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Review of Top 4 Catamaran Designers for Home BuildersThere are many catamaran designers but how do you find the best ones. If you have carefully reviewed our "9 Essential Features for the Cruising Catamaran" you are now armed with the things to look for. Our evaluation of the designers and their designs is from the point of view of the home builder. This means we are looking at the boats that can be readily built by an individual or husband/wife team. As Richard Woods says in his literature, "Boats of over 40 feet should not be built by the solo home builder because they just take too long. Life is too short," and I would agree. The boatyards and backyards of the world are littered with uncompleted boats which have simply overwhelmed their builders.
The comments that follow may be a little candid but they are based on our boat- building experience. All the boats described below, if built properly, are ocean-going boats. Our ratings of these designers are not an evaluation on whether their designs are good or bad, but more on their suitability for you building the design as a solo home builder. Some of their larger designs may also be good projects only if you are going to have the boat custom built for you or if you have hired help assisting you in your project.
Richard Woods
We are probably a little biased towards Richard's design's but that is because we are so happy with the package of features our boat has. He had many smaller designs in the 20 to 25 foot range, but the Gypsy is the smallest boat that he considered to be a minimum ocean cruiser. Some people will say that 28.5 feet is just too small a boat for ocean cruising. We would disagree and so does Richard who specifies that "the Gypsy is good for trade wind ocean voyaging but not for going around Cape Horn" (so Carllie constantly reminds me.) What you have to remember is that most cruising boats are "manned" by a husband and wife team. Half the time under watch the boat will be operated by the smallest crew member which usually is the wife. On our boat Carllie can only operate the entire boat without my help. There are two easy to use 2-speed Andersen self-tailers. She can even haul up our main 22 lb Delta anchor by hand (even when Garett, The Windlass is too tired). Last summer, we met some people who had chartered a Lagoon 42 up in Desolation Sound. They invited us aboard their boat for a little tour. It was beautiful, enormous, and very very comfortable; but, and that is a big "but", there is no way that boat could be handled by my wife, Carllie, on her own, and it may even be difficult for me. If the wife/partner/mate cannot handle the boat alone she is forced to wake up her husband on his off-watch. All this can be quite exhausting on a passage. What happens if the husband gets hurt or they get into heavy weather?
Thus type of construction uses a flat mold which is quickly put together in about a day. You then lay up the fiberglass foam hull panels, 4 sides and 2 bottoms. The panels are then laid over the bulkheads. You might think that this might make the boat look boxy or home made but again Multihulls Magazine used a picture of Light Wave for its September 2002 cover so it can't be that bad. Using this method, we made our two hulls in about 6 weeks. As well, the outside of the hulls come out almost perfectly fair, which saved us several hundred hours of back-breaking fairing and sanding. If we had the choice we would have built the 34-foot Romany (if the design had been available back in 1997 ....) with its longer hulls with their load capacity. Load capacity is the only thing we have to watch for on the Gypsy 28. He also has the 32 foot Eclipse as well as, the 38-foot Transat. Richard's personal support during the building process was excellent in the many overseas telephone calls I placed to him. The only negative comment I would have would be relative to the level of detail on his plans. All the key items are there to build the basic structure but there are gaps relative to executing some of the interior and finishing details. This wasn't really a problem as it allowed some creativity and some improved ideas ( i.e. sliding hatches into the hulls, cockpit seat backs, higher cuddy bridgedeck floor, etc.) . Even with this small drawback, we would highly Richard's designs as they are specifically made for the home builder. Our top choice in terms of design is the Romany 34. I would estimate the construction time as 3,500 to 4,000 hours.
