range 35 ft to 40ft which largely lead to British-built cats - among them Prout, Broadblue, Gemini, Woods, Catalac plus a few outsiders such as Lagoon 37 or 380 or a Fontaine Pajot. A goodly part of our selection was based on availablity - in 2020 looking for a boat thousands of miles away seemed a faint dream.Lots of reading and browsing led us to concentrate on the Prout range - the 37, the Elite based on the 37, and we also looked at the Event 34, the Prout 35 and the 39ft Escale. In the odd mad moment we researched a couple of Prout 50s we found for sale - the Quasar/Espace.

As cats go, the Prouts are rather good-looking and much more affordable than, say the Broadblue. Neither the Gemini 105 or the Catalacs really appealed though we did look long and hard. The Gemini seemed to be higher priced for the same kind of spec. as the Prouts. Catalacs of the right size weren't available - there were 8m and 9m versions but very little else. Though their twin-engines and shaft drives were attractive in terms of manoeuvrability and easier maintenance.
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Beneath the skin
Most boats look lovely on the broker's details but when you start to view them and find out the details issues begin to emerge. Many of the boats we considered were 20 to 40 years old. The market for smaller cats has largely disappeared so virtually no-one has been making them in the recent past.

The article Prout vs Solaris Sunrise has come from our research, viewings, the offers we made - or didn't. Buying a boat is all about falling in love - though endless lists and spreadsheets attempt to put a scientific gloss on the process. So our views on the Prouts and the Solaris Sunrise are undoubtedly personal but we think we've been pretty honest - there are lots of things we liked on the Prouts - though we did eventually end up with the Solaris Sunrise 36. Sadly we found a number of issues with the Prouts we viewed. Some were individual to the boat but the issues of engine(s) and also mast compression raised their ugly heads. These are mentioned in the Prout vs Solaris Sunrise comparison. Every boat has its issues but these 2 - with the floppy headlinings which we'd encountered on previous boats meant that although we'd made offers on more than one Prout, we were still boatless. Until we happened across a boat on a mooring close by.
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Happenstance - falling over the Solaris Sunrise 36
We hadn't come across this make/model in our research and it wasn't until we saw one for sale on the Multihull Centre website that my husband turned to me and said "I'm sure that's the cat just down river". We'd seen her many times but never known what she was. And it's a lot more difficult to find out about their history than that of the Prouts. We think there may have been about 50 Solaris Sunrise 36 boats built - divided between the standard rig and the taller sports rig. According to the web, there were more than 500 Prout Elites built (that's not including the separate model, the 37). We think the Solaris Sunrise 36 is a little-known gem - with many similarities to the Elite - and some notable differences as you'll see from the comparison

The Prout Elite and the Solaris Sunrise are very similar in size and rig. The main difference is in layout - the Solaris has large aft cabins which have their benefits in terms of accommodation - but we preferred the cockpit on the Elite. So the comparison began.
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