Jeff Schionning
One of his real innovations is the Wilderness series which goes from 9 meter up to 17 meter. These boat are built from prefab epoxy duracor/ balsa cored panels. These panels are made under very controlled conditions. Using CAD technology and cutting the programs, the pieces are cut by computer controlled milling machines and then glued and joined by the builder. This is one step ahead of the flat panel method that Richard Woods uses because these prfab panels are made out of epoxy and the resin to glass resin is very controlled which leads to very light and strong panels and consequently as very light, strong, and epoxy only boat. They sell the panels pre marked and ready to cut and join. Based on the launching notices they publish on their web site, there are lot of people completing their projects through Jeff. Another of one of his innovations is to use outboard motors in vertical wells at the end of each hull. You get the weight advantage of the new breed of 4 stroke Hondas and Yamahas as well as quicker installation, easier maintenance, lower weight. He uses the outboard option on even his bigger boats of 15 meter. We seriously looked at the Wilderness 1100 (11 meter) as our next boat about 2 years ago. It may still be our next boat but we will wait until we get back from our 18 month cruise in our current boat starting in July 2006. I would estimate the build time as around 4,000 hours because of the time saving panel construction method. So our top recommendation here is the Wilderness 1100. Link to Jeff Schionning Designs Chris White
Chris has built many of his own designs. His own boat (as of a couple of years ago) was a 55 foot trimaran of his design called Juniper that he built himself. He has also several smaller trimaran designs for the racer /cruiser. In the catamaran area, his trademark boat is the Atlantic 42. As mentioned on our "Building a Cat" page, this was one of our top three choices. In the end it seemed that it was to big for us and possible cost too much
We recently had an Atlantic 42 in our marina that was for sale. We got to spend some time on it and the layout really works. The steering view from the protected pilothouse is fantastic. It is nice and warm and out of the weather. When you do have to do some sail handling, you open the front door and go to the central cockpit where all the sail handling is located. You are completely protected in this sunken cockpit and you are a good 8 feet from the edge of the boat. |
Richard Woods
is based in the UK and is a well established catamaran designer. One thing that
separates Richard from some of the other designers is that he has built many
of his boats. I believe he is built over a dozen. His latest his the Eclipse
32 pictured on the right. That's a lot of boat building. I think this coupled
with his extensive sailing experience is why his boats are so practical. These
are boats he wants to sail. As you know from reading other parts of our website,
in 1997 we decided on Richard's 28.5 foot Gypsy design. He had just built his
own. He said, "this design incorporates all that we have learnt about cruising,
living on board, and sailing boats in over 60,000 miles of sailing." 
Because
Richard builds his own boats, he, like you, wants to build the boat as fast
as possible. The Gypsy and the 34-foot Romany (same bridge deck as Gypsy but
longer hulls) use flat panel construction.
Jeff
Shionning is a catamaran designer from Australia, and though some of his designs
are built by commercial builders, most are built by people just like you with
a dream.
Chris
White's book, The Cruising Multihull is the book that got me going on multihulls
about 10 years ago.
It's
main innovation is the cockpit which is in front of the pilothouse.
This design feature has been copied / incorporated into a few other mega catamaran
such as the Gunboat 62 and the big Gold Coast catamaran.Back in the pilothouse, the aft settee is at the rear of the boat where there is the absolute least amount of motion. It is a great boat, but a big boat. It seems huge compared to our 28.5 Light Wave.
Another plus of the Atlantic 42 is that the engines are in separate compartments accessible only from the outside aft decks. Many designers when they put diesels in catamaran tend to "hide" them under the aft berths. Inevitable the smell, heat, noise, and maintenance work leaks into the aft cabin making it unpleasant. In the Atlantic 42 there is a full length sound isolated bulkhead that completely separates the engine room form the rest of the boat.
Chris specs the hull's to be built in strip cedar, and based on the fairing involved I would estimate the time to build as 6,000 to 7,000 hours. He has larger 46 and 48 foot versions but these would be truly big projects. Since these boats have been built by a few commercial builders so they do come up on the used market frequently.
So my recommendation here is the Atlantic 42 but it is a big project.
James Wharram
There are more Wharram catamarans out sailing than any other designer. James
Wharram pioneered designing catamarans for the homebuilder. All of his designs
show definite Polynesian roots in their canoe stern and V-shaped hulls. Many
of his first generation models: Iriki, Narai, Tangaroa, and Tehini where designed
for wood construction before epoxy became available. After 30 years many of
these boats, if not very maintained, can appear quite run down.
Wharrams's latest design - Pahi and Tiki - are much more modern, and were designed to use current epoxy methods. These designs also incorporate a small bridge deck cabin as in our Woods Gypsy, but it is smaller without any standing headroom.
The boat picture above is the Tiki 46 and it is our top recommendation. Though it is longer than the other designs from the other designers I've reviewed, this is because of the canoe shape of the hulls, so in fact, this boat is comparable to 35 foot designs. I would estimate the time to build one at 4,000 to 5,000 hours.
In Conclusion
These are the top 4. I will be adding others over the next few months so please check back soon.
